Response to Peter Singer

Everyday wealthy and middle class Americans across the country spend money on luxury items such as: flat screen televisions, laptop computers, digital cameras, fancy cars, and smart phones. At the same time, across the globe in poverty stricken countries, people and children are living in destitution. Many of these people lack a basic human need which commonly includes nutrition, healthcare, education, clothing, shelter, and clean water. Peter Singer, author of 'The Singer Solution to World Poverty', suggests that all Americans that are financially stable to donate should be donating all their non-essential money to the needy people across the globe. This seems like the morally right thing to do, however Singers argument overlooks many factors in his bias, and leaves to many questions unanswered to make his essay true or reasonable to any extent. Is it morally right to make a hardworking American give up all luxuries to the needy people they will never meet? Of course, Americans should feel the need to donate to the needy people of our world. Although the amount they donate should be entirely up to them. Millions of Americans attend college to provide a better future for themselves, as well as their families. They choose high paying professions, and study for years to be able to afford the finer luxuries in life. Why should they spend so many years of their life working to succeed just to give away their fortune to people they will never meet? The obvious answer is they shouldn't. Many people work long hours, to be financially able to have the finer things. Not to give all their hard earned capital to strangers. Singer suggested that any money to be spent on luxuries should be given to the less fortunate. Yet, the definition to luxuries was never defined in his essay. To people living in destitution a car, television, and phone is major luxury items, and to a lot of American's these items seem to a necessity to basic living. That being said, another question