Peter Singer’s 1972 paper, “Famine, Affluence and Morality,” challenges some of the fundamental premises of our moral positioning. He argues how timely actions can reduce the sufferings of the disadvantaged and challenges the common knowledge of helping others as supererogatory rather than obligatory.
The backdrop of Singer’s paper was the suffering of the millions in East Bengal in 1971. In this view, charity and generosity are unacceptable terms to describe the act of helping people facing death due to lack of food, medicine and shelter. Because of this notion, a person who does charity is praised, but the one who avoids it is not condemned – something Singer despises severely.
Singer argues that humans are obliged to prevent a wrong from happening, whether it’s in the neighbourhood or an unknown land. To quote his famous example of a drowning child,
if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but this is insignificant, while the death of the child would presumably be a very bad thing.
Peter Singer, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Philosophy & Public Affairs 1 (3), 1972, 229.
This act of saving the child is not just praiseworthy; it is required.
To summarise, Singer challenges our moral positioning about charity. His idea, one way or another, paves the foundation of genuine altruism (as a moral requirement) in society. His views are twofold: 1) it recognises contributions of affluent people as mandatory, and 2) it rejects the lack of proximity of the needy as an excuse not to help.
