Famine, Affluence, and Morality PDF
Preview Famine, Affluence, and Morality
F a m i n e , aFFluence , and morality F a m i n e , aFFluence , and morality P S eter inger 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Peter Singer 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Singer, Peter, 1946- author. Famine, affluence, and morality / Peter Singer. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-0-19-021920-8 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Humanitarianism. 2. Famines—Moral and ethical aspects. 3. Poverty—Moral and ethical aspects. 4. Suffering—Moral and ethical aspects. 5. Wealth—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Title. BJ1475.3.S56 2015 170—dc23 2015005676 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Typeset in Miller Text Font Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper contents Foreword—Bill and Melinda Gates vii PreFace—Peter Singer ix acknowledgments xxxi Famine, aFFluence, and morality 1 the singer solution to w orld Poverty 33 what should a Billionaire give— and what should y ou? 51 Foreword t he world has improved dramatically in the more than forty years that have passed since Singer wrote “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.” The propor- tion of the world’s population living in ex- treme poverty today is less than half what it was then, and the proportion of children who die before their fifth birthday has plunged even more. In 1960, almost 20 percent of the world’s children died before their fifth birthday. By 1990, it was around 10 percent, and now it’s closer to 5 percent. But 5 percent is still too many—on the order of 6.3 million child deaths a year. Most of these deaths are the result of conditions vii like diarrhea, pneumonia, or malaria that we know how to prevent or cure. Nevertheless, the reduction in child deaths is encouraging. It shows that aid does work and refutes the damaging myth that foreign aid does no good. Singer’s work argues that we can work together to prevent very bad things from happening—like the deaths of children. The evidence for this claim is much stronger now than it was in 1972. Fortunately, more and more people are seeing that this is the case, and many of them are also taking action. You might suggest that Singer’s article was ahead of its time when it was originally published. But perhaps it’s time has now come. —Bill and Melinda Gates, co-chairs, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation viii · Foreword PreFace F “ amine, Affluence, and Morality” was written at the height of the refugee crisis brought about by military repression in what was then East Pakistan. Nine million people fled across the border into India, where they strug- gled to survive in refugee camps. With the ben- efit of hindsight, we can see the crisis as a pivotal stage in the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent nation, but at the time that fortunate outcome seemed improbable, whereas the immense number of people in peril was ap- parent. I used the dire emergency as a spring- board for my argument that people in affluent nations should be doing much more to help ix
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