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It is unfortunate that our world now is capable of ending famine and poverty once and for all. However, the individuals and nations with more than capable financial background do not feel the obligation to change the world for good. This is a sad truth, so many powerful people lack moral and ethics, but rather caught up in fulfilling their greed and selfishness. What can we do to help? Do we have the power to change/convince the people who are in power? Do we have an obligation to do so and are we held accountable?

Cho Sung Eun Sam
17/10/16

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In my point of view, if one nation is more than capable, they ought to help the needy. It will be immoral not to act. However, at the same time I do feel that those nations like any individual have the freedom to choose to help or not. My point is a little contradicting.. But from a utilitarian point of view, it is a must as mentioned by Singer, to be obliged to help the needy when given the option.

Cho Sung Eun Sam
17/10/16

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I agree with Janice that it is overly demanding and in conflict with an individuals personal preferences.  I'm all in favor of charities, and I'm genuinely impressed by people who give their lives to helping others, but it's a mistake to assume that saving lives is easy and simple and all we lack is the will.  That's why Singer's "drowning child" analogy fails. If that child's in front of me, I know that I can take action that will save his life.  If that child is starving in the midst of a horribly complex social, political and military situation five thousand miles away, in a culture and environment I can't begin to understand, I'm not convinced I can do anything for him.

Tsang I Mau, Tim
17/10/2016

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Hi everyone. I am the teaching assistant who monitors and evaluates your discussions. 

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Hi everyone. I am the teaching assistant who monitors and evaluates your discussions. 

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1. It seems that moral duty may not be a good argument for underpinning coercive donation. However, you can consider suffering of poor countries as consequence of affluence of wealth countries. Should selfishness to be count as good reason for ignorance of the deeply suffering? Once the above correlation is established, it is difficult to escape from the burden of helping you believe that is not your responsibility.

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Concerning the point about enjoying luxury from the utilitarian perspective is wrong, I believe it is only wrong in that perspective. Since we are all placed in this system where we have to do some kind of work for money and for a living, it is not wrong to enjoy the fruits of your labor so to speak. No one is morally obligated to donate money that they earned thru their hard work. If they do donate, it is out of good will, not because they were morally obligated to do so. If you were a true utilitarian, you would stop looking at the problem of inequality from such a low perspective, you would realize the whole system is wrong, and the people controlling this system have the power to change it, so you would aim at somehow convincing those people to change their ways of thinking for the 'overall good', instead of judging other people (ordinary citizens) and saying they are immoral because they didn't donate their hard earned money all because you couldn't see the bigger picture.

- Resh (16/10)

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I agree with the point that the richer nations should donate money or try help some of the problems that exist in the poorer nations, but I feel that the problems exist in the first place because of selfishness from the higher up people in control such as presidents, and owners of top companies. They have the power to change everything, us as citizens can only do so much in helping the poor, unless we come together as one to convince the people in control that the current inequality is wrong, change will be very minimal

- Resh (16/10)

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In the perspective of utilitarianism, it is obviously immoral to spend the most proportion of our wealth on luxury, as the utmost purpose of utilitarian is to solve the problem all-out. However, as I mentioned, people's willingness is an important factor in relieving the problem. We are human, we all have a little bit selfishness inside us. It is natural for people to consider their own interest, no matter to what extent. Therefore, since utilitarian consider everything in the benefit of the whole collective, it is not applicable to everyone. That is why I don't think utilitarian's method can truly help in relieving the famine problem.

- Cherry (15/10)

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The problem of this topic is that, we cannot force the wealthier ones to take action and assist the needy. It has to be their own will to do so. If they are just forced to give a helping hand, the problem of poverty and famine can never be solved. For example, if people are forced to donate money, they will only keep donating money without knowing the reason and situation behind it. They will never take the initiative to understand the problem and assist the poor to really solve the root of their poverty. Therefore, one's willingness is very crucial in assisting to ease the situation.

- Cherry (15/10)

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I do think that the wealthier ones should assist the needy in poor countries. As mentioned by Singer, the costs for us to help them are just some insignificant reduction in general. The reason why people are not willing to help is they fear that it may   not be beneficial to them, which I think is a very selfish thought. However, it is our nature, in order to break down barriers between the rich and the poor, and to ease the famine and poverty problem together, people have to put aside their own interests and put the benefit of the whole collective in the first place.

- Cherry (15/10)

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I also agree with the answer that Utilitarians prioritize happiness. With the spending of money on luxurious products and service, it can bring happiness to people, which is a nice thing to do. Although it may sound more appropriate and proper to spend the money on providing basic needs to poor people, it is of their own choice to spend the money on their desired outcome. I believe it would be "morally appropriate" to spend the money on poor people, but not "morally required".  As long as people are not spending the money for a bad cause or if any harm will be done to innocent people, I think people should have the choice to donate as much as they want to.

-Janice (12/10)

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I absolutely agree that wealthy people should not be forced to donate their and contribute to the poorer countries because it is of their own hard-work that led to such success. If everyone 's property is shared among everyone, no one would be motivated to work hard to be rich. However, it doesnt mean that it is right to not donate at all. With the excessive amount of resources, rich people should feel the need to help people in need. Affluent countries should promote more charity work. With the high exposure of it in their society, they will be more willing to donate and help out more frequently.

-Janice Ng (12/10)

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I do not agree that geographical proximity is irrelevant to helping someone. Geographical distance is something that concerns someone's time and financial management. Time because it may require someone to travel which will demand more time from that person to sacrifice. Finance because it may require transport cost (eg. airplane tickets to poor countries as a charitable act). I believe that if geographical proximity is a factor in consideration, it should only be acceptable if the person is okay with it.

-Janice Ng (12/10)

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I wasn't very sure about the need to donating money to aid organizations at first because I felt that it is purely a charitable act that people should not be forced in doing, an act that people should not feel obliged to do.  However, it shook me after reading "insignificant reduction in our standard of living". I do now agree that if we have more than we need for the basic living necessities, we should learn to be generous enough to donate and help the ones that lack the most basic things in life. These insignificant reduction hardly does any harm to us, as nowadays people usually just decide to spend extra money on gadgets etc. But in a society like Hong Kong where people grow up only minding their own business, I believe it would be hard to achieve in Hong Kong.

-Janice Ng (12/10)

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1. Singer first announces that suffering caused by a lack of the most basic of resources is bad. Secondly, he maintains that if it is the case that we can prevent some bad from happening, without thereby giving up something of comparable moral importance, we are morally obligated to do so. These two assumptions are the foundation upon which he draws the conclusion that most individuals have a very strong moral obligation to relieve famine. After all, giving a great deal of money to aid organizations is hardly comparable to the enormous amount of suffering that the money will offset. For example if we are walking past a pond and see a child drowning in it, we ought to wade in and pull the child out. This may ruin the clothes but that would be insignificant compare to the death of the child. Singer believes that we could help without thereby giving up anything of significant moral importance. In other words, we can reduce avoidable death and suffering by giving to famine relief etc. and the cost of doing so is a morally insignificant reduction in our standard of living .

In addition Singer also proposes that geographical or emotional proximity are irrelevant to morality. It suggests that whether or not I have a duty to aid someone should not be influenced by features concerning how far away I am from that person, either physically or emotionally.

2. I agree with Singer that the richer nations are ought to help nations like the East Bengal, facing with serious problems such as the lack of food, shelter and medical care. In my point of view, the stand of this argument is depend on whether you value the benefit of the whole collective the most important consideration or you think that the interest of one’s self is the most important. To me, the benefit of the whole collective always come first. This is why morality exists. This is why people set up standards of virtue. Having to be regarded as noble, mighty and virtuous can achieve the purpose of keeping people in line, obeying laws which are aimed to protect human’s safety and properties, and eventually maintaining the social order. Realistically, if everyone, or most of us, are not willing to give a helping hand to the needy, even if we can do so without having to bear a heavy cost, the general benefit of the whole collective will be reduced. In the case of the famine in East Bengal, imagine the waste around the globe produced by numerous wealthy countries, the richer nations are definitely capable of supplying the countries which are in difficult situations with basic materials and food.

If richer nations are willing provide East Bengal with basic needs, or even assist them to address the roots of the problems such as economic problems, education system and wars, more people in the world would become safe, able to enjoy their life and even have the ability to contribute to one’s country or the world. However such assumption is only based on the condition that the richer nations could help the poorer ones without suffering from another problem, which is emerged due to the assistance to the poor nations. It is of its own choice whether to help or not if the outcome of the assistance will lead to serious sacrifice or predicament of the country because if the wealthy nations are forced to help the poorer ones, neglecting its own benefits and capability, it turns out to be a harm to people in the wealthy nation in general, failing to reduce the average suffer of the world.

3. Enjoying relatively luxurious entertainment is not moral from the utilitarian perspective. Total happiness is the biggest concern for Utilitarianism. Purchasing new clothes or dinning at expensive restaurant are examples which people do to promote their quality of life. However, if the money is spent to save the needy, it can increase the survival rate.

According to Singer, it is an immoral action because it equals not giving enough money to the starving needy. The utilitarianism will agree with this opinion, since this action can maximize the utility. 5 billions people approximately live in absolute poverty nowadays, and every 3.6 second there is someone who is dead because of hunger. Giving up a luxurious lifestyle is utterly an insignificant cost comparing to letting people die of hunger.If people are willing to change their lifestyle and donate the money, a large population can be saved. Therefore, owing to the principle of Utilitarianism, it will be immoral to live an expensive lifestyle.