Critical Analysis of Peter Singers Famine Affluence and Morality Essay Example for Free

Critical Analysis of Peter singers Famine Affluence and Morality EssayIn his denomination Famine, Affluence and Morality Peter Singer gives a seemingly devastating critique of our ordinary ways of considering about famine relief, charity, and morality in general. In spite of that really few people have accepted, or at any rate acted on, the conclusions he reaches. In light of these facts unmatched business leader say of Singers arguments, as Hume said of Berkeleys arguments for immaterialism, that they admit of no answer and produce no conviction.1 While I do think that Singers considerations show that people should do considerably much than most people actually do, they do not establish his conclusions in their blanket(a) strength or generality. So his arguments admit of a partial answer, and once properly qualified may produce some conviction. In Famine. Affluence, and Morality, Peter Singer stresses the possible revisionary implications of accepting utilitarianism as a guide to conduct. He does not actually espouse utilitarianism in this essay, rather a cousin of utilitarianism. He observes, in the world today, there are many people suffering a lot, leading miserable lives, on the margin, pr oneness to calamity whenever natural disasters or wars or other cataclysmic events strike. Many millions of people live on an income equivalent to one dollar a day or less. What, if anything, does morality say one should do about this?Singer proposes two principlesa stronger one he favors, a weaker one he offers as a fallback. The Strong Singer pattern 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 Weak Singer Principle If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without sacrificing anything morally signifi hobot, we ought, morally, to do it. Consider the Strong Singer Principle. He explains that by without sacrificin g anything of comparable moral importance I mean without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something that is wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can prevent. From the first principle it follows that whether one should help those who are suffering or dying doesnt depend on how close one is to them, unless that makes helping them more difficult, because their distance from one does zipper to lessen their suffering. From both principlestogether, it follows that ones obligation to help those who are suffering or dying doesnt go away if other people who are also in a position to help them arent doing anything, because the presence of other people who do nothing is, in moral terms, no different from the absence of people who do something. Singer comments on this argument by adding that he could get by with a weaker version of the second principle, which would have something of moral significanc e in place of something of roughly equal moral importance (506). He also gives a sibyllic example of the second principle in action If one is in a position to save a child drowning in a pond, one should rescue the child even though that means dirtying ones clothes, because that is not a morally significant cost and the childs death would be an extremely morally bad state of affairs (506).