In his now classic article entitled "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," influential atheist, ethicist, and animal activist Peter Singer challenges affluent western societies to “ante up” and relieve the global suffering caused by poverty and famine. To do so is not merely charitable; it is morally obligatory. It is unjustifiable that affluent nations and the affluent people who occupy them enjoy wealth beyond their needs while others are starving in distant lands. The fundamental principle we should follow is: “If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything [equally] morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it.” This principle should be applied impartially and universally, without respect to whether or not those suffering are within our own community or a great distance away. Although “moral attitudes are shaped by the needs of society,” a given society is nonetheless morally obligated to look beyond the welfare of its own people when there are millions outside of that society that are needlessly suffering.

Western societies’ norms need to be reconsidered, such that “no man should have more than enough, while others have less than they need,” and affluent societies ought morally to be “working full time” to the end of relieving great global suffering due to famine or natural disasters. The “strong version” of this principle would “require reducing ourselves to the level of marginal utility,” that is, to the point at which we would be as impoverished as our beneficiaries if we gave more.

The “moderate version” requires only that we prevent what is bad such that we do not sacrifice something else of [comparable] moral significance. Morally insignificant sacrifices would include “trivia” such as forgoing buying new clothes when the older ones we have are still wearable. Although the moderate version would certainly have a significant impact, the strong version is really the “correct one,” and there is really “no good reason for holding the moderate version of the principle rather than the strong version.”  

According to Singer, this principle escapes criticism usually directed toward utilitarian moral systems since it is based on a correct assessment of the world as it actually is and contains our real obligations in light of these realities. Criticism of the correctness of this principle exposes less any inherent weakness within the principle itself than our own self-interested and self-indulgent “ordinary standards of behavior” which we need to reconsider.           

What are we to make of Singer's exhortation? In espousing his principle, Peter Singer is inconsistent. It is apparent that he holds to some version of cultural moral relativism since he allows that each society shapes its own moral attitudes, but he disallows the moral attitude of accumulating affluence beyond one’s needs in the face of global suffering, claiming that all affluent societies are morally obligated to divest themselves on behalf of the poor. By asserting a moral principle that he clearly contends is universal, he defeats his own moral relativism, requiring that he now provide us with grounds upon which to accept this universal principle. As an atheist, however, it would appear that Singer has no grounds outside of his own ideological disdain for affluence and his preference for the poor. His moral principle, therefore, appears to be no more than Singer’s personal construction.         

Furthermore, Singer is hypocritical. His animal activism is well known, and he has argued that human beings have no basis for claiming superiority over other animals (an attitude which he calls "speciesism"), and that there is no aspect of humanness that renders a human inherently more valuable than any other animal. Value is a matter of functionality, not some inherent ontological element. But if this is the case, what makes my alleged obligation to the cause of Africans infected with AIDS more compelling than my perceived obligation to the cause of suffering caribou in Alaska or suffering arachnids in Central America? What gives human beings any intrinsic value at all that should require me to give to a human cause before that of any other animal? Without recognizing the image of God in man, there would appear to be nothing, and unless Singer is willing to recognize such an image, his appeal to affluent nations to divest themselves on behalf of suffering humans falls upon its own sword.           

Finally, Singer’s principle is wholly impractical and quite simply naïve. In arguing for the “strong version” of his principle, he apparently sees nothing troubling with divesting the affluent of all financial discretion and impoverishing the very resource that he seeks to mobilize. In essence, Singer would prefer a world in which everyone is equally destitute. Rather than a world of equal affluence, Singer proposes a world of shared poverty in which each man’s condition would be equally miserable, and no one would be in a financial position to assist anyone. Also, Singer has left us with no criteria for adjudicating among competing needs. Shall we target AIDS orphans in Africa, the homeless in Somalia, or organizations that rescue female slaves? Contrary to Singer, it would seem that informed personal conscience and individual moral discernment must win the day after all.

Blessings,

Arnie Gentile