short essay 200 words

World Hunger Instructor’s

Supplementary Notes: Singer

(2007); Rolston III (2007)

Note: Remember that you must also read the articles assigned each week. Instructor’s notes are

not a substitute for reading the original articles.

A. Preliminaries.

1. Let’s talk about some statistical facts first:

 As of 2005, at least 1 billion of the world’s children live in poverty;

 Roughly 10.9 million children under the age of five die in developing countries around

the world;

 Almost one quarter of the children in developing countries are at risk of long term health

problems due to undernourishment;

 Almost half of the world’s population (i. e., 3 billion people) survive on less than $2.50

per day;

 15 million children Worldwide have been orphaned because of HIV/AIDS;

 30, 000 children die each day due to poverty;

 The wealthiest 20% is responsible for 75% of consumption.

To get an informed perspective on these facts and other related data I strongly encourage you to

consult the following sources:

(i) United Nations World Food Programme Hunger Stats 1 ;

(ii) The Millennium Development Goals Report 2 ;

(iii) World Bank Development Research Group 3 ;

1 http://www.wfp.org/hunger/stats

2 http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/Progress2010/MDG__Report__2010__En.pdf

3 http://www.worldbank.org/

(iv) UNICEF 4 .

2. Given the above facts, the question we face is really very simple:

Do wealthy nations, as nations, have a moral duty to assist less developed countries;

and if they do have such a duty, what is the scope of the assistance they are morally

required to offer?

3. The answers to this question can be divided into three groups:

I. Strong Egalitarians: Wealthy nations have a moral obligation to offer substantial aid

to poor nations even if doing so requires significant sacrifices from their own citizens;

II. Strong Anti-Egalitarians: Wealthy nations have no moral obligation to provide any

aid to poorer countries regardless of the conditions of the people in those countries,

although there may be other reasons such as charity, prudence, Geopolitical

considerations, etc., that may prompt wealthy nations to help;

III. Middle Position: Wealthy nations do have some moral obligation to help poorer

countries, but only to the extent that such help does not burden excessively the population

of the providing country.

4. The considerations that support each of these positions may be somewhat different. The

Strong egalitarians (e.g., Singer) rely on utilitarian considerations. Others in this group may

argue that the enormous wealth accumulated by certain countries is due to a long historical

exploitation of the poorer countries. Offering aid is part of reparation for past wrongdoing.

Strong Anti-Egalitarians may argue that aid provided to poor countries artificially increases the

population of those countries and will cause even worse conditions in the future. Therefore, short

term aid is actually immoral. Those who argue for the middle position contends that while there

is a duty to aid poorer countries, the scope and degree of such aid must be weighed against

several other obligations (e.g., environmental) and rights as well as against the long term benefit

of those countries.

5. I will leave it up to you to decide which position you find most appealing.

B. Singer (2007)

1. Singer is fierce advocate of the Strong-Egalitarian position: i.e., it is the moral duty of wealthy

nations and the international community to aid impoverished nations. His argument is the

following:

Premise 1. Starvation and the often resulting death from starvation is inherently a bad thing;

4 http://unicef.org/sowc05/english/sow05.pdf

Lupu 3

Premise 2. Many things which people in the more affluent nations purchase for their time,

money, and other valuable assets are not essential for their survival;

Premise 3. “[I]f it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening” without excessive

sacrifice of essential needs or of “anything of comparable moral importance”, then we are

morally obligated to do so (Singer, p. 614);

Therefore,

Conclusion: It is our moral duty to assist the needy in poorer nations by forgoing luxuries and

other unnecessary items and instead use these resources for such assistance.

2. I suspect that Singer’s first premise is uncontroversial. The second premise may also be

fundamentally uncontroversial, although its scope may include some controversial items. I will

assume that with some minor adjustments the second premise is also acceptable. So everything

depends on Singer’s third premise.

3. The antecedent (i.e., the if-clause) of the third premise consists of a conjunction of two

propositions:

a. The affluent nations of the world can prevent starvation (i.e., “something bad from

happening”) without sacrificing “anything of comparable moral importance”.

b. The affluent nations of the world can prevent starvation (i.e., “something bad from

happening”) without excessive sacrifice of essential needs;

4. The two propositions in turn give rise to two different Principles of Preventing Bad

Occurrences (PPBO). Since there is hardly anything that is comparable in moral importance to

starvation or death due to starvation, proposition (a) gives rise to a Strong PPBO which

essentially morally requires people in wealthy nations to give so much to poorer nations so as to

reduce themselves to “the level at which, by giving more, I would cause as much suffering to

myself or my dependants as I would relieve by my gift.” (Singer, p. 619). Proposition (b) gives

rise to a Moderate PPBO which merely requires wealthy nations to provide to poor nations only

as much as they can without thereby sacrificing the essential needs of their own population.

5. I will leave it up to you to determine whether Singer’s argument is sound and if so on the basis

of which moral theory. I will also leave it up to you to identify various objections to his position.

C. Rolston III (2007)

1. Rolston’s argument is fascinating and I will leave it up to you to discern his basic premises

and conclusion and decide for yourself whether they are acceptable to you.