What Should A Billionaire Give Peter Singer Summary

Peter Singer’s article “What Should a Billionaire Give- and What Should You?” focuses on how the wealthy could do more to relieve global poverty. Singer uses obvious examples of pathos by showing the example walking by a shallow pond and observing a small child drowning. Singer explains that everyone would save the child at minimal inconvenience, he also says ruining a pair of shoes at the expense of the child is not acceptable for a child to drown. This metaphor shows Singers heavy use of pathos within the article. Singer also exposes the nature of human nature when he our inclination to collect all the things we want with ignoring global poverty and us being responsible for the deaths of the children. Singer argues that wealthy people should

have an obligation to give to the poor no matter the cost. Singer continues explaining how the world’s poorest people are malnourished and have a lack access to safe drinking water, UNICEF reported that more than 10 million children die every because of poverty. (Singer, 2006) Diseases that only affected the very poor were not cured by pharmaceutical companies because the poor could not afford to buy their medicine products (Singer, 2006).
Billionaires Bill Gates and Warren Buffet have donated extraordinary amounts of money to charities to assist the fight the fight against global poverty. Singer then concludes with how easy it would be for the wealthy people in the world to eradicate global poverty and how no one should be living in those degrading conditions. (Singer, 2006) Wealthy people are not obligated to compensate the poor because they worked immensely hard for their wealth. People should be allowed to spend their money however they want.
Singer begins the article with a dauntless question, “what is the value of a human life? “Singer continues saying that the value of the human life would be in the millions. According to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget placed the value of a human life in the of $7 million to $9 million. (Partnoy, 2012) Ethos emphasizes the credibility of the author, Peter Singer is an Australian ethical philosopher, writer, and activist and currently a professor at Princeton University. He is best known for his work in bioethics which is the ethics of medical and biological research. Peter Singer accolades make him an outstanding source for this topic because he is an ethical philosopher. Singer also used plenty of ethos by citing many professors from highly accredited universities and statistics to support his arguments. Singer explains how Microsoft billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates has donated a vast amount of money to help people who are penurious.
Gates gave a speech to the World Health Assembly, Gates announces that a “child’s death in the developing world is just as catastrophic as the death of a child in the developed world.

(Singer, 2006) Gates believes that equal value of all human life is particularly prominent. Singer also gives credit to billionaire investor Warren Buffett because he showed to be a compassionate person when he contributed $31 billion to Bill Gates foundation, and another $6 billion to other charitable foundations. Buffett donations went to reduce poverty, disease, and premature death. In July, 2015 Warren Buffett donated a personal philanthropy record of $2.8 billion to five foundation as a part of his annual pledge. (Chew, 2015) Gates and Buffett should be honored for their generosity for giving billions to the developing world to fight global

poverty.
Singer explains when wealthy people give away money, they do it to ease their consciences or to generate favorable publicity. For example, Bill Gates became a philanthropist after Microsoft was linked to the antitrust problems in the United States and the European Union. In 2001 Microsoft had spent over 20 years fighting antitrust battle with the United States government. Around the same time Gates and his wife Melinda started their own foundation, (Chan, 2011) according to Singer Gates consciously or was just attempting to improve his image. I believe most wealthy give away their money to improve their image, I also believe the wealthy are aware that their actions affect poor, however they do not mind the poor living in poverty this can usually be attributed to the just-world hypothesis which states that the results of people live are reflections on what they deserve. Thomas Pogge, a philosopher a Columbia University, has argued some of our affluence comes from the poor.
Many corporations make deals for resources and materials with countries who might have governments who have been previously overthrown.

These governments usually neglect to treat the poorest and continuously oppress them yet these corporations and governments still make deals and sales with these corrupt governments. (Singer, 2006) For Instance corporations run their operations in developing countries. Thomas Hobbes, a 17th century English philosopher, argued that all people act in their own interests, however he would give alms to the poor because providing people with some relief from misery would give Hobbes comfort. (Singer,2006) I would personally give alms to the poor because no human being should live on street it is truly sorrowful and

despairing.
Singer’s article was clearly well put together and had a lot of magnificent points. Singer’s discussion with the cab driver was an interesting story to me because I agree completely with the cab driver. If a person legally obtains their wealth they should not enforced to give away their money that they tremendously worked hard for. It is not the governments job to take people’s wealth redistribute the money in that way. Singer also uses plenty of logos with logically sound arguments that support his reasoning and viewpoints.
On the United nations summit in 2000 a few goals were listed o help those in poverty around the world some of those goals included Reducing by half the proportion of the world’s people in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than the purchasing-power equivalent of one U.S. dollar per day). Reducing by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger. Ensuring that children everywhere are able to take a full course of primary schooling. Ending sex disparity in education. Reducing by two-thirds the mortality rate among children under 5. Reducing by three-quarters the rate of maternal mortality. Halting and beginning to reverse the spread of H.I.V./AIDS and halting and beginning to reduce the incidence of malaria and other major diseases. Reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water (Singer,2006). These goals were expected to cost about 121 billion annually for 2006 and were expected to rise each year and to around 189 billion in 2015.
Singer proposes multiple solutions to the problems including many progressive tax reforms which pull a little more from the highest earners and slightly less to those people who are a little less of to help those in need around the international community. His plan would put the top .5 percent, the top 1 percent and the top 10 percent in different tax brackets which would allow maximum benefit to those in need. (Singer,2006) I disagree with Singer solutions because the wealthy should not compensate poor because they are underprivileged.
Singer ends the article by stating that the top ten percent of the owners of wealth in the world can alone eliminate most of the poverty and strife faced in the world today. He states that “If we fail to achieve them — as on present indications we well might — we have no excuses. The target we should be setting for ourselves is not halving the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, and without enough to eat, but ensuring that no one, or virtually no one, needs to live in such degrading conditions. That is a worthy goal, and it is well within our reach.” (Singer,2006) Although I agree with Singer’s quote, however I also believe that those who want to give should be allowed to and those that refuse to give should be allowed to as well.