Singer on Famine Relief.
Singer argues that (nearly) all of us are failing in a serious moral
duty, namely the duty to contribute to famine relief. He offers two
arguments, differing slightly in the crucial moral premise. He
subsequently considers a number of objections.
The argument, in its two versions, is this:
Argument 1.
1. Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical
care are bad.
2. If it is in one’s power to prevent something bad from
happening, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral
worth (i.e. without causing something comparably bad, or
doing anything wrong in itself, or failing to promote some
comparable good), then one ought to do it.
3. People are now dying of starvation, and we could prevent
some of these deaths by contributing to charities devoted to
famine relief.
Therefore
4. We should contribute to famine relief most or all of our
income which we now devote to unnecessary purchases (new
clothes, new cars, etc. that replace serviceable but older items
of the kind, single malt and fishing equipment, nights at the
movies, and so on).
Argument 2 differs only in the second premise, which is replaced
by a weaker formulation:
1. Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical
care are bad.
2’. If it is in one’s power to prevent something very bad from
happening without compromising anything that is morally
significant, one ought to do so.
3. People are now dying of starvation, and we could prevent
some of these deaths by contributing to charities devoted to
famine relief.
Therefore
4. We should contribute to famine relief most or all of our
income which we now devote to unnecessary purchases (new
clothes, new cars, etc. that replace serviceable but older items
of the kind, single malt and fishing equipment, nights at the
movies, and so on).
The conclusions of the two arguments actually differ in the amount
one is obliged to contribute. On the first argument, most or all of
our income amounts to this—we ought contribute until our quality
of life is just above that of those who our contributions help. In the
second argument, the amount one is obliged to contribute is simply
those resources whose absence does not seriously impair the wellbeing of you or your dependents.
Singer thinks that premises 2 and 2’ are controversial, and require
some defense. In particular, they imply that what one ought to do
to prevent the bad thing from happening does not depend on
whether others are similarly able to prevent the bad thing from
happening.
Beneficence and Supererogation.
It is generally presumed that we have duties of beneficence to
others. When you can do someone a great good by a small
sacrifice, it is wrong not to do this. So, e.g., if you can save the life
of another at the cost to you of merely five minutes time and wet
clothes, it is wrong of you not to save the life.
It is generally presumed that duties of beneficence do not require
enormous sacrifices. So, for example, many of us could save the
life of another who is in need of a kidney. But we are not morally
required to undergo a risky operation, and impair our long term
health, but donating one of our kidneys.
An action is supererogatory if it is good because beneficent, but
not morally required. So, for example, saving a child from
drowning when this poses no risk to your life—the water is not that
deep and you are an able swimmer—is morally required. Not to
do this is to fail in a duty of beneficence. On the other hand,
risking your life to save a child stuck in a burning house is not
required by one’s duty of beneficence. Such enduring such a risk,
as in this case and that of organ donation, is supererogatory. As
such it is an action worthy of special moral praise.
The idea of supererogation and duties of beneficence raises a
problem. Where do duties of beneficence leave off; just how do
we draw the line between acts that merely fulfill one’s moral duty
and acts that are supererogatory?
Suppose there are X number of people positioned to prevent a
grievous harm, of whom you are one. If all acted in concert, each
would need to sacrifice G (say, 10 bucks or 10 minutes, or
whatever) in order to prevent the harm. But if only one acts to
prevent the harm, much more will be required—N times G, where
N is the number of people similarly positioned.
One idea for limiting duties of beneficence is this. Under the
above conditions, beneficence requires that you sacrifice G.
Sacrificing more than this is doing more than your share, and so is
supererogatory. Call this claim the thesis of limited beneficence.
The idea is pretty intuitive. It is also contradicted by Singer’s
premises 2 and 2’.
Singer defends 2 and 2’ as follows.
First, he offers an implicit reflective equilibrium argument.
1. If one endorses limited beneficence, one must claim that the
strength of one’s obligation to prevent an evil decreases when
others are similarly positioned to prevent the evil.
2. If this is true, then one is less obliged to save a drowning
child (at no risk of your own life) when others standing by
see the child, but do not act.
3. Were this true, one would be less culpable for failing to act if
others failed also to act to save the child.
4. One is not less culpable.
Therefore
5. It is not true that obligations of beneficence lessen in strength
when others are well positioned to prevent the evil in
question.
Therefore
6. The thesis of limited beneficence is not true.
In this argument, only 2 is explicit.
Singer considers two objections to premise 2/2’, and two
objections to premise 3.
The first objection to premise 2/2’ is this. People are in fact
incapable of living up to the moral obligations expressed in 2/2’.
If one insists on principles which cannot generally be met, then
people will not take seriously even the moral principles they can
live up to. So it is better to endorse a mistaken conception of
limited duties of beneficence, than not—for if we don’t limit duties
of beneficence, people will ignore not only those duties (because
they are incapable of living up to them) but also the moral duties
which make civilized societies possible, e.g. the duties not to kill
or steal, and so on.
Singer’s response is that:
1) What people will find themselves able to do is generally a
function of what they take others to expect of them, and if it
is expected of them that they will live up to 2/2’, they will.
2) Even if they will generally not do so, there is little chance
that asking people to do this will lead to a general breakdown
in morals. And it is worth running this risk in order to
prevent worldwide famine.
3) Finally, the argument at best establishes that we ought not
expect others to live up to 2/2’. It does not change the fact
that each of us individually ought to live up to it.
The second objection to premise 2/2’ is this. The duties of
beneficence defined by 2 and 2’ require behavior that will turn out
to be ineffective. To fulfill our duty we must work to the point of
exhaustion, and live at the point of poverty, in which
circumstances we are in fact less able to prevent famine relief than
we would otherwise be.
Singer responds that if this in fact 2 and 2’ don’t require any such
thing. They require only that one work to relieve famine only to
the extent that nothing of comparable moral worth, or nothing of
significant moral worth, respectively, is lost. So one has not
dispensed with the idea of supererogation. Further, within the
scope of those duties of beneficence, one should work as best as
possible to remove famine—so if more work, or more sacrifice,
would actually decrease the aid one can render, one ought not work
any harder.
Singer also considers three objections to premise three. These
objections concede that one ought to do what one can to prevent
famine, but deny that the best way to do this is by contributing (or
by contributing as much as Singer argues we ought) to charities
devoted to famine relief.
The first objection is this. Effective famine relief is really a job for
governments. By contributing to private charities, one makes it
possible for governments to ignore this obligation. So
contributions to private charities are a bad idea, and actually harm
the cause of famine relief in the long run.
Singer responds that we all ought to work to encourage our
governments to undertake famine relief, but says that by failing to
contribute to private charities we make it likely that our
government will think its citizens don’t care about famine relief,
and therefore make it likely that the government won’t undertake
famine relief.
A second objection claims that famine is produced by
overpopulation. So saving lives now contributes to greater
starvation in the future. Hence one should not contribute to famine
relief.
Singer agrees that that the factual claim might be right, but argues
that it merely changes the nature of what we are obliged to do.
Rather than contribute to famine relief, i.e. to projects which aim to
save the lives of those now starving, one ought to work for
effective population control, i.e. to prevent the births of people
who, if born, will starve in the future. The extent of these
obligations are no less exacting than of the obligations to prevent
the deaths of those now starving, it is just that our efforts ought to
be differently aimed.
The third objection is this. Premises 2/2’ seem to require that we
collectively give to the point at which the productivity of our own
economy is lessened. If we are giving excess income to famine
relief rather than buying clothes, cars and movie tickets, lots of
people will be out of work. This bad, and so on premise 2’, at
least, not required. Hence while we might be obliged to contribute
to famine relief, we cannot be obliged to contribute to the extent
Singer implies.
Singer responds that:
a) Actually, it is premise 2 not 2’ that is right.
b) Even if it is 2’ that is right, we are obliged to do a great
deal more than we are now doing.
c) There are economic reasons, as well as philosophical,
for thinking that economic continued economic growth
is a bad thing. In which case, it is not true that
contributions which decrease growth are bad (they will
be good because they prevent a bad thing, namely
economic growth), so even on 2’, we ought to
contribute as much as Singer implies.
A Possible Flaw in the Defense of 2/2’:
The case of the drowning child is relevantly different from the case
of famine relief. No one can by herself relieve famine. But each
person viewing the drowning child can by her own efforts save the
child. Moreover, in the case of the drowning child, there is a
particular person who suffers the evil which would have been
prevented had any individual acted. This is not so in the case of
famine relief. If you contribute $100 to famine relief, fewer people
will starve to death this year. But there is no particular person who
will live if you contribute but who will die if you don’t. There is
simply no fact of the matter about which of those saved by, say,
Feed the Children, got your $100 worth of food. Consequently,
there is particular person who is harmed by your failure to
contribute. This is not to say that failure doesn’t make the world a
worse place; it is to say that the way in which the world is worse is
morally different from the way in which it is worse if you fail to
save the drowning child.
The difference can be put in a principled fashion:
When one can prevent a great evil from befalling a particular
person or persons without sacrificing something of morally
comparable value (or morally significant value), you are obliged to
prevent the evil, whether or not others are positioned to help you
do so, and whether or not they act to help you to do so.
You are so obliged because if you fail to act, the person who
suffers the evil has a moral complaint against you (as against the
other bystanders)—you could have, but did not, prevent her
suffering without enduring comparable suffering yourself.
When one can prevent a great evil without sacrificing something of
morally comparable value (or morally significant value), but no
one in particular is helped by your sacrifice, things are different. If
you fail to act, or fail to act in an effective manner, no one has a
moral complaint against you, because no one is in a position to say
that you could have, but did not, prevent her suffering without
enduring comparable suffering yourself.
In these circumstances, one is obliged only
to contribute your fair share to prevent the suffering. To do less is
to impose an undue burden on your fellows. But no more is
required, because if your fellows fail in their obligation, while you
do not, avoidable evil is suffered, but not by anyone who has a
cogent moral complaint against you.
A Possible Objection to 3.
It is false that famine is generally caused by overpopulation.
Famine is generally caused by governments (or the lack of them)
which make it structurally impossible for local populations to be
self sufficient. Famine is a consequence of war and of bad
government. It is also false that famine relief fails for lack of
funds. More typically, there is plenty of food available, it is
merely that conditions make its distribution impossible (war,
weather conditions, such as flood, and government policy).
Effective famine relief requires effective distribution, this is
generally lacking, and there is nothing an individual citizen of one
country can do to make effective distribution possible in other
countries.
CAUTIONARY NOTE:
This objection is cogent in some, highly publicized, cases of
famine. It is not cogent with respect to all sorts of cases of lowlevel but endemic poverty. E.g. it might arguably apply to recent
‘emergency situation’ famines in several countries in Africa, but
clearly does not apply to the endemic plight of children in most
Central and South American countries.