Disparities Between The Rich And Poor

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Singer starts out this chapter on the rich and poor in a very strategic way. With laying out statistics like “-think of it as a football stadium full of children-dying unnecessarily ever day” (Singer, 192) it is hard not to be overcome with guilt that these innocent children are dying and you are sitting comfortably watching Netflix waiting for your Chinese takeout to arrive. The topic of the disparities between the rich and poor is such a hot-button issue right now and in my personal opinion I think it always will. No matter how much foreign aid is giving or how much money and time people personally donate, in my opinion poverty will always be around. This isn’t to say that we can’t make it better, but it will take many generations before …show more content…

Singer uses the example of a traveling salesman selling tainted food that would cause a higher rate of contracting cancer upon those who ate it as a way to show that even though the salesman did not know who exactly would die (i.e. there is not an identifiable victim) it would still be considered murder. While this logic makes sense, it is hard for at least me personally to grasp this concept because in my mind killing involves a sort of anger and malice where as letting someone die because you did not donate money to help them does not necessarily come from a place of malice but instead selfishness. Another difference Singer brings up between letting someone die and killing someone is that it is odd to assume that we are only responsible for our actions and not our omissions. Singer brings up the consequentialist’s view point, which in my opinion seems slightly harsh in that even an act like buying myself takeout for myself on the weekend has severe ramifications. With a consequentialist’s attitude I am responsible for the death of the person that could have used the money I used on something I did not really need to live another week. I personally feel like while this technically makes sense it is not realistic. I do not personally believe that I have someone’s blood on my hands because I …show more content…

Singer touches on the fact that those who save all those that they can are usually revered as heroes and saints. While this is a great ideology to work towards, in practice it would be hard for us to give till we are living with the bare essentials. I do not think it is an unattainable goal to give as much as you can to those in need, there are many people who have and are able to live satisfying lives, but for the general population it will take a long time for us to reach that. Singer brings up some great points in that as humans we have an obligation to help those in need, and we do, but it is hard to know where to draw the line. In class we discussed Singer’s example of seeing a drowning child on his way to give a lecture and whether or not he had an obligation to help. I think almost anyone would say that we have an obligation to help someone in immediate danger. But, like what we talked about in class; what if there was an infinite amount of children in the fountain, would Singer be obligated to help them all even if helping all of them wore in out the point that he himself would drowned. I think this is an important concept in that while we are obligated to help those that we can, if it gets to the point we can no longer help

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