A utilitarian approach to poverty - Essay Example

Singer further argues that people in rich countries spend their income on things which are effectively useless for them. Singer therefore argues that if people can actually curtail their expenses on unnecessary things and donate them, they can actually contribute towards the improvement in the lives of many. Singer’s thesis is critically more important because it outlines the need to have a broader and compassionate view of the poor of the world and how their lives can be improved with just little bit of effort.

Singer therefore suggests that rich should help poor because their help will actually result into greater good for the greatest number of people. He also provides the analogy of Bob Bugati and suggests how people from developed world actually ignore how a small time effort can save lives. Singer than suggests that there may be certain objections as to whether the funds donated or the help provided by the Westerners actually end up being utilized properly. There is a clear argument of whether the aid or the donations offered at the personal level can actually be utilized for the purpose for which they are given.

This argument however, been discussed from the point of view how a little bit of research can actually help anyone to find out credible organizations which utilize the overall donations in fair manner. Underlying the arguments of Singer is probably the implicit assumption that money can actually buy happiness. Singer argues that financial donations and help from the rich can actually fulfill the basic and smaller needs of the poor. This ultimately translates into better and improved quality of the life for poor and may pave way for them to engage themselves into something meaningful.

The argument of Bob Bugati however, also presents an alternative view of how money can actually restrict rich to help poor as people like Bob may value money and their financial belongings more than the lives of poor living thousands miles away. Singer therefore, appears to be offering both the views that money can actually buy happiness while at the other hand, expensive financial possessions of the individuals can actually deter them to look for helping poor. The overall arguments of Singer are relatively straight forward however, there may be certain point of contention based upon which the overall disagreement can be made.

First, the implicit assumption that money can actually buy happiness for the people may not be entirely correct argument. Though, money may be the most essential thing for the survival of the people in poor countries however, there is a need to actually view happiness from multi-dimensional purpose. By associating utility with the consumption of wealth can actually be a flawed argument considering the fact that poor countries have relatively higher level of happiness index value as compared to the countries where wealth is relatively high.

Considering this from the perspective of Marxian analysis, one needs to argue as to how to determine what is actually good for the people. To investigate as to what is essentially good for the people may be relatively difficult task because even providing foreign aid may not result into the creation of greater good for the poor because of corruption and other structural issues. Marxian criticism also suggests that