Singer For Famine Relief

Transcription

1 Singer For Famine Relief Every day, more than 21 THOUSAND children die of easily preventable causes: They die by starving to death, or dying of thirst, or from starvation-related illnesses all of which are easily treatable. That s 875 per day, or 1 death every 4 seconds. Philosopher Peter Singer points out that the governments of first world countries spend BILLIONS of dollars each year on non-necessities, but spend very little on alleviating the world s poverty. Similarly, individual PEOPLE spend thousands of dollars each year on luxuries but fail to contribute to feeding the poor. We buy ipads, and ipods, and giant flat-screen tv s, and expensive cars, expensive clothing, expensive meals all while children in the third world starve to death. In this lecture, we will ask this question: Is it morally permissible to ignore famine? Argument #1: Singer presents the following argument in favor of famine relief: 1. If we can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we ought to do so. 2. Death caused by famine is something bad that happens that we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance (namely, by donating to famine relief). 3. Therefore, we ought to donate to famine relief. Justification: Premise two seems uncontroversial enough. Singer suggests that for merely $200, one can bring a child that would have died of starvation, dehydration, or related illness from birth to the age of 5. Furthermore, since the first 5 years are the period with the highest death rate, once the child reaches the age of 5, he or she will 1

2 have a 90% chance of reaching adulthood without further assistance. In other words, for $200, one can save the life of a child who would have died and give that child a 90% chance of living to adulthood. Objection to P1: Premise one may not be as obvious. Some have suggested that the principle appealed to in premise 1 is actually false. For instance, consider the fact that I can save someone s life by donating one of my kidneys to them. This is an instance of preventing something very bad without sacrificing something of comparable importance. So, am I morally obligated to donate one of my kidneys? Intuitively, I am NOT obligated to do this. [What do you think? Is the principle that Singer appeals to (or some modification of it) plausible? Singer himself even suggests a more moderate principle.] Argument #2: In order to support premise 1, Singer offers the following case: Shallow Pond: You are walking to work. Every day, you pass a shallow pond, deep enough so that a child could not touch the bottom. Today, there is a child drowning in that pond. You look around. No one else is around. You can easily see that, if you do not jump in to save him, the child will die. Unfortunately, you are wearing a brand new $200 pair of pants, and you do not have time to take them off before jumping in to the muddy pond, which will ruin the pants. So, not wanting to ruin your pants, you continue on to work. You hear the child gurgling behind you as he finally sinks beneath the surface and dies. Now ask: Is failing to save the drowning child morally wrong? Most would agree that you are a moral monster for letting the child drown in this case. Note, however, what this means: Most think that you ought to sacrifice your $200 clothing in order to save the child. This seems to support the principle stated in premise one, that if we can prevent something very bad from happening without sacrificing something of comparable moral significance, then we ought to do so. Since a pair of pants is not of comparable importance to the life of a child, you ought to sacrifice them in order to prevent the death of the child. However, this reasoning leads us to conclude that, since we can all prevent something very bad from happening (the death of a starving child) without significant sacrifice (about $200 of donations), we ought to do so. But, note that a SECOND argument can be derived using the Shallow Pond case. Whereas the first argument appealed to a plausible principle about harm, the second 2

3 argument draws an analogy between an action that is uncontroversially wrong (not saving the drowning child) and an action whose moral status is more controversial (failing to donate to famine relief): 1. Not saving the child in the Shallow Pond case is seriously morally wrong. 2. But, ignoring children who are dying due to starvation is morally analogous to not saving the drowning child. 3. Therefore, ignoring children who are dying due to starvation is also seriously morally wrong. If failing to save the drowning child and failing to save the starving child are really morally analogous, then it seems that we must draw the same moral conclusion about these two actions. Since not saving the drowning child is obviously wrong, it seems that not donating to famine relief is wrong as well. Therefore, we ought to donate to famine relief. Objections: If we think it is ok to not donate to famine relief, but not ok to save the child in the Shallow Pond case, we will need to find some morally relevant difference between these two cases. Let s look at some potential differences that are raised as objections to Singer s arguments. 1. Proximity: You are in close proximity to the child in Shallow Pond, but the people that are starving and diseased are really far away. Reply: How does the distance of someone justify disregarding the fact that you could save their life? Imagine that you happen upon a feed from a security camera on the other side of the world, and see a child drowning on your monitor. Imagine further that you can press a button that will save him. It seems that you would STILL be a moral monster for not pushing the button. Proximity is not morally relevant. 2. Certainty: In Shallow Pond, you are certain that you can save the child, but we are uncertain if our money will ever get to the people in need if we send it to an organization. Reply: The estimate that Singer gives ($200) is very conservative, and actually factors in the fact that a portion of your money is used by the charity organizations themselves, or the possibility that the food or vaccines are sometimes stolen by criminals, etc. In any case, you can do the research and find out which organizations ARE known for being successful and efficient. Start here: or 3

4 Furthermore, Singer SUGGESTS two reliable charities: Oxfam and Unicef. In class, we donated to another reliable charity: CARE. Finally, imagine that you think there is only a 50% chance that jumping in to save the child will succeed. You would still be a moral monster if you decided not to jump in and at least TRY to save the child. Uncertainty is not morally relevant. 3. Group Responsibility: In Shallow Pond, you are the ONLY one that can save the child, but there are LOTS of other people besides me that can help the starving children. Reply: The fact that other people are doing bad things does not make it ok for US to do bad things. Imagine that, as you pass the pond, there are 100 other people picnicking and hanging out around the pond. You see the child drowning, but no one is doing anything about it. No one jumps in to save him. Would this fact make it ok for you to ALSO do nothing? No. It seems that those people are all moral monsters, and that you would be just as bad as them for not jumping in to save the child. The presence of others is not morally relevant. 4. The Size of the Problem: In Shallow Pond, if you save the child, the WHOLE problem will be solved. But, if I save one starving child today, there are still 24,999 other children who will die of starvation on this day. Reply: The fact that no single person can solve the entire problem of famine is morally irrelevant. We are still morally obligated to do whatever we can. For instance, imagine that as you passed by the Shallow Pond, there were one THOUSAND drowning children. You then think to yourself, If I jump in and save one, there will still be 999 other children drowning. MAYBE I ll have enough time to save 2 or even 3 children. But, the rest of the children will still die. Would this make it morally permissible to ignore the entire situation and continue on your way without doing ANYTHING? Probably not. Our ethical intuition here is most likely such that we are morally obligated to jump into the pond and save as many children as we can, even though we know that there is no way for us (a single person) to save ALL of them. 5. How much to give? In the Shallow Pond case, it seems like you should sacrifice a $200 pair of pants to save the child because its value is not comparable to the value of a human life. It is a luxury item. In other words, since luxury items are not of comparable moral importance to death, so we ought to sacrifice the luxuries in order to save lives. But, note: The average family in the U.S. spends ONE THIRD of its income on luxury items. This extra third of income would save many lives if it were donated, and it is not 4

5 of comparable moral significance to those lives. Therefore, the average U.S. family should be donating one third of its income to famine relief. But, perhaps we ought to give a lot MORE than a third of our income. If we did without luxury items, we would still be very well off. Only once we were reduced to the BARE NECESSITIES to live would giving any more be sacrificing something of comparable importance. For instance, in the last objection above, if we save ONE starving child, there are always still MORE starving children to be saved. In that case, once we save ONE child, we should then save ANOTHER. And ANOTHER. So, perhaps we ought to save AS MANY CHILDREN AS POSSIBLE; i.e., perhaps we ought to donate until we are reduced to the bare essentials. But, this seems counter-intuitive. Reply: There are couple of objections to this conclusion: First, this is not the case. If you reduce yourself to poverty, you will lose your job and no longer generate income. Singer says that you should do what you can to KEEP your good job, so that you can continue to do good by donating money. So, he does not think we are required to become as poor as the impoverished. Second, this objection seems to indicate that Singer must be wrong because his view makes morality TOO DEMANDING. However, where do we get this notion that morality should not be very demanding? Perhaps, it is very DIFFICULT to always do the morally right thing. That is, perhaps morality IS incredibly demanding. [Third, we could just revert to Singer s more moderate principle] 5