Famine, Affluence, and Morality

“Constant poverty, a cyclone, and a civil war have turned at least nine million people into destitute refugees; nevertheless, it is not beyond the capacity of the richer nations to give enough assistance to reduce any further suffering to very small proportions. The decisions and actions of human beings can prevent this kind of suffering. Unfortunately, human beings have not made the necessary decisions.”

Singer directly states the problem and a possible solution. Baldly proclaiming that people have decided not to help the millions of refugees who are suffering appeals to the reader’s conscience, making one wonder why we have chosen to ignore preventable suffering.

At the government level, no government has given the sort of massive aid that would enable the refugees to survive for more than a few days. Britain, for instance, has given rather more than most countries. It has, to date, given £14,750,000. For comparative purposes, Britain’s share of the nonrecoverable development costs of the Anglo-French Concorde project is already in excess of £275,000,000, and on present estimates will reach £440,000,000. The implication is that the British government values a supersonic transport more than thirty times as highly as it values the lives of the nine million refugees.”

Singer writes in a direct and objective manner. He presents easily digestible facts to point out the sums of money that are available to governments, using one example of how the largest donor nation to Bangladesh will spend only half a billion pounds. A simple calculation leads to his conclusion that the government of Great Britain values an airplane more than millions of human lives. It’s an effective way to stir reader indignation.

“What are the moral implications of a situation like this? In what follows, I shall argue that the way people in relatively affluent countries react to a situation like that in Bengal cannot be justified; indeed, the whole way we look at moral issues—our moral conceptual scheme—needs to be altered, and with it, the way of life that has come to be taken for granted in our society.”

Singer prepares the reader for the profound consequences of his ideas, stating that they will alter the way we frame moral issues. The straightforward acknowledgement prepares readers for the fact that we will need to alter our way of life if we are to make headway in reducing human suffering.