Singer's Lack of Solution to World Poverty

In Peter Singer’s article “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” he gives to examples of dramatic situations where a person can choose whether to be selfish or selfless. Dora has to choose between a brand new television and a random young boy’s life. Bob has to choose between the car he spent his life savings on and a random child’s life. Singer says that everyone reading these two scenarios obviously agrees with the more ethical decisions. He also says that we have the opportunity to save the lives of children every day by donating all our disposable income to charity, however; most people choose more selfish things like cars, clothes, and other luxuries. Singer says that if we are buying unnecessary luxuries, we are entirely hippocritical.

Although I agree with his principles of selflessness and utilitarianism, his theories are impractical for multiple reasons. First of all, his analogies between the two scenarios and helping kids overseas does not work due to the emotional proximities he described in the scenarios. Humans clearly do not have any sort of emotional connection to people they do not know. We are much more likely to be generous in places where we see the positive outcomes, like giving gifts to our loved ones, to our communities or to local charities.

Singer’s argument also does not work due to the way our government and economy works. We live in a country based on capitalism and working hard to get a high paying job so we can be greedy and buy fancy things. I think the more realistic standpoint to have is a push towards socialism in our country. If we have a more equal distribution of wealth and government aid, we can have a culture with less focus on greed and the individual, but greater focus on equality and selflessness within the country. Socialism allows for utilitarianism without individual greed intervening.

I agree with Singer that instead of running to the stores to constantly consume, we should stop and ask ourselves whether we really need the items. However, Singer’s article is ineffective and extremely impractical due to the greed in our culture and the lack of emotional connection with less-privileged people we do not know. It is obvious that those with great wealth should donate money to improve the lives of others, but I don’t think this is a new concept at all.