Famine, Affluence Morality
In "Famine, Affluence, and Morality",[7] one of Singer's best-known philosophical essays, he argues that the injustice of some people living in abundance while others starve is morally indefensible. Singer proposes that anyone able to help the poor should donate part of their income to aid poverty and similar efforts. Singer reasons that, when one is already living comfortably, a further purchase to increase comfort will lack the same moral importance as saving another person's life. Singer himself donates 20% of his salary to Oxfam and UNICEF. In "Rich and Poor", the version of the aforementioned article that appears in the second edition of Practical Ethics,[8] his main argument is presented as follows: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it; absolute poverty is bad; there is some poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance; therefore we ought to prevent some absolute poverty.
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Now, how does this relate to giving money overseas? My argument has two steps. The
first is to show that the Singerian position needs the "strong" version of Singer's Principle, which
involves comparisons of value. Recall that the "strong" version requires that one help if by
helping one does not sacrifice anything of comparable moral significance, while the "moderate"
version requires that one help if by helping one does not sacrifice anything morally significant.
The subtle change in wording makes for a substantial change in meaning. But the "moderate"
version is insufficient because its operative notion"morally significant"is too vague,
allowing for too broad a range of interpretation. People will have sharply different views about
what level of sacrifice begins to be "morally significant," and until one can locate a specific,
concrete criterion, one would...
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