Due Nov 16 Singer Essay

What Do I Justly Deserve?
Cheryl Bale
North Georgia University Singer argues that people with more money and resources than they require to survive are obligated to help those who have less than they need to survive. He explains how those in developed countries have so much more than undeveloped countries. He defines absolute poverty as: “the lack of sufficient income in cash or kind to meet the most basic biological needs for food, clothing, and shelter” (Singer, 704). Singer explains the world is able to feed and shelter its people. He defines absolute affluence as: those who “have more income than they need to provide themselves adequately with all the basic necessities of life” (Singer, 705). He states that its defining standard is a significant amount of income above the level necessary to provide for the basic human needs of oneself and one’s dependents. He concludes that by this standard, the majority of citizens of Western Europe, North America, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and the oil-rich Middle Eastern states are absolutely affluent. He contends these are the countries and individuals who have wealth that they could transfer to the absolutely poor without threatening their own basic welfare. Singer contends that only by transferring some of the wealth of the rich nations to the poor can the situation be changed. Singer contends that it is our duty to give. He states that suffering and death caused by lack of food, shelter, or medical care are bad. He argues that if we are able to prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we morally should do it. Sacrifice means without causing anything else comparably bad to happen or doing something that is wrong in itself. He gives the example of one walking by a shallow pond where a child is drowning. One should wade in and pull the child out. While doing this, one’s clothes may be ruined. However, that would be insignificant as the death of a child would be very bad. He argues that we have an obligation to help those in absolute poverty that is just as strong as rescuing a drowning child. We can reduce avoidable death and suffering by giving to famine relief, disaster relief, and charities. The cost of doing so is morally insignificant reduction to our standard of living. Therefore, we should give to famine relief and other such charities. Hobbes contends that before a political government is set up, we are in a state of nature. In this state of nature, humans compete for scarce resources. Hobbes argues that as long as there no power to keep men in control, there is a constant warring. He refers to this as a state of war. His second law of nature is reminiscent of the Golden Rule. Hobbes views are consistent with Singer at this point. Hobbes concludes that it is natural and rational for people to give up some liberty in order to gain security of self-preservation and develops the Social Contract. He defines contract as “the mutual transferring of right”. In the state of nature, everyone has the right to everything; there are no limits to the right of natural liberty. During Hobbes’ life-time, rulers claimed that their authority came from God. Hobbes secularized politics. This led to an increasing demand for accountability of rulers to the people. (Hobbes) Rawls’ offers two principles of social justice, the Principle of Equal Liberty and the Difference Principle. In the Principle of Equal Liberty, each person is to be granted the greatest degree of liberty consistent with liberty for everyone. The Difference Principle says that practices that produce inequalities among individuals are allowable only if they benefit those who are least well off relative to the least well off. This principle allows practices that result in unequal distribution of social and economic benefits only if such practices benefit those who are the least well off relative to the state of the least well off under other systems of

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