Singer's Obligation

‘’Singer’s view of our obligation to help relieve the suffering of people in distant nations.’’

In this paper, I’m going to argue that Singer’s view of our obligation to help relieve the suffering of people in distant nations are right because, if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. The fundamental defect of Singer's argument is that, given our experience of human nature, he sets the moral bar at an impossibly high level. Very few of us readily would or could live up to the standard he asks of us. If society attempted to set its moral standards at Singer's level, we can predict one of three consequences. If his standard…show more content…
From this we owe no special duties to our fellow citizens over those on the other side of the world. I believe that one defense of special obligations to our fellow citizens is a practical one regarding efficiency which rejects the concept of impartiality, arguing instead that we have special duties to those people with whom we have some special relation, such as family. It is in effect the argument that “charity begins at home”. This view poses a challenge to the Singer Principal as to give aid abroad to those most needy will ignore the plight of some of our fellow citizens, thus sacrificing something morally important. If justice is conceived of as being about what individuals would choose were they unaware of who they are (Singer) then people would surely chose an impartial universalist approach to redistributive justice as advocated by Singer if they did not know whether they were a citizen of the USA or Europe. Singer believes that governments give priority to their citizens over the far more urgent and desperate needs of those further away. I believe Singer is right about this because, in most cases the governments don’t give much thought about helping kids with disabilities as much as they do to war or raising tuitions rates like the U.K just…show more content…
The central flaw is that Singer uses a bad analogy of how the global economy actually is, it assumes that the child has somehow appeared there of his own devices and that a simple act will save him. Many of Singer’s key principals, such as the importance of impartiality and the irrelevance of distance are very strong and I find it hard to disagree with them. Whilst I do not agree that to adopt Singer’s solution will cause actual harm to me it is not convincing as the most effective way to solve the problems of poverty. To follow Singer’s principal will amount to everyone else jumping in the water and drowning to some small degree. I believe that while Singer develops his argument by claiming that while people in rich states can survive without luxuries; those in poorer ones where most are manufactured could not survive, as their economic base would fall apart. With some adjustment of his analogy to make it a more accurate representation of the global economy, Singer would find his argument overcoming its central inherent weakness. In my own opinion I believe, Singer’s view of our obligation to help relieve the suffering of people in distant nations are mostly right because, if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do