Peter Singer's Ideas About World Poverty

Today, all around the world there are countries that are so underfunded which cause a number of issues for the people and city. Peter Singer believes the human race is liable for this poverty, to an extent, and we as a whole are not doing enough to help out and get these countries out of poverty. He has a plan so unrealistic for us to obtain that it’s almost silly to change our mindset about it and try to make a change. His ideas require everyone to work much harder than they already are to make the poverty go away. There is one man, John Arthur who I side with, that disagrees with Singer’s ideas as he presents flaws in Singer’s plan, and simpler ideas. I will speak of both men and their ideas, then give input on to which I find more reasonable.
His ideas can be broken down into two sections: one being the stronger version, and the other being the more moderate ideas. On the strong side he states that people should give to the poor until they can no longer give or they would begin to be in a similar situation as the ones they are giving too. For example, if I am giving my food to a homeless man, I should only give as much as I am able too without running out of food for myself. In this regard I am able to help this homeless man as well as keep myself happy. The other version, or moderate version, is that someone would give until they were at a comparable state as those they were giving too. In this example, if I were giving food to a homeless man, I would keep giving until I was also in a similar situation with nothing to eat. What good would that do if I gave up so much that we were both foodless? The strong side, is the way Singer takes his arguments and proposals throughout his
Arthur says, “our present moral code is morally reasonable and in need of no reform in the direction suggested by Singer” (Arthur, 846). Arthur goes in depth to explain and breakdown Singer’s principles and pick apart bits and pieces where Singer seems unreasonable with his requests. Arthur argues that we don’t even live up to the standards as they are so how can we raise the bar higher and expect us, human beings, to attain something so much higher than before. This leads into the idea, that also contradicts Singer, of not always giving away our money or food to the homeless and those who need it. Arthur uses an example of a hardworking farer and a lazy neighbor fisherman. The farmer worked all summer to grow his crops and have a surplus of food while his neighbor spent his whole summer fishing as leisure. The farmer should be able to keep his earnings because he worked for them and should not feel obligated to give them to his less wealthy fisherman neighbor. Arthur and Singer differ in their opinions on what we should do with that extra money/food we make, whether it’s better to give it up until we become just as poor or if it’s better to keep it all to