Singer paper

Mar 5 2015
Ron Hunter
Philosophy 101
Professor Andrew Sergienko

I chose to do topic two which is to Critically assess Singer’s argument regarding our moral obligations to

those suffering from famine:, I will discuss the three premises and the conclusion of this argument. I will explain

why I either support or chose not to support this argument in my conclusion

Singer is a Utilitarian a who believes that the value of a thing depends on its utility, so Singer believes that

everything and everyone has to be morally useful. Singer’s argument is simple. He has three premises that are the

basis of his argument the first, that starvation and the suffering and death it causes are bad things. This is proven

most would not be able to dispute this. The next premiss states that if we can prevent something bad from

happening without having to give up anything comparable in moral significance then we should do it and the third

is that it is our moral duty to give our excess wealth in order to help those less fortunate? It is interesting to see

that Singer believes that all the lions should be kill because of the fact that they are killing off all of the

Herbivores such as the Wildebeest and Zebra. He states that he knows that the lions will suffer but in the long run

the suffering will be cut down drastically

An example of the first premiss would be the children you seen in commercials that are malnourished and

in the end after receiving no help they die. To someone like me, I would think why is this a bad ting isn’t this just

Population control. We need to take into consideration that this is a human life just like our sons and daughters

according to Singer, thus being a bad thing for them to die before their time because of something that could have

been revenged.