Peter Singer, The Singer Solution To World Poverty Essay

Peter Singer is an Australian Philosopher and is perhaps one of the world’s most controversial literally ethicist. Many people who read his book “Animal Liberation” were in great numbers moved to accept or actually embrace his vegetarianism theory while others were repugnant about Peter Singer’s “most retrogressive” attempt to place the human population and the animal population in the same even moral plane. Similarly, Peter Singer argued that severely disabled little children should in some occasions, receive euthanasia. His idea has attracted both praise as one of the most courageous idealism and denunciation as a pro-abortion idea which attracted a lot of protest especially from anti- abortion activists.
Peter singer’s Penchant for outrageous provocation extends further to even more mundane issues and subjects. Singer’s raise provocative issues to matters like every day charity. He challenges that it is not possible to quantify our charitable burden. He poses a fundamental yet very significant question when it come to the discussion of which are the best ways or solutions to covering world poverty. Questions like “why that much why not more?” these such questions elicit a more comprehensive and logical discussions on the role of “the haves” to the less fortunate in the society.
Peter Singer uses two case examples to explain his theory of dynamic giving and non-giving. One is based on a hypothetical situation from a Brazilian film, Central Station, this particular case involves a retired school teacher called Dora. Dora gets an opportunity to a quick one thousand dollars. The only thing she has to do is persuade and convince a homeless nice nine-year-old boy to accompany her to a location she is given. At the said address the nice little boy will be adopted by foreigners. Dora manages to persuade the young lad and she receives the one thousand dollars. After spending the money on purchasing a television set, Dora realizes that the young lad was not so young after all for adoption and will probably be sold killed and his organs removed for sale. Dora finally decides that she has to take the boy back.
The second case example is based on another hypothetical situation. Peter Singer makes this hypothesis from Peter Unger’s book, Living High and Letting Die. In the book a man called Bob just happens to have spent a considerable large share of his savings on a rare and quite valuable old piece of car, a Bugatti to be precise. Bob has deep affection for his car not just because his enjoys riding in it and taking good care of it, but also for the reason that the car’s market value continues to raise with time. This particular issue make Bob envision better days after retirement where he could sell the car and lead a financially stable life. One-day Bob packs his lovely Bugatti by the railroad track and takes a walk. While walking, he notices a speeding runaway train on the tracks heading towards a child who is seated on the tracks. Bob has a choice to either flip the switch and save the child or flip the switch and direct the runaway train to hit his precious Bugatti. He finally makes the choice of not flipping the switch which means the child is hit by the runaway train while his prized possession remains un- maimed.
Peter Singer introduces the two hypothetical cases to invoke response from the readers. The response could be either adopting an altruistic position or an egoism position. Singer arguments in favor of altruism are majorly reflected on the first case example of Dora. As acts of being selfless when she decides to go back and get the kid instead of feeling good that she owns a television set. Altruism is also reflected on the second case where he urges the readers of his text to denounce the actions taken by Bob in choosing to save his car instead of the child.
Singer argues that the two case are not equally and as such cannot be made to look like so. He argues that the two case are fundamentally different and the actions taken by both Dora and Bob are to an extent circumstantial to their predicament. He argues that Dora who be inhumane if she allowed the young boy be killed and his organs sold. He points out that while Dora had made contact and actually made personal relationship with the boy it would only be prudent for her save the young child from the noose of death. Bob on the other hand, Singer argue that the child he was ‘supposedly’ required by ethics to save was too far on the rail tracks and he had no personal relationship with the kid.
Peter Singer is a utilitarian philosopher; he looks at the results or more appropriately the consequences of an action to determine if it is wrong or right. The actions of Dora results to saving a kid’s life while those of Bob or more concisely lack of action by Bob results to the death of a minor on the rail tracks. While Singer relates the two stories of Dora and Bob to his argument about Americans not donating to the poor he argues that the narrative given by the Americans resembles that of Bob. He argues that not donating overseas is not taking action to save life of a kid on rail trucks.