In Peter Singer's Famine, Affluence, And Morality?

In Peter Singer’s article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” he discusses the moral dilemmas that shouldn’t really be dilemmas. He claims that if there is a possibility that you can prevent something bad from happening, without a significant sacrifice on our part, you ought to do it. Singer brings up many good points to support his claim. In the end, there is a flaw in his reasoning. There are certain situations where morals or laws must be broken for the greater good.

When this article was written in 1971, there was a wide scale famine going on in East Bengal. Singer starts out his article by referring to the current crisis of Bengal and all of the tragedy and death that was happening, and how theoretically simple it would be for the United States and other countries to intervene and provide aid. He also brings up where priorities lay in Australia, which would be fair to say that many more countries’ priorities fall along the same line. He brings up the statistic that Australia’s aid funds are one-twelfth the amount of the brand new Sydney opera house. He uses this example to prove his point that even though there are more important things to do with a countries’ funds than opera houses.

Even though there are better things to do with their money, it would still be a sacrifice to give that money to other countries or providing good for refugees.
In some cases, this cannot be the answer. Say that there was a man walking behind a child with a gun to his head and he is about to pull the trigger. The obvious answer is to prevent a child from being murdered, because it doesn’t come at much cost to us except a guilty conscience had we not prevented the action. What you don’t know is that the child is a Hitler, or a Stalin, or a Bin Laden. This changes the circumstance because with this in your mind, you don’t know what to do because there is a point to killing this child because it will save countless lives. Therefore, you wouldn’t be sacrificing anything in allowing a man to murder this child because in your mind you have rationalized that what is happening is right, even though the immediate consequence is devastating.
Another example is vigilantism.

If you have a chance to stop a vigilante, there holds a possibility that their actions can enable a criminal to do awful things. An example is Robin Hood stealing from the rich, and giving to the poor. The only reason that King Richard wants to catch Robin Hood is that way it will stop from taking his wealth away so he can do what he will with it, and not provide aid for the people in his kingdom or others. This example can be related back to the first as the vigilante is about to kill a future mass villain, and if you stop him you enable the villain to commit many crimes. If you stop a vigilante because it is against the law to be one, and following the law is moral, you would be preventing the bad that a vigilante can do by turning him/her

in.
Something that Singer might say towards the claim that there are situations that the obvious moral option isn’t always the best way to go, that there will be very limited situations in which that you shouldn’t do what you feel morally obligated to do. This is true but it doesn’t change the fact that there are still situations that you should postpone instant moral satisfaction for the later greater satisfaction.
All in all, Singer brings up great points that are difficult to argue against. To sum up his arguments he states that if you can prevent something bad from happening, without a tax to yourself or causing something else bad to happen, you should do it. The thing is, is that there are multiple instances that there should be hesitation before you go and do what is morally thought to be right at first, but then can appear to be the wrong decision when it is all said and done.