Peter Singer's Essay 'Affluence, And Morality'

In the paper “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”  Peter Singer defends the idea that is our moral duty to help others in need. Since there are other people in the world that are suffering and we our in a position to give, we are obligated to help create change in the world . In this paper I will explain Peter Singer’s view about how it is our moral duty to help those who are suffering in the world. Then I will present an implication of Peter Singer claim that implies how we are obligated to give upon to others that are suffering. I will then explain an argurment to provide a reason of why someone should support Peter Singer principle. Carried to a logical conclusion, Peter Singer aruement that his principle is clearly obligatory than superagory. I will consider the two actions that Peter Singer gives to distinguish duty versues chariy and argue that his principle should e consider a superagoty action. Since his

implications for his principle is ludacris, Peter Singer’s view must be wrong.
People suffering and death from the lack of food, shelter, and medical care is universally acknowledged to be bad. In order to decide whether giving to others should be our moral duty, it would be very helpful to know what makes it our obligation to those who are suffering our moral duty, instead of considering it charity. If we can settle on why giving to others is our moral duty and drastically change our way of thinking, then we can see how helping those who are suffering should not be consider charity. Singer proposes two principles, a stronger one “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” (Singer 229) being his main argument. Singer explains stronger principle that people from affluent nations are morally obligated to contribute financially if it does not cause them to encounter a similar situation, (“lack of food, shelter, and medical care”), as the one being salvaged. His weaker principle then states, “If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it”(Singer 229). Singer explains from his weaker principle that if an individual can provide money to famine relief without sacrificing anything morally significant, then we are morally obligated to. Singer mainly focuses on the stronger principle to argue that we are morally obligated to help those who are suffering because of the level of marginal utility. Before describing his argument, I will say a bit why Singer think his principle is the correct account of the wrongness of letting others suffer from the lack of food, shelter, and medical care.
Peter Singer favors his principle on the grounds that it makes the most sense of why it is morally our duty to help those who are suffering . In the article he mentions saving a child that drowning, as an argument to help explains his case. For example, imagine you are walking home from work , dressed in your expensive name brand clothing that cost you on aveage seven hundred dollars.As you are walking home you notice that a child is drowning in a lake. Singer principle states that is in our power to to prevent something from bad happening without sacrificing anything comparable. Hence, since it is in your power to prevent a bad thing from happening. You must risk getting your brand new seven hundred dollar clothing wet, because risking to get clothes is nothing comparable to the value of the child’s life. It was your moral duty to save the child’s life , because you sacrificed nothing comparable to the child’s life.
Furthermore, Singer argue that his principle does an good job of explaining why it is our duty to help those are suffering, without sacrificing anything comparable. For example, imagine that you are walking home from work on a hot day. As you are walking you see a child is drowning in a lake, but he is too far out in the water to save him without causing physical harm to yourself. You notice a man selling floaties for three hundred dollars, but you only have ten dollars. So you steal the floaty to save the child’s life. Stealing is considered an immoral and terrible action. Even though you stole a floaty from the man, and you deprived him out of a profit of three hundred dollars; overall you did not risk anything sacrificing anything comparable . The three hundred dollar profit the man lost out on because you stole a floaty is nothing comparable to savings a child’s life. Singer’s principle can provide this explanation of an example is mark in its favor.
Singer’s principle view clearly implies that it is our duty to prevent something from bad happening. Therefore we must prevent others from suffering from a lack of food shelter, and medical care. The only way to prevent others from suffering form the lack of food , shelter, and medical care is to give the maximum amounts . We should stop using spending money on fancy clothing, fine dining, and other recreational activities, for these are things that are not necessities in life. Therefore we ought to give the maximum amount , or contribute more than what we currently do, to help those who are suffering.
One argument against Singer’s view is that it is conflicting with our prevailing standards of charity and duty.

We consider charity as voluntary giving help, normally in the form of money, in those of need. Duty is being obligated to something that is morally right. In fact Singer suggest that we drastically change our way of thinking. He believes that if people are suffering from lack of food, shelter, and medical care we are morally obligated to create change. We are obligated to give to those in need until their amounts of suffering has decreased.

It is widely believed that charity is voluntary, a supererogatory action, while a duty is an obligatory action. Singer shares this view, but there are reason to think that he should not. Singer’s principle seems to imply that it should not be considered a voluntary action to create change and help those in need. And, not only does it only suggest that we should change the way we think, but it indicates that we should do everything that we can to minimize the suffering because it is our moral

obligation.
Charities original and primary purpose is to help those in need. Charitable organization normally a non-profitable organization , that has philanthropic goals towards the social well being of others. Even though charities still creates a change to others well being . It is consequently a voluntary action , people are not morally obligated to help others and removing suffering from those who have a lack of food, shelter, and medical care. So since it is a voluntary action people have the right to pick and choose when they want to create change, based on how they feel. Therefore this is why it should be an obligatory action to create change because it will be a requirement.
In the article Singer mentions that his argument does not have any room for supererogation. He defines "supererogatory  as "an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do.  He goes on to say that giving the money away would not be supererogatory because we ought to do it, and it would be wrong not to do so. In response to famine, it would be supererogatory to give money away when one has just enough to pay for rent. Such an act is good to do, but would not be wrong not to do since one must have somewhere to live. Also, doing a good act that would in no way help end starvation (such as helping out at an animal shelter) is supererogatory in response to famine.