Central questions to ask ourselves when reading Singer.

Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence, and Morality

What is Singer main thesis? What is his argument (=reasons) for that thesis? Are we convinced by that argument? Why? Why not?

Structure of the Argument

P1: suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad. P2: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. Therefore, We ought (morally) to do whatever it is in our power to prevent death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care. That is to say, we are morally required to do all we can. It is a moral fault to do otherwise. Corollary: we should donate a large part of our salaries. ('we ought to give money away, and it is wrong not to do so' (p. 235))
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Singer's premises
Compare Singer's second premise with a stronger version of it. Singer says that he believes the second to be true, but does not want to use it. Why?

Strong: if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it. Weak: if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it.

Singer's premises
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Objection 1
I am morally required to help those who are around me, my friends, family and fellow citizens. But I am not morally required to help people who is far away and know nothing about.

Does Singer offer any reason for his second premise?

What does Singer say in reply?

Objection 2
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Objection 2 improved
If everyone in my circumstances gives !5, then the problem of famine would be solved. Therefore, I am not morally obliged to give more than !5.
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I am not morally required to help other people if nobody else helps. Isn't it unfair that I should be donating a large part of my salary when nobody else does?

What is Singer first reply to this?

The sound argument would be:

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What is Singer first reply to this?

If everyone in my circumstances gives !5, then the problem of famine would be solved. Therefore, if everyone in my circumstances gave !5, I would not be morally obliged to give more than !5.

Objection 3
If we are morally required to donate so much, then people in need would have to start having more than they need, perhaps much more. And we would be very tight ourselves. Some of our sacrifice would have been in vain. This is not only a bad consequence of your view. It is an absurd or paradoxical consequence. Why? Because it follows from your view that if we all do what is morally required for us to do, then the result would be worse than it would be if we did not do what is morally required from us (if we did less that that).
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Two possible futures -Everyone does their moral duty 10$ each 100$ each 3$ each -Everyone does less than their moral duty 30$ each

The actual situation

What is Singer's reply?

Basic needs for one person can be covered with 10$

25$ each 25$ each

Objection 4
You are missing the distinction between charity and duty. I agree with you that it is a morally good thing to help people in need, but we are not morally required to help. We praise people who do this. But that is an act of charity -not duty.

Objection 5
The revision of our moral conceptual scheme is too drastic. People do not usually think that failure to donate part (most?) of their income is a moral fault.

What is Singer's reply?

What is Singer's reply?

Objection 6
Even if you are advocating a revision (=change) of our moral scheme, it looks as the wrong revision to pursue. If we want people to behave morally, we should given them a moral code that is realistic, one that we may realistically expect them to comply with. If we are too demanding, they will do nothing. If we are a bit less demanding, they may do something. This is why we have moral codes that are not too demanding, and it does not look a good idea to change them in the way you propose.
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Objection 7
Your view implies that we are all morally required to work extra hours, as hard as we can, and then give away the fruit of our efforts. And we are morally reproachable persons if we do otherwise. Isn't that absurd? Additional thought: that consequence looks to me so absurd, that even if I cannot find a fault in your argument, I am sure there might be one somewhere on it.
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What is Singer's reply?

What is Singer's reply?

'Practical objections'
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Some links with Mill

Mill: Though it is only in a very imperfect state of the world's arrangements that any one can best serve the happiness of others by the absolute sacrifice of his own, yet so long as the world is in that imperfect state, I fully acknowledge that the readiness to make such a sacrifice is the highest virtue which can be found in man. (bottom of p. 6) Compare with Singer in p. 238.

It's the government business, not ours. Relieving famine by donations do not really solve the deep problem, it merely postpones it. What is needed is structural changes, and population control. If we give too much, our economy will slow down.

Some links with Mill

Mill: I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent's own happiness, but that of all concerned. As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator. (p. 7) Compare with Singer in p. 232 and elsewhere.

Some links with Williams

Williams: How can a man, as an utilitarian agent, come to regard as one satisfaction among others, and a dispensable one, a project or attitude round which he has built his life, just because someone else's projects have so structured the causal scene that that is how the utilitarian sum comes out? (p. 116) It is absurd to demand of such a man, when the sums come in from the utility network which the projects of others have in part determined, that he should just step aside from his own project and acknowledge the decision which utilitarian calculation requires...(p. 116)