Ought I to donate so much money to famine relief that I do not have enough left to buy birthday presents for my children? Explain what your answer implies for either Singers or ONeills approach to famine relief.

Authors Avatar

Ought I to donate so much money to famine relief that I do not have enough left to buy birthday presents for my children? Explain what your answer implies for either Singer’s or O’Neill’s approach to famine relief.

Famine is one of the major problems in the world today and is one that is discussed quite often in philosophy. In a survey taken in 2001 (Rowan Cruft Lecture Notes) 800million people out of 6133 million were said to be undernourished. Also, 1000 million people again out of 6133 million were believed to be unable to access safe drinking water and adequate shelter. 2400 million people were also lacking basic sanitation. In one year 18million people which equates to 50,000 people a day die because they live in poverty. These deaths are caused by things that we could cure here with easily through food, clean water and simple medicines. As the numbers show there is a clear problem with famine and there are many ideas of ways in which this problem should be solved. The idea I am going to focus on in order to decide whether or not I would donate so much of my money to help with famine relief that I could not buy my own children birthday presents is Peter Singer’s.

Peter Singer’s argument is that if we can avoid something happening then we should do everything possible to stop it from happening. He takes the utilitarianism way of looking at poverty i.e. people morally should always try to do the action which will bring about the best outcome possible. In his writing in “Famine, Affluence and Morality” (1972) he states; “I begin with the assumption that death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad”. Singer believes that if we are able to help people i.e. people who are feeling the effects of famine, then we should help them as long as we do not have to sacrifice something of “comparable moral importance, we ought, morally to do it” (Singer, 1972). He is basically saying that if you can help then you should as long as you do not have to give up anything that would mean that something terrible happening as a result, or failing to promote moral good. His way of thinking is why should we be allowed to live a relatively good life while there are so many people in the world suffering. Nothing we sacrifice, up to the point where our lives are no longer worth living can be of more importance than people who suffer from poverty and are dying terrible deaths that could be so easily avoided.

Join now!

One way of looking at whether I should give so much of my money to famine relief that I do not have enough money left to buy my children birthday presents, is the idea of the people who are suffering are thousands of miles away from me so have nothing to do with me. Singer uses the idea of that if the person is close to me I am more likely to help them than help someone who is thousands of miles away from me. Singer uses the example of a walking along and seeing a child who is drowning ...

This is a preview of the whole essay