At least 9 million people die because of hunger and malnutrition, sadly 5 million are children. In a world of plenty, a huge number go hungry. The biggest percentage of the people who go hungry live in the developing countries. Three-quarters of all the hungry people in the developing countries live in rural areas, mostly in the villages of Africa and Asia. Despite this worrying trend, food wastage in the developed countries is very high. For instance, in the United Kingdom, close 40% of food is never eaten, in U.S., 40-50% of all food ready to harvest is never eaten. The purpose of this paper is to identify the responsibility of developed nations in lessening the misery of the developed countries in light of readings of Singer, Hardin, and Murdoch and Oaten.
According to Peter Singer, decisions, and actions of human beings can reduce the suffering of other people. However, people have not made the necessary decisions. He underlines that people have not given large sums of relief funds or done anything meaningful to show their solidarity with the destitute refugees with an objective of satisfying their essential needs. He argues that even at the government level, no government has offered the kind of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive for a few days. Singer underlines that suffering, as well as death from lack of shelter, food, and medical care, are bad. If it is in the power of people to prevent something bad from happening without causing any damage, then they ought, morally, to do it. Consequently, this would promote what is good and prevent that which is bad.
Additionally, Singer underlines that it makes no moral difference whether the person that one can help is a neighbor’s child or another who is ten thousand miles away. He gives a clear example that human beings cannot be sacrificing anything significant if they continue to wear their old clothes and give money to famine relief. Because by doing so they will prevent people from starving (Singer, 235). Precisely, Singer believes that prevention of the continued suffering and misery of the developing countries is a moral obligation to every affluent human being in the world.
On the other extreme, Garret Hardin in his essay suggests that helping the poor is unrealistic and detrimental because it stretches the few limited resources that are available to the ruin. He argues that even though people may talk about common bonds here on spaceship earth, that metaphor is misleading and unjustified. This is because no single ruler ensures that every person behaves. He suggests of a better metaphor, a lifeboat where the affluent in the world are in it whereas the poor drown in water. And it is evident that most a bigger percentage of the people of the world are sinking.
Furthermore, Hardin gives another example of the Tragedy of the Commons as the environmental overload in India. Amid the abundance of the food as offered by many agencies, environmental overload is imminent, Hardin alludes. Although the population of India has surged because of the sufficient food, there is increasingly finite tidy beaches, healthy forests, medical supplies as well as other essentials. As a result, this lowers the quality of life for every Indian that is born. Moreover, every Indian that is saved by the food that is donated leads to an increase in the costs of crowding thus lowering the quality of life for the others. Consequently, this leads to yet another Tragedy of the Commons.
Through his arguments, Hardin explains the lifeboat metaphor suggesting that efforts to evenly distribute resources may result in a Tragedy of the Commons. Using various examples he convincingly highlights that aid programs hurt both the giver and the receiver. Therefore, in response to the drowning, the wealthy nations can be charitable to all and the whole world to drown. Better still they can be charitable to some and be unfair in the selection process, or nothing could be done for the poor, and they all drown.
Contrariwise, Murdoch and Oaten criticize Hardin’s metaphors of the lifeboat, commons as well as the ratchet as misleading. They argue that other factors are needed to understand the population and the hunger problem. This includes the parental confidence in the future, low infant mortality rates, literacy, healthcare, income, and employment as well as an adequate diet. They claim that when the socioeconomic problems are sorted, population size will take care of itself.
In Hardin’s article, there are two messages intended, firstly that the immigration laws are too generous and that helping the underdeveloped countries will bring disaster, Murdoch and Oaten suggest. The ratchet metaphor is flawed; it ignores complex interactions between the birth rates and social conditions. It suggests that more food will only lead to more babies. Moreover, it obscures the fact that the death rates have been decreased by the various developments such as improved levels of sanitation, medical advances, and increased food supplies. Also the lifeboat essay according to Murdoch and Oaten is inadequate in, many other aspects, including the ignorance of recent literature. The suggestion that people can expect no real demographic transition is founded on a review that was written more than a decade before the claim. Events, as well as attitudes, are changing rapidly for the underdeveloped countries 0with birth control initiatives.
Murdoch and Oaten underline that the thesis of the commons needs critical evaluation. According to them, Hardin favors private ownership as the solution, however, there are solutions other than private property. Moreover, private property is not a guarantee of carefully husbanded resources (Pojman, Pojman and McShane, 101). Conclusively, according to Murdoch and Oaten, the nonmilitary foreign aid to the developing nations is both just and necessary.
In my educated opinion, there should be contributions from the richer nations to the third world countries. In the today’s sophisticated community, the people of developing countries are still struggling for their fundamental rights such as healthcare, proper education, proper diet and a source of income. I support the arguments of Peter Singer that every human being is morally obliged to do good. Therefore, all people should help each other. Moreover, Murdoch and Oaten highlight that other factors should be addressed before disputing the assistance that is offered to the developing nations.
Combating poverty is a moral imperative that should be a priority in the foreign policies of the developed countries. However, while assisting the developing countries, there should be plans that increase the accountability for the rich and the have-nots countries alike. Firstly, the developed countries should intensify their development assistance to the developing countries. The additional funds will be channeled to an account that will fund initiatives to support the developing countries improve their economies as well as standards of living.
It is important to note that economic development assistance cannot be satisfied unless it is linked to sound policies in the developing countries. Therefore, the funds that are raised by the developed countries should only be disposed to develop countries that are committed to development. They must depict commitment towards good governance, investment in the health and education sector, and sound economic policies. Conclusively, the developed nations should take it as their responsibility to offer assistance to the developing countries to lessen their suffering and misery.
Works Cited
Hardin, Garrett. Living On A Lifeboat. 1st ed. 2001. Web. 7 May 2016.
Pojman, Louis p., Paul Pojman, and Katie McShane. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2016. Print.
Singer, Peter. Famine, Affluence And Morality. 1st ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004. Web. 7 May 2016.
