Peter Singer Is Wrong

Got a minute? Good! Because that may be all it takes to log in to OXFAM.org and virtually save someone’s life. But hold on a second, what about your life? Your own interests? All of the other beneficial things you could do with that money? According to Peter Singer, you don’t really have any choice because you’re “morally obligated” to donate far more resources to famine relief and similar causes than what you currently think is enough, but without sacrificing anything of equivalent moral importance. In this paper I will analyze this argument and try to show that Singer’s conclusions are correct, yet they are not quite as correct as he believes they are. To do so, I will try to show that Singer is wrong to think that we have a “moral obligation”
He thinks that his argument still works even with this weakened version as the basic principle is the same.
I believe that we are morally free to live the life we want and pursue our own interests, at least to some extent, and this entails that we are morally permitted to dedicate our energy, time, and capital to activates that don’t involve any direct impact on famine relief or similar causes.
5) We are morally permitted, to some extent, to choose what we do with our lives and to pursue our interests.
6) Some of our interests can eventually yield some socially beneficial outcomes.
7) If we were morally obligated to give to the point of marginal utility to help people who are suffering, we would have to give up many of our interests in order to do so.
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8) We don’t have a moral obligation to help people who are
It also doesn’t suggest that we are morally permitted not to contribute to famine relief and similar causes, rather I think we are morally permitted, to some extent, to choose what we do with our lives insofar as it is required for us to be free to pursue the interests that we know would yield some socially beneficial outcomes.
Singer could raise an objection to my argument. He could claim that the benefits of contributing to famine relief are almost 100% certain, while those referred to in premise (6) like pursuing, for example, higher degree in mathematics are not.
My reply to this objection is that I do admit that it is rather clear that donating to famine relief will result in good consequences, and it is quite clear (not certain though) that pursuing higher mathematics will also result in good consequences. Nonetheless, pursuing interests like higher mathematics has undoubtable, on the whole, resulted in some good consequences. Therefore, it is clearly certain that there is a non-negligible chance that one will produce such