Abstract

In his 1972 work Famine, Affluence and Morality, Peter Singer presents an argument that we of the developed world, can and ought to do more for the developing nations to alleviate their poverty. Singer believes that his argument leads to the inescapable conclusion that we should keep giving to the poor until giving more, will harm us more than it will benefit them. Singer’s conclusion is reached however, using a cost benefit analysis of absolute welfare to determine cost; whereas by using a capabilities/freedoms approach combined with Pareto efficiency to determine cost, we reach a much more acceptable conclusion - a Pareto efficient conception of justice. This commits us to helping/aiding the poor, but only up until a level where we lose a capability of our own, a reduction not in relative terms but rather absolute terms. In this paper, I outline this different conception of justice based on a Pareto Efficient Capabilities Approach.