Peter Singer's argument for famine relief

The ability to use the internet for information, having access to a variety of resources at our convenience makes us very fortunate within today’s standards. Although large land masses separate the United States from other countries like Africa, we may not witness the famine, suffering, it is generally understood that certain areas of the world are less fortunate, the lives of those within those areas are heavily affected by their wealth, conditions. Being aware of the atrocities occurring within our own planet due to a lack of basic human needs creates a feeling of empathy, however often times this feeling is soon overcome by a realization of our inability to make an impact, difference in an issue much greater than we are able to confront by ourselves.

Although the ability for one or a small number of the population to resolve this issue around the world is very limited to certain wealthy figures around the world, the mindset within all the hopeless individuals unwilling to make a small difference must change from feeling as if the sum of the problem must be resolved to a feeling of responsibility to make a difference regardless of the impact it has. Peter Singer argues that we are morally obligated to help others suffering from a lack of food, shelter, or medical care, as we are affluent in terms within the various scenarios around the world, would not be sacrificing anything of moral significance within the moderate version, anything causing something worse to occur within the strong version.

This argument proposes an obligation to help others in need when you realize they are suffering, that we only sacrifice money, a construct by which we continuously grow attached to, often times find ourselves spending on unnecessary items to satisfy our cravings, excessive desires, when instead through abandoning cravings, desires, similar to the Buddhist teaching of non attachment, we can focus ourselves on helping others and amplifying the impact that we have on the world by giving what we do not necessarily need to survive, consider excess, to others that may actually receive a large benefit. Singer’s argument like other arguments, faces objections, debates, can be correlated directly to certain aspects of Buddhist teachings including Dana, a Pali word referring to generosity, the act of giving.

Singer’s argument is often supported by the example of witnessing someone drowning. He states that if we see someone in need of help in order to survive in front of us, in this case, drowning, it is an obvious choice that we would make in order to jump in the water and save the person. Although we sacrifice something like our clothing or the dryness of our outfit, we as moral humans realize that those sacrifices are something so small in value in comparison to the life of a human being. He argues that this analogy is directly applicable to famine relief, the spending of money for unnecessary valuables or commodities rather than contributing it to helping others around the world is like walking past the person drowning, in need of assistance, and deciding not to help due to fear of ruining our clothes, which has a drastically smaller importance than the lives of others. This argument is able to respond to objections of moral significance in relation to distance.

The objection could state that the suffering of others around the world are distant and that we are not to be held accountable for something that we are not close in proximity to, did not create. The reply is simple, the drowning person scenario clearly demonstrates how this objection would be treated. Although we do not locally experience or impact the suffering, we as humans have a moral obligation to help within our abilities, our ability to alleviate the suffering makes us responsible, ignoring the issue at hand and justifying ourselves to not help solve a problem “we did not cause” is to not help the drowning person although we had the capabilities. Another objection to this argument can imply that family and social relationships create obligations to those involved, that we should focus on these issues close in proximity prior to the larger issues at hand, care for the emotions, feelings of those that surround us.

This objection incorporates the value of family, relationships, the obligations we have to those around us, however does not invalidate Singer’s famine relief argument, within the moderate version, we are only obligated to make sacrifices that are not morally significant. Although family, relationships have a huge impact on the lives of humans, within the strong version of the argument, providing certain unnecessary aspects to our families or people we care about in order to make them happy or content with their perspective of the relationship does not come close to the moral value of saving a life, allowing others to live a life in which they are able to create differences, choices, relationships of their own.

Through changing your mindset on charity from making unnoticed donations to something that you are morally obligated to do, should do to help save the lives of others, we can begin to perceive charity as an act of saving lives through sacrificing certain unnecessary aspects of our affluent lives that we have grown attached to, feel is essential to our livelihood. Another objection to Singer’s argument for famine relief is the implication that the resolution of issues within the present can have unintended outcomes in the future that could actually result in a larger problem. In the case of resolving famine, we could potentially see overpopulation in the future resulting in many deaths regardless of the resolution. This objection may hold true for certain issues, however when regarding famine, overpopulation, there are various factors that can support resolving famine.

Women are prone to having more babies in times of difficulty surviving, famine due to the notion that they will not all survive, a large portion of the charity within the future could be dedicated to supporting education, access to contraceptives. Another objection to Singer’s argument states that as large governing bodies with a large amount of wealth, governments of countries should assist those in need, suffering from famine rather than the individuals themselves. We are all able to contribute to a certain extent within the affluent areas we reside within, to imply that the obligation to help others in need is within the government, not the people themselves does not motivate governments to assist the people in need, is almost an excuse to reduce our responsibility to solving this issue, which we could have an impact on, using the government as a scapegoat to make ourselves feel less obligated, inclined to help. Although it would be beneficial for governments to consider mass famine relief, the actions of individuals making a difference has more influence than just blaming the government for having a lot of excess money, because we all have a lot of excess money to varying degrees, the sum of affluent individuals would be able to resolve the famine issue without the need for governmental intervention.

Singer’s argument to varying degrees, (moderate, strong versions) including the premises concluding that we should support famine relief more than we currently do succeeds in disqualifying many objections through juxtaposition of the ethical values of our sacrifices, the issues we could resolve through making sacrifices that are often times less severe, impactful within our lives in comparison to the potential to save a life, help those in need of basic human needs that those within affluent scenarios often overlook. This obligation to generosity is well indicative of the values of Buddhism and the implication to help regardless of the circumstances, sacrifices is in conjunction with Buddhist principles, teachings.

The eightfold path of Buddhism includes eight practices included in the teachings of Theravada Buddhism that lead a Buddhist to liberation from the cycle of rebirth known as samsara. The eightfold path should be considered as a set of principles that are to be practiced in conjunction with each other, rather than in any specific order, the practice of principles should reinforce eachother. The three divisions of the eightfold path include virtue, also known as sīla, wisdom, also known as paññā, and concentration, also known as samādhi.

The virtues include right speech, right action, right livelihood. These moral virtues are essential to Buddhist principles and can be applied directly to Singer’s argument for famine relief. Right speech is concerned with not lying, deceiving, belitting others with speech. Right speech can be applied in the case that through making excuses that you present to others of why you cannot help or assist those in need with knowledge of the counter arguments, you are lying to yourself in your ability to make an impact, and suggesting others do the same, presenting an argument that has been disproved to others lacking the counter argument, allowing them to continue, ignore the truth.

Right action states that we should not kill, injure others, that we should make actions without material desires. The knowledge that we are able to save the lives of others across the world or in Singer’s scenario in a body of water infront of us, makes us responsible in their suffering although we have not caused it, we are able to prevent it within our capabilities, ignoring this realization is similar to killing them in context. Our actions should also disregard material desires, which we could consider the things we could spend the money on instead of charity, due to the fact that it continues a cycle of insatiable cravings that do not help in achieving liberation from samsara or others in their path to liberation.

Right livelihood states that we should only possess what is essential to life. Right livelihood is the basis on which we are able to remove our attachment to desires. We only need essentials to survive, so the other factors that we continually indulge in only serve to motivate us to act in a certain way or to seek something. Abandoning these desires of non-essentials helps in realizing the true nature of these components within our lives, their inability to fully satisfy our accumulating desires, illusory needs. This relationship portrayed between Peter Singer’s argument for famine relief, Buddhist principles, teachings serve to authenticate the nature of the Buddhist teachings, the illusion of necessities in our excessively affluent livelihoods. The juxtaposition of Singer’s argument and Buddhist conceptions of generosity both rely heavily on the fact that the things we fear to sacrifice are negligible in value to the things we could accomplish, we ought to act morally regardless of the justifications that we may create for departing from that path.

Peter Singer’s argument for famine relief is well structured, has aspects that support each other to reach a conclusion that those within affluent settings, when compared to areas of famine, ought to help morally. The objections including our irresponsibility for the tragedies, as well as other forms of justification for not assisting are countered by the argument that by not helping while knowing that you could save lives with a money contribution is like ignoring someone drowning due to our fear of sacrificing our clothes or anything unnecessary, not essential to our survival. This argument can be closely related to Buddhism and their practices, teachings of non-attachment, proper generosity. Peter Singer’s argument as well as its counter arguments to objections can be used to justify, support Buddhist practices, bring a more argumentative case as to why we should act a certain way, what we have to sacrifice, to gain.