The Life You Can Save: Peter Singer's Practical Ethics

[Vespa71]

It is human instinct to help those needing, and also to mind one's own business. Television has presented graphically many needs for help.

It is natural that a wild animal starves to death somewhere in the mountain during winter. Is it still OK if we know it is about to happen? A cameracrew is filming a documentary about a child with AIDS in an african country: The crew can help, but choose to document natural course of life. It is good journalism, but is it immoral?

What I ask as a counterquestion to the thread-start: If we choose to not hear about disasters and famines on the news, are we then in the clear? Is it receiving the information that incriminate us?

If we choose to live scarcely, and make less money than we can: Are we then acting imorally, since we then are less able to help the needing?

"It is not my problem" is a useful statement when we need to stress down about other people's issues. I think it applies here.

 

[Consophist]

I didn't read through the entire thread, only the first few pages.

Point being though, it isn't about a single kid in a pond, drowning. This is about millions of people in the pond drowning.

The real question, is it more moral to save "Kid A", or "Kid B"?

So, spending money on that snickers bar, sure, is less moral than saving someone. But along the way, the line begins to blur and you wonder why the kid to the right got the vaccine over the kid to the left, but yet you don't have enough money to save them all.

Does that constitute not saving anyone? No. But is sure does help with wrapping your head around the reality of the situation.

 

[mathal]

Yes every disaster needs immediate responce but to make any seminal change in this planet people as a whole in developed countries have to accept that their 'high life' is on the backs of the 'low lives' of the third world. The only way I can see that is workable is to encourage contributions to viable-AKA 'real' non profit organizations in wills. We in developed countries -the majority of the people reading this fall into this category - are well aware that any offspring we have will do better than the majority of this planet will do in the best of circumstances.

mathal

p.s. the perjorative 'low life' inference was deliberate- a kick in the pants to 'us'.

 

[brushman]

What's wrong with helping increase the productivity in places like Africa? Surely helping to "jump start" Africa's economy would be of benefit to everyone?

It does make sense that everyone being rich is not sustainable. However, it also seems that we are far below this point, and that through strategic charity we can reach a higher net global wealth that maximizes happiness in the world.

 

[Willowz]

Throw at them money and make the problem go away? I don't think so.

 

[mheslep]

I have no time for theoretical arguments from the likes of Singer, who as far as I can tell does not share my understanding of the word moral.

If there were to be no future generations, there would be much less for us to feel to guilty about.

So why don’t we make ourselves the last generation on earth?

That's not tongue in cheek, he's serious.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/should-this-be-the-last-generation/

http://books.google.com/books?id=3i...&resnum=4&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
1995, London Spectator, "Killing Babies Isn’t Always Wrong"

Ted Kaczynski, aka The Unabomber, might have also had some interestingly crafted arguments. At least he was not given a Chair at Princeton.

 

[chiro]

I have no time for theoretical arguments from the likes of Singer, who as far as I can tell does not share my understanding of the word moral.

That's not tongue in cheek, he's serious.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/should-this-be-the-last-generation/

http://books.google.com/books?id=3i...&resnum=4&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false

1995, London Spectator, "Killing Babies Isn’t Always Wrong"

Ted Kaczynski, aka The Unabomber, might have also had some interestingly crafted arguments. At least he was not given a Chair at Princeton.

The only thing I want to add to your comment is that if you and your partner/wife/whatever decide to have kids, then you should really be responsible and take this responsibility seriously for not only being responsible for raising the kids but also to teach the kids how to be personally responsible themselves.

But the above does not support this guys argument: I think the guy is nuts personally.

If people do their absolute best to raise people of the world in the manner above (not only these but in a way that at least includes them), then they can hold their head up high and say that they did the best they could and that it ends up being the person themselves who makes their own decisions and knows that they need to be responsible for themselves.

For these people that advocate population reduction in any shape or form, they should be the first to line up and take their oath seriously: I'm sick and tired of people like this.