Famine, Affluence and Morality

FAMINE, AFFLUENCE, AND MORALITY





Famine, Affluence, and Morality















FAMINE, AFFLUENCE, AND MORALITY

Famine, Affluence, and Morality
Peter Singer is arguably the most influential philosopher in the world today. He has more that two dozen books that have been translated in 15 languages and taught in classes throughout the world. He has played a critical role in shaping the contemporary animal rights movement, and has influenced hundreds of thousands to become vegetarians. He is the leading philosopher in the field of bioethics and the world’s front runner in proponent of utilitarianism. Singer is one of the most controversial thinkers. He has been screamed and yelled down to from Germany to Australia, the subject of many debates and protest in the United States, since his recent appointment of chair in bioethics at Princeton University for Human Values.
In the article “Famine, Affluence and Morality” Singer begin with the assumption that suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. His goal was to bring attention to the basic treatment of people and animals who are suffering as well as equals that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species.” Singer believes that the ability of animals to feel pain and pleasure puts them on a plane of moral equivalence with us. He also gives a seemingly devastating critique of our ordinary ways of thinking about famine relief, charity, and morality in general. In spite of that very few people have accepted, or at any rate acted on, the conclusions he reaches.
Singer argues that people who live in affluent countries are obligated to drastically change their ways of living and their appreciation of morality so that they will become committed to helping those in need. He begins by asking us to consider cases of famine, such as the one in Bengal in 1971, where people were suffering severely and neither governments nor
FAMINE,...