Famine, action, and the normative

• Main Authors: RYAN, Shane, SONG, Fei
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2021
• Subjects: Peter Singer; Famine; Affluence; and Morality; Global justice; Preventable deaths; Global poverty; Strong Principle; Consequentialism; Trumping worry; Broadness worry; Global basic structure; Philosophy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3700
• Institution: Singapore Management University

It has been 46 years since the publication of “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” by Peter Singer. In the paper Singer famously challenges readers to radically change their lives to save the lives of others, often in distant lands. With this paper, Peter Singer, perhaps the most famous living philosopher today, made his name and spawned the field of global justice. Although there have been improvements and successes, easily preventable deaths from poverty still occur in large numbers today. Philosophically the paper has been very influential and continues to generate considerable debate. We return to Singer’s argument in “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” and make the case that the argument is incomplete in that while Singer’s position that we are morally obliged to help relieve famine, hunger, and so on is supported by his argument, his position that we act all things considered is not.