Feeding the Hungry: Peter Singer and Jan Narveson - Essay Example

Feeding the Hungry: Peter Singer and Jan Narveson By Feeding the Hungry: Peter Singer and Jan Narveson This paper summarizes and critiques two articles on the debate on feeding the hungry. The two articles summarized and critiqued are Peter Singer’s article “Singer Solution to World Poverty”, and Narveson’s article “Feeding the Hungry”. A Summary of “Singer Solution to World Poverty” In this article, Peter Singer exhorts the Americans to donate some of their earnings to hunger-relief agencies like Oxfam, so as to save the lives of many children who die because of hunger in poor countries. In the article, Singer urges that Americans should donate all the money that they spend on luxuries to save the lives of children dying of hunger in poor countries; Singer argues that saving the lives of children dying of hunger is more important than spending money on luxury. For Singer, the rich and the middle class citizens of affluent nations have a moral obligation to donate some of their earnings to poor countries so as to save the lives of the hungry and malnourished children. Singer presents two hypothetical situations to support his argument. In the first hypothetical case, Dora’s case, Dora is paid $ 1000 to persuade and to deliver a street boy to a given address. After delivering the boy and getting paid as agreed, Dora later learns that the life of the boy that she had delivered was in real danger. Dora resolved to return the money that she had been paid and to save the life of the boy. Singer praised Dora for this gallant move; for Singer, Dora acted in a morally right way by saving the boy whose life was in real danger. In the second hypothetical case, the Bob’s case, Bob failed to save the life of a boy that who was hit by a train, because he was not ready to sacrifice his Bugatti car, a luxurious car that he had invested his life savings on. Singer condemned Bob’s action and said that Bob acted in an immoral way because he valued his Bugatti car more than the life of the boy was hit by the train. Singer used these two hypothetical situations as analogies of the choices that affluent people could make. The first hypothetical case is analogous to the people who sacrifice some of their earnings to save the lives of the hungry children in poor countries, while, the second hypothetical case is analogous to the rich people who abdicate their moral obligation and fail to make donations to save the lives of hungry children. As a utilitarian, Singer is of the view that we ought to judge the morality of actions by their consequences. For this reason, Singer argued that it is morally wrong for the rich Americans to allow children from poor countries to die by falling to make donations that could save their lives. Singer, therefore, argues that the Americans should donate all their money that they spend on luxuries to charitable organisations that help children from poor countries. Singer agrees with Peter Unger’s view that if each rich and middle class American donate $ 200, no child would die of malnourishment. Singer, however, argues that people should not donate only $ 200, but they should donate all the money that they spend on luxuries, i.e. not on necessities of life. A Summary of “Feeding the Hungry” by Jan Narveson In this article, Narveson makes a distinction between justice and charity. According to the distinction that he makes, the demands of justice are enforceable, but the demands of charity are not. What this means in essence is that it is right to force one to act justly, but it’s not right to force one to act with charity. Narveson is not opposed to charity, but he is opposed to forcing act with charity. Narveson argues in the article that feeding the hungry is a matter of charity, and not a matter of justice. For that reason, Narveson argues that people should not be forced to make donations to feed the hungry. Narveson contends that it’s up to us to decide on whether or not to make donations to feed the poor; for Narveson, it is right to donate to feed the hungry and it’s right also not to donate to feed the hungry. In supporting his view that charity is not enforceable, Narveson makes a distinction between principles and policies. For Narveson, principles refer to general theoretical claims like the utilitarian principle. Policies, on the other hand, refer to strategies of implementing policies. Narveson, therefore, contend that, while one may support feeding the poor in principle, one should not make principles meant to force people to be charitable. For Narveson, forcing the rich people to be charitable is making the rich people the slaves of the poor people. In the article, Narveson, also, makes a distinction between “starving” and “allowing to starve”. In this distinction, Narveson argues that starving and” allowing to starve” does not mean the same thing. For Narveson, in reference to feeding the hungry, to starve is to cause someone to die through denying them food; Narveson conceived this as murder. On the contrary, to allow to starve means to let someone starve because you have no moral obligation to prevent the starvation. Narveson, therefore, concluded that, since we have no moral obligation to feed the hungry, allowing the hungry to starve is not at all tantamount to the murder of the hungry people- it is morally permissible, for Narveson, to allow the hungry to starve because we have no moral obligation to prevent the starvation. A critical look at these two arguments on feeding the hungry shows that Narveson is right in his claim that charity is voluntary, while, Singer is wrong in his view that the Americans should donate all the money that they do not spend on necessities to hunger-relief agencies. Singer’s argument is flawed and self-defeating. This is because if all the Americans were to donate all the money that they use on luxury to poor countries to feed the starving people, many businesses in America would collapse. This is because there are many corporations in America that deal with production of luxurious products. This in essence would mean that many people would lose their jobs in America. The collapse of the businesses in America and the unemployment that would result would significantly impact negatively on the American economy. For this reason, many Americans would be poor and in need of help to avoid starving. Again, the money that the Americans would donate to feed the starving people in poor countries would not definitively solve the problem of hunger in poor countries because of corruption and mismanagement of funds in those countries. For that reason, starvation in those countries would continue to occur in future, and with the economy of America having been ruined by the donations, the poor countries would have no other recourse to avoid the starvations. This fact, therefore, shows that the implementation of Singer’s idea on feeding the poor would exacerbate the crisis of starvation in the world. On the other hand, Narveson is right in his claim that feeding the poor is a charitable act, and that we have no moral obligation to feed the poor. Narveson is right in his claim that, since the rich people are not the cause of poverty of the poor people, the rich people have no moral duty to feed the hungry poor people. Narveson’s ideas on feeding the hungry are indeed practical, and their implementation would ensure that the rich people are not forced to donate to the poor what they have rightly earned through their hard work; the implementation of Narveson’s ideas would ensure that the rich do not become the slaves of the poor as Narveson argues. The implementation of Narveson’s ideas would also ensure that the rich people would voluntarily continue to donate to the starving poor as they wish. For this reason, therefore, on pragmatic grounds, Narveson’s ideas on feeding the poor are more practical than the Singer’s ideas. Narveson, J. (1999). “Feeding the Hungry”. Chapter 7 of Moral Matters. Singer, P.(1999). “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”. The New York Times. Sept. 5. Read More