Singer's argument can be broken down to something fairly simple: limit yourself to necessities, and give the rest away. The $200 you would have spent on a fancy dinner could have saved a child's life, and it is morally, and philosophically wrong to not do so. I was surprised at the depth of the article, as Singer addressed almost every counterpoint I could think of in a detailed and meaningful way.
That said, I did find one problem with the article, and that's Singer's insistence that "necessity" is a unified, defined term. What if because of the size of your family, you need a bigger house? What if your appetite is larger that most, and as such need much more food? What if the nature of your business requires having two cell phones? I think the relatively fluid nature of the definition of necessity means that a lot of people could adhere to Singer's mantra and still live comfortably. I wish Singer would have addressed this in the article, instead of assuming that the term is a constant.
This is a good point. I didn't really think about the idea of family size when writing my blog. He seems to leave out a lot of variables that come with different aspects of the whole idea.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate the way you realistically poke holes in Singer's argument. The true issue with Singer's argument is that the generalism suggested in this article is just impossible to attain.
ReplyDeleteI agree. While Singer did have some valid points, his argument was too broad to cover any real solution to poverty, especially because, as you said, it is difficult to truly define necessity.
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