Affluence and Morality

The issue that Peter Singer is addressing is the morality of being affluent while others are starving and near death. Singer asserts that we have an obligation to help the people who are starving just as much as we might have an obligation to save a drowning child.  He reasons that since we CAN save them, it is immoral to NOT save them.  The same thing as standing by and letting the child drown.  He proposes that we do this by actually doing something about it, by giving an amount that would really help the Bengali people.  He even goes so far as to say that we should give our wealth away until we are at the same level as the Bengalis are.  Which would be unreasonable to ask of most people, he admits, as the Bengalis live on a day-to-day barely surviving.  Singer doesn't like terms like "charity" and "generosity" because he thinks they imply that giving to people less affluent is not part of a duty we have.  He believes that the line between duty and charity should be redrawn; that giving to people is a real duty that we have, that we largely ignore.  The first objection is that presenting people with such a large responsibility and such a expanded moral code, and they will not accept any of it.  Singer objects, and says that by merely spreading the idea it gains ground.  The second objection is that by his argument we should be working full-time to make things better.  Singer says that he doesn't necessarily think this is a criticism, he actually embraces the idea, but accepts that it is unrealistic.  The third objection was that overseas aid should be a government area.  He says that this would mean that there are more people who are giving to the private organizations and the government would not feel obligated to pick up any slack.  He says this seems rediculous and that it is much more likely that if nobody gives to private organizations than governments will not feel that citizens believe it is important, and the converse- that if everybody was giving the government would feel that the citizens felt it was very important.  I think that we do have some responsibility to alleviate suffering in the world.  I personally think that we should start with our own country first.  I do not agree with everything he says, I thi