"The Singer Solution to World Poverty"

[clem456]

Singer does not believe that it should be legal that infants should be killed. That he believes that infants have not obtained full moral status is of course sickening, but that is not what is in question. It is less that he has not proposed a specific program of infanticide-he does not believe such a program should exist.

The reason that it’s an important distinction is because in debate if we make the claim that Singer supports infanticide his supporters will immediately claim that this is not actually true-and they’d be right. It’ll make us look bad.

Don’t get me wrong-his position is utterly repulsive. That he believes newborns have not achieved full moral status is sickening. But he does not support infanticide.

I see your point. That is a really fine hair to split. Can you point us to a source in which he discusses the practical applications of his thought?

I think about the garden here:
The apple is not the problem. The problem is Eve’s willingness to discuss and bargain with evil on an issue that is non-negotiable, i.e. who decides what is even up for discussion. God makes it clear that the knowlege of good and evil (morality) is not up for debate. Surely we debate the finer points, but not in a way that calls into question basic moral truths. The issue of murder of innocents is so hardwired into the natural law that to discuss its applicability or validity IS taking a bite of the apple and is evil, in my humble opinion.

If I could just add…the plunging of the knife does not take place of itself in a moral vacuum. The knife and hand do not operate independently of the heart. What Singer is doing is laying the groundwork of pride and selfish justification and moral prevarication that IS the sin, even though it may not be the direct act, or the direct advocation of specific policies.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

Oh, Singer’s position is evil. My point about nuance is more so that we don’t come off as if we’re willing to overlook facts to make our point-we have to be careful that we get everything straight or we start to lose credibility.

I’ll look up the interview.

[Googling…]

Here it is: nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Nov10/nv112410part3.html

The quote (it is quite sickening):

Q (beginning at 1:25:22): When discussing at which point after birth we would give full moral status, you gave…a legal or public policy point about practicality… Forgetting the practical or public policy questions, if a person is a self aware individual and self awareness isn’t conferred by birth, and we use mirror tests to determine self awareness…at what point do you think an infant would pass the mirror test and therefore be self aware and be considered a person.

Singer (beginning at 1:27:18): … My understanding is that it is not until after the first birthday, so somewhere between the first and second, I think, that they typically recognize the image in the mirror as themselves…Really, I think this is a gradual matter. If you are not talking about public policy or the law, but you are talking about when you really have the same moral status, I think that does develop gradually. There are various things that you could say that are sufficient to give some moral status after a few months, maybe six months or something like that, and you get perhaps to full moral status, really, only after two years. But I don’t think that should be the public policy criteria.

Of course, he does also say this:

Maybe the law has to have clear bright lines and has to take birth as the right time, although maybe it should make some exceptions in the cases of severe disability where parents think that it is better for the child and better for the family that the child does not live…The position that allows abortion also allows infanticide under some circumstances…If we accept abortion, we do need to rethink some of those more fundamental attitudes about human life.

Very telling. And chilling.

 

[clem456]

For those of you who aren’t aware of the utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer, one of his stances on poverty is that we are obliged to give absolutely everything we earn that isn’t allocated to our basic necessities to people in need. Here is his article (it is quite a shocking read):

utilitarian.net/singer/by/19990905.htm

Interestingly enough, I’m reading this as an assignment for a Jewish studies course, and Judaism is known to be quite legalistic, though I don’t know what Singer’s religious views are. At any rate, I’m curious as to what the Catholic perspective on this is. My thoughts are that sacrifices this extraordinary seem to be something the saints would do (which, needless to say, is an incredibly noble and good thing, but my point is that it would seem that this would be pushing the limits on what the vast majority of people “should” do, whatever that “should” really means). And, if all of us were obliged to do such a thing, wouldn’t that de-value what the saints did, thereby making their actions mere fulfillments of natural duties rather than genuine sacrifices?

It’s an interesting take on things. Thoughts?

If I was in this class I would be receiving an F, as I would tell the instructor Singer’s ideas should be disregarded on grounds of absurdity. He is concerned for the welfare of human beings and our responsibilities towards them, but he is ok with the murder of said human beings to improve their welfare. It is just babbling absurdity. His concern for other’s welfare is not based in truth, but on his own personal morality, which is always and everywhere the road to death and destruction.

The sacrifices of the Saints are based in heroic virtue, which is by nature unselfish. These sacrifices are not based on their owen personal views of how temporal problems are solved, but on a total giving of themselves to a higher authority, God, who is the source of all solutions to problems. God is the only good fulfillment of our actions Himself, not any temporal results or statistics. When we lose sight of this, people become tools, or obligations, “utilities”.

 

[St_Francis]

Singer does not believe that it should be legal that infants should be killed. That he believes that infants have not obtained full moral status is of course sickening, but that is not what is in question. It is less that he has not proposed a specific program of infanticide-he does not believe such a program should exist.

The reason that it’s an important distinction is because in debate if we make the claim that Singer supports infanticide his supporters will immediately claim that this is not actually true-and they’d be right. It’ll make us look bad.

Don’t get me wrong-his position is utterly repulsive. That he believes newborns have not achieved full moral status is sickening. But he does not support infanticide.

He does support allowing infanticide in some cases, such as that of disability. He also lays the ground for a support of killing any infant; what holds him back from supporting infanticide is a personal squeamishness, not the philosophy which he is promulgating–he cannot defend restraint from infanticide while supporting legal abortion.

 

[underacloud]

All this talk of infanticide, abortion, and Singer’s repugnant views has nothing to do with his article on poverty (which, to be fair, Marc Anthony has pointed out already).

You cannot dismiss a veiwpoint based merely on who proposes it. You need to evaluate the logic and merits of the argument. And if you can’t adequately address the argument, then your own viewpoint needs consideration.

 

[St_Francis]

All this talk of infanticide, abortion, and Singer’s repugnant views has nothing to do with his article on poverty (which, to be fair, Marc Anthony has pointed out already).

You cannot dismiss a veiwpoint based merely on who proposes it. You need to evaluate the logic and merits of the argument. And if you can’t adequately address the argument, then your own viewpoint needs consideration.

Singer argues that the basic necessities for each family in the US cost $30,000, so any income above that should be given to charity. He emphasizes that people should not go out to eat but stay at home, so let’s look at that.

If all the people were to forego eating out in favor of sending the money overseas, then all the restaurants would go out of business. All those people would then be unable to send their share overseas and we would have to raise taxes to cover their unemployment. Thus, the rest of us would also have less money to send overseas.

In the same way, all the other purveyors of non-necessities would be out of work, so the whole problem would be multiplied. Pretty soon, the only people who had any work would be those who supply basic necessities, and they would be taxed much higher in order to pay the unemployment of those who had no work because, really, we can only buy basic necessities. Those still working would have no money left over to send to the poor overseas.

So the end result of his plan would be that the people overseas would still suffer, and there would be a horrendous increase in suffering in the US as well.

 

[St_Francis]

A small quibble with Singer’s article: while it is true that the US sends less than other nations in government-funded aid, the US and Australia are the two largest private charitable nations in the world. (Here is an article about the US.) Overall, Americans are more likely to contribute to the alleviation of need than are the Europeans.

Moreover, Japan and the Western European nations have “more disposable income” because the US pays so much for their military expenses.

 

[St_Francis]

A small quibble with Singer’s article: while it is true that the US sends less than other nations in government-funded aid, Japan and the Western European nations have “more disposable income” because the US pays so much for their military expenses. Moreover, the US and Australia are the two largest private charitable nations in the world. (Here is an article about the US.) Overall, Americans are more likely to contribute to the alleviation of need than are the Europeans.

Thus we can see that the purchasing of non-necessities contributes to a situation in which more *can *be done to help those overseas, while eschewing non-necessities would lead to an inability to help those overseas.

 

[underacloud]

Singer argues that the basic necessities for each family in the US cost $30,000, so any income above that should be given to charity. He emphasizes that people should not go out to eat but stay at home, so let’s look at that.

If all the people were to forego eating out in favor of sending the money overseas, then all the restaurants would go out of business. All those people would then be unable to send their share overseas and we would have to raise taxes to cover their unemployment. Thus, the rest of us would also have less money to send overseas.

In the same way, all the other purveyors of non-necessities would be out of work, so the whole problem would be multiplied. Pretty soon, the only people who had any work would be those who supply basic necessities, and they would be taxed much higher in order to pay the unemployment of those who had no work because, really, we can only buy basic necessities. Those still working would have no money left over to send to the poor overseas.

So the end result of his plan would be that the people overseas would still suffer, and there would be a horrendous increase in suffering in the US as well.

Yes, I agree. It’s a similar analysis to the one I posed earlier.

The best thing (arguably) that can be done to counter poverty is to provide economic opportunity. This is acheived, ultimately, via consumer spending. We need to be careful that we don’t use this as an excuse not to give to charity. But there needs to be a balance. The hardest part is for each person/family to determine the appropriate balance for them…and I struggle with this…and I think everyone should.