Global Hunger: moral dilemmas - Essay Example

Global Hunger: moral dilemmas Imagine you are sitting comfortably, watching prime time TV, eating a delicious meal and drinking imported beer. If you cannot imagine yourself, then imagine someone you know, the quintessential American, relaxing at home. When you think about this scene, does it look familiar? I’m sure it does: it is a typical scene in many houses throughout the developed world. Meanwhile, people around the world face the reality of hunger and starvation. According to United Nations estimates, 637 million of people suffer from malnutrition, just shy of 10% of the world population. The problem here cannot be a simple lack of food— rather, the crux of the issue is poor distribution and management of resources. One can go to a newsstand and buy Forbes magazine and look at the list of billionaires around the world. It can raise many points and questions: they can buy a whole country, they can donate millions of dollars and their family could still live well for generations. Why do they not solve the problem? Rather, is it possible to solve the problem? Some people say it just can’t be fixed. Therefore it would be a chronic situation, similar to an athlete’s injury. Doctors will tell them to not play until they are totally recovered but they will ignore the advice and that injury will never heal again because the damage is done. Unless they get dramatic surgery, which is also a gamble most of the time, there is nothing to be done. I grew up in what used to be considered a third world country. It is considered second world because of the rising economy. Culturally, there are some people that just will never do anything to improve their situation: perhaps it is because they are lazy, or because they think God will change their situation if they just sit still and be good. How far does a wealthy person’s moral responsibility extend to helping these people? In his article “Global hunger: moral dilemmas,” author Nigel Dower offers three propositions to explain the necessity of wealthy people’s involvement in the fight against global hunger. He says: “The three propositions are: that as moral beings we have significant duties to help other people who suffer; that hunger is a particularly extreme form of suffering; and that we should see the scope of our obligations as global” (Nigel Dower, 3)1. Assume we accept these propositions. Dower explains that good will alone is not enough to create a lasting solution to world hunger. Rather, a practical solution must be put in place to cover the high costs of proper food distribution. Not only that, but simply distributing food to impoverished people will not solve the problem: In the United States, distribution is excellent but waste is scandalous! Studies show that developed nations throw away one fourth of the food available for consumption. A family of four people puts ten lbs of fish and meat in the trash can every month. If one quarter of this waste was recovered, it could feed twenty millions people per day. If there are two million people in a poor country starving and sixty percent of the population of the United States is overweight, I think this shows us the problem is not only in distribution but the cultural attitudes of each nation. Dower discusses the many losses caused by hunger. “[Hunger] involves loss/lack of dignity/self-respect” (Dower 9). This complicates the distribution issue— how can we diminish such effects of poverty without the shame associated with “handouts”? Josette Sheeran, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme, suggests that we can bring an end to world hunger through social action. In her online article “We Can End World Hunger: 10 Ways to Feed the World,”2 she discusses humanitarian action and power of individuals. “We have the tools to respond with appropriate action in a humanitarian setting,” Sheeran says of humanitarian action. “When people are hit by disasters, we must save lives, providing food and work to get people back on their feet. In a place like Darfur, where there is no food, we bring in the food.” Sheeran goes on to address the power held by individuals and partners, people or companies that can make a difference in the campaign against global hunger. “We just need to fill a cup and feed a hungry child, one cup and one child at a time,” she says. “Five days after the earthquake struck in Haiti, we had raised nearly $5 million from individuals and companies.” Most of the revenue came from social websites which donated their profits to the cause, fueled by the instant communication and awareness of our modern age. These efforts then went to help rebuild Haiti, which is exactly the kind of help Dower suggests will improve the situation without increasing dependency or undermining self-respect. In some countries, politicians still hotly debate the necessity of reorganizing distribution, mostly in the form of food stamps. In Brazil, for example, opponents accuse the food stamp program of serving solely as an election asset for the current president, as he campaigned against it through three failed elections. When he finally won, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva created the most extensive program for free food distribution in the world. Although he reduced hunger, many of his other policies had detrimental effects on the populace of Brazil. One of the key issues here is immediacy versus long-term stability: while the impoverished voters of Brazil might re-elect Lula or others like him, that does not necessarily guarantee that the solution will persist in the future. And yet, perhaps the solution is not so impossible a concept to grasp. In the article “The Singer Solution to the World Poverty,” Peter Singer states that “If every citizen living in affluent nations contributed his or her share, I wouldn’t have to make such a sacrifice, before long such levels were reached, the resources would have been there to save the lives of all those children dying from lack of food or medical care. So why would I give more than my share fair?” (Singer 143)3. This relates again to issues of distribution: if all able individuals contributed to ending global hunger, the problem would quickly come to resolution. Clearly, this is the solution we are aiming for. Singer also said, “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening without thereby sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it” (Dower 11). We have already established that something can be done and, consequently, must be done. Every person has the right to be free of hunger and malnutrition, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was composed in 1974. The right to have access to food is considered “universal.” In my opinion it is a matter of solidarity. We need to end hunger but at the same time I question to what extent we should take care of other people that we don’t know because we can only help them momentarily. They are not our sons and daughter. We don’t know that once we get them on their feet they will continue to do well. Ultimately, hunger has always an issue for human beings in the developed and developing worlds. Whether they are in poverty through their own poor choices, unfair disadvantages created by a vicious political system, or a lack of education, the possibility of working with the impoverished to help them become self-sufficient remains urgent. In the past, we have been saved by our developed technological advances. The same innovations that made mass production possible, controlled pests and reinvented the seeds may prove critical to the fight against hunger; however, no matter what we invent, we cannot end global hunger without the complete participation of the entire globe. Read More