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In fact, Singer identifies those who are morally obliged to do much more as those in “relatively affluent countries”. Peter Singer, “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 1, No. 3 (1972): 229-243, p. 230. Given his argument, however, it is not clear why the moral obligation that Singer identifies is restricted to this population group. In other words it is not clear why the affluent in poor countries are not also identified. In any case, the principles that Singer provides indicate the conditions in which the principles apply to an agent and thus operate independently from Singer’s explicit identification.
This is assuming that the contribution of others does not change much. Of course if significant giving became widespread, then it might be the case that preventing the harms of global poverty would not require radical changes to the way we live.
In fact, in the paper he also offers an alternative, Moderate Principle. It’s clear though that Singer favors the Strong Principle. Ibid., p 241. Indeed, Singer shows that The Moderate Principle is too weak to account for our intuitions by appealing to the case of Bob’s Bugatti, a case originally conceived by Peter Unger. See Peter Singer, Life You Can Save (New York: Random House, 2009), p. 14, also see Peter Unger, Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 136.
Peter Singer 1972, op. cit., p. 231.
Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 3rd Edition, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 199.
Singer, 1972 op. cit., p. 231.
Ibid..
It is possible to reconstruct the argument differently. One could have an extra premise that makes explicit the move from the moral should to should. We believe, however, that the above reconstruction better reflects the moves that Singer makes. Singer never explicitly claims that what we should do morally is what we should do.
Ibid., p. 241.
Singer holds that adherence to either the Moderate Principle, see endnote 3, or the Strong Principle in present conditions, given the extent of global poverty and the current shortfall in resources to end that problem, would lead to a radical change in lifestyle for the currently affluent. See Singer 2011, op. cit., p. 200.
It may be that morality does trump other considerations, including in this case. We at least need an argument for this view, however, given that it is contentious. If Singer appeals to such an argument, then, based on the plausibility of that argument, we can assess in total the merits of Singer’s influential and philosophically important argument.
Singer 1972, op. cit., p. 241.
Relatedly, while the natural reading of what Singer writes is that he has moral bads in mind, there is a question as to whether we shouldn’t also consider non-moral bads, or very bads, as being covered by Singer’s articulations of the Strong Principle. There is not any significant textual evidence in favor of interpreting bad in a sense that goes beyond moral bad, so we will not interpret Singer in that way.
See Samuel Scheffler, The Rejection of Consequentialism: a Philosophical Investigation of the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982); also see Thomas Nagel, The Possibility of Altruism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978).
This position would be consistent with it turning out that in some all things considered cases the non-moral has priority over the moral.
Non-moral value may include prudential, aesthetic, epistemic, filial, and perhaps more.
See Peter Railton, “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13 No. 2 (1984), pp. 134-171; also see Bernard Williams, “A Critique of Utilitarianism,” in J. J. C. Smart and Bernard Williams (eds.), Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), pp. 77-150; also see Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (London: Fontana, 1985); and also see Susan Wolf, “Moral Saints,” Journal of Philosophy, 79 No. 8 (1982), pp. 419-439.
See Singer 1972, op. cit., p. 231. Actually, in the original paper Singer offers the example in support of the weaker principle but it can be used to support the stronger principle too.
The example serves to illustrate one way in which the principle is demanding. The principle doesn’t simply require a reduction of badness but instead its prevention (or, presumably, elimination.) Applied to the badness of global poverty, this sets a very ambitious goal.
See Garreth Cullity, “The Life Saving-Analogy,” in William Aiken and Hugh LaFollette (eds.), World Hunger and Morality, 2nd Edition (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1996) and Travis Timmerman, “Sometimes there is nothing wrong with letting a child drown,” Analysis, 75, No. 2, (2015), pp. 204-212.
In fact, there are estimates as to the number of children dying as a result of global poverty. Under-nutrition is believed to be the cause of more that 3 million children under the age of 5 years dying annually. See Robert E. Black, Harold Alderman, Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, Stuart Gillespie, Lawrence Haddad, Susan Horton, Anna Lartey et al., “Maternal and child nutrition: building momentum for impact,” The Lancet, 382, No. 9890, (2013), pp. 372-375.
Of course both strong principles require a degree of interpretation. The reader is left the work of figuring out exactly what might count as moral and what might count as comparable moral importance. One could accept the principle but think, for example, that morality requires partiality.
Singer 2011, op. cit., 199.
The broadness here is of course contingent on how things are in the actual world. If our world was very different, much better, then it could be the case that the antecedent wouldn’t be easily satisfied.
For an attempt to articulation a version of Singer’s principle with a more restricted scope, see Dale Dorsey, “Aggregation, partiality, and the strong beneficence principle,” Philosophical Studies, 146, No. 1, (2009), pp.139-157.
As mentioned earlier, while both of the strong principles refer to what we ought, morally, to do, Singer ends up treating this as what we should do.
It may be that a principle with broad scope is powerful in terms of the plausible guidance it provides for a large number of cases.
See Singer 1972, op. cit..
See Singer 2011, op. cit., and also see Peter Singer, Ethics in the Real World: 82 Brief Essays on Things That Matter (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2016).
Ibid., p. 166.
See Singer 2011, op. cit., p. 292.
See ibid., p. 285.
See Owen McLeod, “Just Plain “Ought”,” The Journal of Ethics, 5, No. 4 (2001), pp. 269–291; Sarah Stroud, “Moral Overridingness and Moral Theory,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 79, No. 2 (1998), pp. 170–189; Seana Valentine Shiffrin, “Moral Overridingness and Moral Subjectivism,” Ethics, 109, No. 4 (1999), pp. 772–794.
Stroud, op. cit., p. 171 and Shriffrin, op. cit., p. 773. Note, it may be the case that these definitions of the moral overridingness thesis are actually weaker than the overridingness that classical utilitarianism requires.
While in the body of the text we focus on a utilitarian approach as it seems more relevant for Singer, we briefly flag the Kantian approach here. Kant argues that moral commands are categorical rather than hypothetical; that is, their applicability does not depend on our contingent ends or desires. These categorical imperatives tell us what we have overriding reason to do. This Kantian view, however, has been challenged by Philippa Foot who rejects the claim that moral judgements are categorical. Referencing non-hypothetical, non-moral should statements, she denies that there is a basis for holding that we always have a decisive reason to adhere to moral rules. Philippa Foot, “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” The Philosophical Review, 81, No. 3 (1972), pp. 305–316.
Williams presents the case as follows: “Jim finds himself in the central square of a small South American town. Tied up against the wall are a row of twenty Indians, most terrified, a few defiant, in front of them several armed men in uniform. A heavy man in a sweat-stained khaki shirt turns out to be the captain in charge and, after a good deal of questioning of Jim which establishes that he got there by accident while on a botanical expedition, explains that the Indians are a random group of the inhabitants who, after recent acts of protest against the government, are just about to be killed to remind other possible protestors of the advantages of not protesting. However, since Jim is an honored visitor from another land, the captain is happy to offer him a guest’s privilege of killing one of the Indians himself. If Jim accepts, then as a special mark of the occasion, the other Indians will be let off. Of course, if Jim refuses, then there is no special occasion, and Pedro here will do what he was about to do when Jim arrived, and kill them all.” Williams 1973, op. cit., pp 98-99.
Wolf, op. cit..
Ibid., p. 433.
Ibid., p. 421.
Advocating such a narrowing of the principle shouldn’t be taken to suggest that we only think that the moral should be prioritized over the non-moral in such cases. Rather, we recommend this as a dialectical move in that we believe that we do not need to go beyond such a position to make Singer’s argument work and such a position can be more easily defended than a position that has a scope broader than this.
We wish to thank Russ Shafer-Landau and the reviewers who gave us valuable feedback on this paper.
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Ryan, S., Song, F. Famine, Action, and the Normative. J Value Inquiry 57, 59–69 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09804-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09804-2