"The Singer Solution to World Poverty"

[Wulfgar]

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?

 

[Wulfgar]

Disclaimer: if it sounded like I was cutting up on Judaism, I was not. I recognize that it is the foundation of my own religion, and I respect the Jewish people for all that they have gone through over the past few millennia. I was merely pointing out that it is a very legal tradition - nothing bad or good about that.

 

[april32010]

:compcoff:

 

[ManOnFire]

This is a timely post relative to last Sunday’s gospel reading about the camel passing through the eye of the needle.

Here’s the rub: anyone who feels compelled to give all his goods which are beyond the basics necessary for life can always choose to work less, rather than work harder to afford those luxuries in the first place. The reality is, if people were forced to give up their luxuries, ALMOST EVERYONE would simply stop working HARDER to afford more of the luxuries that they would be coerced to donate to others. My guess is that if Singer convinced everyone to give all their stuff away that was beyond the basics, “we” would not be so ambitious, and tax revenues to feed the govt and the poor would collapse. We would all be coerced to work ONLY hard enough to earn the basics for ourselves and our families. End of Story. This is why socialism doesn’t work.

Equally disturbing is why the author does not ask the receivers of donated goods in his ideal scenario why they have not worked hard enough to not only earn the basics for themselves, but why they have not worked hard enough to give extra to everyone else, in the spirit of Singer’s same claim… It’s like he’s blind to considering the flip side. Even more disturbing is the exclusion of the role of Free Will and how some choose to indulge rather than resist tempations, which leads to some being better or worse off than others. Of course, then this includes a decision about which level of morality “we” should choose, which is impossible with so many secular individualists, so the same said secular individualists pine for collectivist economics in the absense of a collectivist morality. Hardly seems fair.

 

[underacloud]

Well, firstly, Catholics are not utilitarians.

His writing (in this case) has some merit, but ignores some realities that would undermine his logic. If everyone in the developed world stopped all “unnecessary” (however that is defined) spending and gave the money to the poor, economic systems would collapse. Consumer spending would hit a wall and economies would grind to a halt, putting vast proportions of any given population out of work and creating a far greater poor than currently exists.

Also, as he alludes to but doesn’t comprehensively discuss, the problem is not simply the amount of money thrown at the problem, but the problems in administering such moneys. There are poor in many places of the world because of corrupt and/or incompetent governments, and aid is difficult to get through. It’s even harder in countries mired by civil wars.

Related to the above two points, one of the best means of eradicating poverty is through economic opportunity. As the world economy grows, so too do opportunities in developing nations. We need to keep developed economies running in order to pull the rest of the world up with them. Certainly developed countries should meet certain aid targets, and political pressure should be brought to bear. It is a shame that this isn’t an important election issue, as most people are more concerned about their own wallets than international aid.

Singer certainly gives us all food for thought, but the situation is not as mathematically or morally as simple as his reasoning suggests.

 

[RPRPsych]

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?

Singer has a history of saying shocking things, and getting away with them, because academia has apparently deemed him “a great philosopher”.

Among his other stances are the advocacy of zoophilia, and of voluntary euthanasia for the disabled.

So take everything he says with a pinch of salt, preferably blessed salt. The man is a joke.

 

[Samuel63]

Just based on the information provided, he sounds like a 60’s flower child that wants to appear idealistic and caring for the poor. Under that thin veneer, he is socialist or communist. This is due to the lack of freedom in his argument. He proposes forced re-distribution.Sort of like “spread the wealth around” if that sounds familiar. It sounds good on the surface, because only few will think critically and seriously about what is being proposed. It is forced communal sharing - communism in short.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I know that argument of his…notice that Singer himse;f isn’t exactly living as a wandering beggar.

I e-mailed Dr. Feser about this. He told me that Singer was missing a point about the principle of subsidiarity. We have greater and lesser obligations of charity to different people and situations. Singer does not take this into account.

 

[underacloud]

Singer has a history of saying shocking things, and getting away with them, because academia has apparently deemed him “a great philosopher”.

Among his other stances are the advocacy of zoophilia, and of voluntary euthanasia for the disabled.

So take everything he says with a pinch of salt, preferably blessed salt. The man is a joke.

Yes, his stance on some issues is troublesome. But we do ourselves (as Catholics or generally as opponents of his on certain issues) if we merely dismiss his writings out of hand. We need to critique his reasoning.

In this matter, there is some merit in his reasoning and conclusions. It should be confronting to us all and we need to work through these issues.

 

[clem456]

Peter Singer also has no problem with infanticide.
Any proposition Peter Singer has in regard to the welfare of people carries no intellectual weight whatsoever.
Truly heinously evil.

 

[St_Francis]

Peter Singer, the person who thinks that we should be able to kill newborns? That guy?

Why should we critique his reasoning that we should spend $200 to save the life of an anonymous 2-year-old if by his reasoning just months before it would have been all right to *murder *the child?

And why are we obliged to give all that we have beyond the necessities to people whom he might decide to kill off, like people with dementia?

How can he claim it is immoral for us to keep anything we have above the necessities while also claiming that it is all right to kill those people *he doesn’t want around? I think there would be a vast increase in happiness if all those who were unhappy were killed and then those of us who were left could enjoy all the luxuries!

Hey, he has his reasoning, I have mine, what makes his any more valid than mine is?

*This is not actually what I think.

 

[ManOnFire]

My philospohy teaching assistant from 20 years ago brought up the point that if we continue to support street kids from third world nations, then we must also teach them birth control and abortion, otherwise, we are just growing the problem by keeping them alive longer, and they will eventually create growing numbers of street kids. Naturally, abc and abortion goes against our beliefs, so what’s a Catholic to do? Resources are limited.

 

[St_Francis]

My philospohy teaching assistant from 20 years ago brought up the point that if we continue to support street kids from third world nations, then we must also teach them birth control and abortion, otherwise, we are just growing the problem by keeping them alive longer, and they will eventually create growing numbers of street kids. Naturally, abc and abortion goes against our beliefs, so what’s a Catholic to do? Resources are limited.

Hmmmm, we have used contraception to limit our own population, so we do not have the “resources” aka “people” to go and help these street kids. Having committed this sin ourselves, we are now reduced to encouraging the street kids to commit the sin also.

When a society has large families in general, then there are enough people that some can eschew marriage and procreation in favor of dedicating their lives to God in another way. These people, who used to exist in society, became religious—priest, nuns, and monks—and went out into the world and worked with people in need or stayed cloistered and prayed for their efforts and for the world, which is even more important. And thus people were helped.

But no more…

 

[Marc_Anthony]

I’d like to point out that Singer does not, per se, think that we should be able to kill newborns. He believes that in theory killing newborns would be no worse than abortion, which he considers moral (he has various reasons but having never studied them I can’t tell you specifics-something to do with personhood, naturally). However, he believes that in practice it can lead to extreme abuses and thus should not be made legal.

I think his views on the matter are repulsive but we do nobody favors when we don’t present a person’s views accurately.

 

[clem456]

He believes in infanticide. Infants are not theories, they are people. As are the unborn. Not much you can do to sugar coat it.
His ideas as to the welfare of people should be summarily rejected. There are many good people with ideas of how to help people who are consistent in that area.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

He believes in infanticide. Infants are not theories, they are people. As are the unborn. Not much you can do to sugar coat it.

No, he does not, and that phrase is irrelevant in this context. He does not believe infants should be killed, and so does not believe in infanticide.

I’m not sugarcoating-his views are utterly repugnant. He DOES believe that the value of infant’s life is low enough that killing them is not a morally repugnant action. But he does not believe people should be allowed to kill infants-that’s what infanticide is. This is a fact-I have read the interview myself.

We are not doing ourselves favors when we misinterpret the views of people we disagree with.

 

[pnewton]

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.

He is hardly original. Two centuries back someone said “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” As to what we are morally obligated to do, well that is why we have the Catholic Church and not a re-packaged communist.

 

[clem456]

No, he does not, and that phrase is irrelevant in this context. He does not believe infants should be killed, and so does not believe in infanticide.

I’m not sugarcoating-his views are utterly repugnant. He DOES believe that the value of infant’s life is low enough that killing them is not a morally repugnant action. But he does not believe people should be allowed to kill infants-that’s what infanticide is. This is a fact-I have read the interview myself.

We are not doing ourselves favors when we misinterpret the views of people we disagree with.

Here is a direct quote from one of his essays.:

The moral status of newborn infants is a real issue, and it is proper for academic journals to publish articles that, like this one, discuss it in a serious and well-reasoned manner.

You can’t have it both ways, you either believe that newborns are people worthy of full dignity and protection under the law,or you believe their “moral status” is an issue.
So he has not proposed a specifice program of infanticide, I will grant you that, but we are splitting hairs here.

 

[clem456]

Not to derail this thread, but here’s a another direct quote from this man:

I do not deny that if one accepts abortion on the grounds provided in Chapter 6, the case for killing other human beings, in certain circumstances, is strong. As I shall try to show in this chapter, however, this is not something to be regarded with horror, and the use of the Nazi analogy is utterly misleading. On the contrary, once we abandon those doctrines about the sanctity of human life that - as we saw in Chapter 4 - collapse as soon as they are questioned, it is the refusal to accept killing that, in some cases, is horrific.

Evil is ineed alive and well and roaming the world.

 

[Marc_Anthony]

You can’t have it both ways, you either believe that newborns are people worthy of full dignity and protection under the law,or you believe their “moral status” is an issue.
So he has not proposed a specifice program of infanticide, I will grant you that, but we are splitting hairs here.

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.