I first read Peter Singer's philosophies during my sophomore year of high school; when I myself grew increasingly more confused as the semester of Philosophy went on. I read words I swore had to be from a completely different language and spoke about seemingly impossible concepts like identity after time travel, the morality of cloning, and obviously, sending off one's income to an unseen place in order to equalize global wealth disparity and protect human rights.
At the time, I heavily gravitated towards Singer's strictly Utilitarian outlook on the way our global society should be. He argues what is best for most is the correct moral option. In this case, sending off what money you have as extra is not only the "right" thing to do, it is the morally necessary thing to do.
Obviously, questions arose about the logistics behind the donating ideology. How does one know when their money becomes want versus need? How do I go about choosing, if one option is more appropriate, but more expensive? Would that be indulging? Where is the line between keeping the material happiness while doing good for the world?
Well, as you might imagine the hesitence I had to ask questions in such a class as honors philosophy with Mr. Goldberg, I never spoke up about these what ifs. SO- having taken two years worth of personal online inquiry into Singer's philosophies, I have sort of come up with a take of my own.
His principal is one I agree with, that people (he points out many from Westernized areas) who have enough disposable income to indulge, should donate this income as it is a moral obligation for one human to help another human. Where my doctrine branches off is that each person with disposable income should be able to rationalize how much this means, and how much each person should donate individually.
An obvious, and probably detrimental problem arises with my take. If each person gets to individually decide HOW much of their disposable income to donate, many would just argue their indulgence is a necessity, and not a interchangeable desire, thus finding loopholes in order to donate a smaller amount. I fully respect indulgence when it is in moderation, and in control of the person doing so. The only way my take works is if each person with enough disposable income acts in two ways. One being, the person must hold themselves up to this moral obligation (thus agree with it), and two, they must also moderate their desires.
In a perfect world, sure, this is permissible with everyone. However, in a perfect world, there also wouldn't be socio-economic disparities and exploitation of human rights that need aid. So my philosophy is at a stand still in this sense.
My final point is that I entered my Philosophy class thinking cloning sentient beings and time travel were hypotheticals that I spent 48 minutes everyday debating over for no serious reason. However, cloning is an important technological development and time travel has been a debate forever, so Singer is not far off with his aspirations. No matter how radical his ideologies are, there is a new and strongly supported idea that only he has brought so much attention to.
As you argue well, if each person decides individually decides how much money to give to those in suffering, most people would opt for spending more on their own self-satisfaction than the satisfaction of a child in need with no connection to the giver. Therefore, a more responsible entity (something like...government) should be charged with rounding up the money of affluent Americans (almost like...taxes) and redistribution it those in need, including overseas aid.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you brought in your time during your Philosophy class and assembled your own and alternative take on Singer's argument. You're idea on how each individual person decides how much money to give those suffering was well thought. I enjoyed though how you recognized how you're solution to this also has loop holes, just like Singer's. Showing how no matter what resolution we come up with to solve this problem, there will always be ways in which people will try to get out of it.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this blog post! I think something that happens to pretty much everyone when they read Singer is a bit of guilt and questioning. His ideas are very radical, and very different from what we are used to. Although it would solve a lot of socio-economic disparity if people donated all of their income that was not used for necessary things, it is very unlikely. I agree that people should agree to donate something and moderate their indulgence.
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