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Poverty as a social issue
Issues and challenges of poverty
Peter singer's famine affluence and morality summary
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society poverty has various definitions that lack the true picture that poverty depicts. Dictionary defines poverty as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money on material possessions.” In other words poverty is a situation where a person fail to earn a sufficient amount of income to purchase basic necessities such as food, shelter, clothes etc. In reality, poverty is much more than the capital resources. According to Laster Brown explained poverty as “the world without orders’ and further emphasized that “unfortunately it is a human condition. It is despair, grief and pain.” However, the issue of poverty and how we deal with it could differ among people. This idea is reflected in Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence and Morality” essay and the opposing essay written by John Arthur in “World hunger and moral obligation: the case against Singer.” Peter Singer raises the question of poverty and our obligations toward it in his essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”. In the essay, Singer addresses the question of what obligations we have toward those ar...
David K. Shipler in his essay At the Edge of Poverty talks about the forgotten America. He tries to make the readers feel how hard is to live at the edge of poverty in America. Shipler states “Poverty, then, does not lend itself to easy definition” (252). He lays emphasis on the fact that there is no single universal definition of poverty. In fact poverty is a widespread concept with different dimensions; every person, country or culture has its own definition for poverty and its own definition of a comfortable life.
According to Peter Singer, we as a society must adopt a more radical approach with regards to donating to charity and rejecting the common sense view. In the essay Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Singer argues that we have a strong moral obligation to give to charity, and to give more than we normally do. Critics against Singer have argued that being charitable is dependent on multiple factors and adopting a more revisionary approach to charity is more difficult than Singer suggests; we are not morally obliged to donate to charity to that extent.
Living in a third world country such as Jamaica gives you a firsthand experience on how much poverty has consumed the majority of the world. You’re driving along and you see a boy begging on the street asking a man in a mustang for some spare change. Should anyone be surprised if the man rolls up his window and ignore the poor boy? Would you have given the boy any of the spare change in the side of your car door?
Although poverty has minimized, it is still significant poverty which is characterized by a numerous amount of things. There are two types of poverty case and insular. “Case poverty is the farm family with the junk-filled yard and the dirty children playing in the bare dirt” (Galbraith 236)Case poverty is not irretraceable and usually caused if someone in the household experiences “ mental deficiency, bad health, inability to adapt to the discipline of industrial life, uncontrollable procreation, alcohol, some educational handicap unrelated to community shortcomings” (Galbraith 236).Case poverty is often blamed on the people for their shortcomings but on some levels can be to pinpoint one person's shortcomings that caused this poverty. Most modern poverty is insular and is caused by things people in this community cannot control. “The most important characteristic of insular poverty is forces, common to all members of the community, that restrain or prevent participation in economic life and increase rates of return.
In Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” Singer makes three claims about moral duty; that avoidable suffering is bad, that it is our moral obligation to help others in need, and that we should help those in suffering regardless of their distance to us or if others are in the same position as we are to help. First, I will elaborate on Singer’s arguments for each of these positions. Next, I will discuss two objections to Singer’s position, one that he debates in his writings and another that I examine on my own, and Singer’s responses to those objections. Then I will examine why Singer’s rebuttals to the objections were successful.
The Limit of our Moral Duty in regards to Famine Relief. In the article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Peter Singer argues that our conceptions of moral belief need to change. Specifically, he argues that giving famine relief is not optional but a moral duty and failing to contribute money is immoral. As Singer puts it, “The way people in affluent countries react. cannot be justified; indeed the whole way we look at moral issues-our moral conceptual scheme-needs to be altered and with it, the way of life that has come to be taken for granted in our society”(135).
This paper explores Peter Singer’s argument, in Famine, Affluence, and Morality, that we have morally required obligations to those in need. The explanation of his argument and conclusion, if accepted, would dictate changes to our lifestyle as well as our conceptions of duty and charity, and would be particularly demanding of the affluent. In response to the central case presented by Singer, John Kekes offers his version, which he labels the and points out some objections. Revisions of the principle provide some response to the objections, but raise additional problems. Yet, in the end, the revisions provide support for Singer’s basic argument that, in some way, we ought to help those in need.
In “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” Peter Singer is trying to argue that “the way people in relatively affluent countries react to a situation… cannot be justified; indeed,… our moral conceptual scheme needs to be altered and with it, the way of life that has come to be taken for granted in our society”(Singer 230). Peter Singer provides striking examples to show the reader how realistic his arguments are. In this paper, I will briefly give a summary of Peter Singer’s argument and the assumptions that follow, adding personal opinions for or against Peter’s statements. I hope that within this paper, I am able to be clearly show you my thoughts in regards to Singer.
Peter Singer's paper “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”has made a drastic impact in modern applied ethics. The simple nature of the paper makes for an easy read, yet the point clearly set out by Singer is at ends with the targeted audiences' popular beliefs. Although most will object to Singer's idea by throwing away a basic principle of most moral theories, I wish to deny Singer's solution by showing that the ability to apply Singer's conclusion is not reasonable and does not address the problem's core.
Peter Singer wrote an essay titled “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” In this essay, he discusses whether or not we are personally responsible for the suffering (starvation) of others. Singer believes that if you have the means to do so, you are morally obligated to help others in need. He says that if suffering can be prevented without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then it should be done.
Everyone knows what the word poverty means. It means poor, unable to buy the necessities to survive in today's world. We do not realize how easy it is for a person to fall into poverty: A lost job, a sudden illness, a death in the family or the endless cycle of being born into poverty and not knowing how to overcome it. There are so many children in poverty and a family's structure can effect the outcome. Most of the people who are at the poverty level need some type of help to overcome the obstacles. There are mane issues that deal with poverty and many things that can be done to stop it.
Peter Singers “The Solution to Poverty” begins with an anecdote about a man named Bob and his prized possession, a Bugatti. When Bob is forced to make the choice between the life of an unnamed child and his car, he chooses the car and the child is killed. Bob feels no remorse. At first when reading this, any ethical person would most likely be surprised and even disgusted at Bob’s selfish choice. However, Singer goes on to compare the child to the millions of impoverished children on charity, and your money. This most likely made the reader stop in their tracks. Is it really so much easier to let a child die when you know you aren’t the direct cause? Is it really so much easier to keep your extra money when children’s lives could be saved by it? Honestly, the answer is yes. However, I believe this should not be the case. If the wealthy were to donate to the poor, our world would be in a much different
Poverty is “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” (Merriam-Webster dictionary, 2015); in other words, struggling to provide a comfortable living style. It is the cause of family stress and many other problems, especially for the children. Millions of people around the world are struggling with poverty; families suffering to provide enough food seem to be growing in numbers. According to the United States Census Bureau, the poverty rate was highest in the 1960s and decreased greatly in the 1970s. However, it is now slowly starting to increase again. Recently released census data by the Bureau showed that one in five people are living in poverty (Census Bureau, 2014). Poverty is even
Has anyone ever considered thinking about what the world is really going through? How many people don’t have the necessities in order to survive? If so, what are these people going through? Poverty is the state of one who lacks a standard or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions. Sometimes events occur that changes a person’s perspective on life. Poverty is one that can have a huge effect on not only one person, but also the people around him/her. Over half of the world is going through this tragedy and we, being the ones who created it, have the responsibility to end it.
Poverty is an issue dealt with throughout the world, but we are not all aware of its conditions. Poverty is a very serious problem around the world. Poverty is defined as the equality of poorness and impoverishment -- (the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions). A question to ask ourselves is: “Should poverty be defined strictly in terms of monetary income, as opposed to some qualitative formula which takes into consideration styles of life as well as material possessions?” (Sheppard 13) Because there are so many different ways we can express the term poverty, maybe there should be a certain way we can determine poverty worldwide?