44 pages • 1 hour read
Peter SingerA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Singer believes that members of affluent societies should be giving far more of their time and money to effective charities than they currently do. This leads him to question what factors (especially psychological ones) limit the amount that people give.
Some limitations on giving result from assumptions about the way the world is and the way it should be. The naturalistic fallacy, a mistake in the reasoning process first articulated in the 18th century by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, states that facts about the way the world is say nothing about the way the world should be. This fallacious reasoning assumes that nothing needs changed—that nature is the arbiter of right action. Singer, contending with those who implicitly accept this fallacy, writes:
The fact that we tend to favor our families, communities, and countries may explain our failure to save the lives of the poor beyond those boundaries, but it does not justify that failure from an ethical perspective, no matter how many generations of our ancestors have seen nothing wrong with it (41).
It is normal that giving is often limited to one’s family, community, church, or country, but this does not make it right.
By Peter Singer
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Business & Economics
View Collection
Challenging Authority
View Collection
Community
View Collection
Contemporary Books on Social Justice
View Collection
Philosophy, Logic, & Ethics
View Collection
Politics & Government
View Collection
Poverty & Homelessness
View Collection
Power
View Collection
Sociology
View Collection