“The Singer Solution to World Poverty” is interesting essay in that Peter Singer describes and explains theoretical scenarios to reveal the ethical issue of not donating to charity. To persuade his readers to donate to charity, Singer uses emotional appeal in his theatrical scenarios to make his audiences, especially those who rarely or never donate their money to charity, feel guilty about their action. Although his theoretical scenario is interesting and captivating in its moral discussion, this strategy to convey his audiences weakens his purpose when the whole argument entirely based upon it. In another word, Singer commits the logical fallacies of emotionally charged language, either-or reasoning, and circular reasoning.
Singer commits the fallacy of emotionally charged language when he accuses people who do not donate money to charity as “morally wrong”. Moreover, Singer proposes two sides to the issue of poverty and assumes that his is the only possible correct one. He is arguing that if Americans does not donate money to charity to help save children lives oversea, then they are morally wrong. The implication is that “either you donate the money to charity to save the lives of children oversea or you are morally wrong by causing their deaths”. The two-side situation he presents is illogical, for children overseas are not likely to die of poverty if they do not have support from donations.
Although Singer responds to his audiences’ concern with the reliability of charity organization, he bases his response on circular reasoning or begging the question. He replies to their concern by saying “Nobody who knows the world of overseas aid can doubt that such uncertainties exist. But Unger’s figure of $200 to save a child’s life was reached after he had made conservative assumptions about the proportion of the money donated that will actually reach its target” (328). Singer is basically responding to the question by rephrasing it; he replies that “trust me, the money will reach the children” when his audiences ask why do they have to trust him and the charity organization.
Similar to Singer, I also believe that human beings should help one another but not to such an extent as donating $20,000 out of $50,000 or $70,000 out of $100,000 likes he have mentioned in his argument (330). Donating such large amount of money, 40% to 70% of household income, is impractical since people needs to save their money in case of emergency. For example, a middle-class man earns approximately an annual income of $50,000, and spends $25,000 on necessities likes rent and utility bills. Suddenly, he discovers that he a tumor in his colon and needs immediate surgery or else it will spread rapidly and become cancerous. If he donates $20,000 to charity, then he will not have enough money to pay expensive surgery because most of his annual income has been depleted.
Furthermore, I also disagree with Singer that we should not spend money on luxuries. I believe that people have to work hard to earn money for a living, and that they have the right to use some of those money on luxuries to reward themselves, to remind them the product of their hard work. In addition, what will happen to the American economy when the businesses cannot sell their products, because people spend money on only the necessities? The answer is that businesses eventually will close out and many people will become unemployed, without an income and without money for charity work. Therefore, the “Singer Solution” is not the solution to world poverty.
I agree that Singer’s theoretical stories are interesting but it also contains a lot of logical fallacies. Most of which are the rash generalizations about American household income and slippery slope fallacies regarding the donations towards charities effecting the lives of children overseas. His over usage of these fallacies are tiresome and off-putting to the reader. Though I do agree to an extent that donations should be made to help non-profit organizations but not to the larger amount Singer states in his article. It seems too large and will most likely do more harm to all the groups involved. I also agree with your statement that we do need to spend our money on luxuries to help boost our own economy before we can help others. Also the money that many have worked hard to obtain is also used as a type of protection. It is used as protection to insulate us from the slowly failing of the American economy. It is always good to help others but it is better to help people that have an immediate effect on our lives than those who do not.
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ReplyDeleteKalea has several good points in regard of Singer's essay which I think are quite important. Singer uses the ethos appeal very well because Singer makes several scenarios regarding homeless children in his essay and he writes these scenarios in a way that will make the readers who do not donate often or who do not donate enough feel guilty with their lack of participation. Moreover, like Kalea mentions, Singer stands very strong on his argument and his "solution" to poverty because the way Singer writes his essay gives the readers the statement that Singer believes the only way to solve poverty is by donating more than half of one's salary to the charity. Like Kalea, I agree with her that donating to charity is a good idea to help the ones that are in a tough situation but donating more than half of someone's hard earned salary to the charity is a bit too much. I also agree that there is nothing wrong with treating oneself to something good with the money that he or she earned because it is their money that they worked hard to earn after all. If Singer's solution is to donate 70% of the salary to the charity then everyone's purpose for work will be to earn money to help the poor instead of working for their happiness and what they desire.
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