Famine, Affluence, and Morality

The main rhetorical device that Singer uses is deductive reasoning. As a work of philosophy, the essay is the systematic building of an argument based on logic. He thus uses a standard approach of laying out assumptions and premises to state a principle. He begins with the assumption that suffering is bad, taking this as a given. From there, he asserts that if we can do something to prevent suffering without sacrificing anything of moral significance, then we should. Promoting good over bad seems equally self-evident. This becomes the principle at the center of the essay: “if it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it.” (14).

Singer uses the device of concession in several places, which leads the reader to view him as a reasonable person, not absolute or rigid in his thinking. The result is that the reader is more likely to accept his ideas. One main concession has to do with Singer’s central principle that we have a moral obligation to prevent something bad if we can. He first states that we should act to do so if it does not involve sacrificing something “of comparable moral importance” (5-6).