Singer why act morally

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History of Western Philosophy. According to Singer, many of our commonsense moral beliefs are wrong. We are wrong about our obligations to distant strangers and animals and about the permissibility of infanticide. Thus all Singer can see himself as doing is expressing a set of attitudes that is different from those held by the majority p.

Singer attempts to argue that we have good reason to be moral because attempting to lead an ethical life provides a sense of meaning and purpose, and thus helps to satisfy the desire for happiness that most people do in fact possess.

Neither path seems to lead to happiness p. Singer responds to Huemer by denying that non-cognivitists must see moral judgements as mere expressions of preference or approval.

Our moral judgements are mistaken when they fail to fulfil these conditions. This allows the non-cognitivist to endorse revisionary ethical positions. The universalizable prescriptions to which a person is committed may be quite different from his current preferences or the prescriptions that he actually endorses p.

Singer admits that we may not be rationally required to act morally. However, he notes, the Humean account does not imply that it is irrational to try to act morally.

If I care very much about behaving in a way that can be impartially justified, it is rational for me to make great sacrifices to meet these standards. On the Humean account, no preference is irrational, whether it is a preference for my own welfare or a preference for impartial justification p. Moreover, he suggests, the prevalence of moral discourse suggests that we do care at least to some extent about meeting impartial standards p.

Singer emphasizes that acceptance of the ethical perspective is not an all-or-nothing choice. We can have a strong desire to act ethically, a desire that does affect our conduct, even if this desire is not over-riding.

Singer describes Helen, who accepts that she is morally required to give most of her money away, cares about doing what is morally right, but has other desires including a desire to go hiking. She gives a lot of money away, but spends a significant amount — more than she could justify impartially — on travel, accommodation and equipment for her hiking trip.

Singer claims that Helen can take satisfaction in her partial fulfilment of her moral demands — she is doing substantially better than most people — even if she recognises that some of her behaviour is unjustifiable. Greater levels of sacrifice are morally required, but are not rationally required p.

According to Singer, to act morally is to act in a way that can be justified impartially p. We care about behaving in a way that is justifiable from this perspective of impartial concern, but this desire to be moral is one among many human desires. A euthanasia policy based on sound ethical principles may in fact provide society with firmer ground for resisting unjustified killing. Over 10 million children under the age of five die every year from malnutrition and infection.

Some facts about wealth — North Americans consume kg of grain per capita annually, compared to kg in poor countries. The difference comes from feeding grain to animals for meat. The world produces enough food to feed everyone — the problem is in distribution and waste. The UN has set an aid target for wealthy nations of 0. The UK gives 0. The moral equivalent of murder?

If acts and omissions are morally equivalent, is this equivalent to murder? Examining some relevant differences shows that it is not, but that it is more serious than most of us imagine.

Motivation : By not giving, we do not intend to kill anyone. This is unlike murder, but is similar to the case manslaughter by a speeding driver who enjoys driving fast and is indifferent to the consequences. Difficulty : It is much easier to avoid murder than to save all the lives we can. This does not make a difference to the consequences, but it does make a difference to how much we can blame people without being counterproductive.

Certainty : Murder is more certain to end a life than giving is to save one. This matters, but not giving can again in this sense be compared to the case of a reckless driver who speeds through crosswalks without caring about the consequences.

Identifiability : If we murder a person, we can identify the victim; if we give aid, we often cannot identify the beneficiary. This makes no moral difference. If a salesperson sells products that he knows will cause an illness fatal to a percentage of buyers, we hold him responsible even though he cannot identify who will die.

Responsibility : Unlike in the case of murder, we have not created the situation in which a hungry person dies. From a consequentialist perspective, this does not matter. It does make a difference on a theory of rights that requires us only to avoid actively harming others, but such a theory is difficult to justify. The obligation to assist — If I walk by a child who is drowning in a puddle, and in order to save him I must ruin my clothes, it is obvious that I should save him.

What is the morally relevant difference between this situation and the actual current situation in which I can save a starving person overseas with a similarly trivial sacrifice?

The argument for an obligation to assist Premise 1: If we can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it. Premise 2: Extreme poverty is bad. Premise 3: There is some extreme poverty that we, as individuals, can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. Conclusion: We ought to prevent some extreme poverty. Objections to the argument Taking care of our own : The principle of equal consideration of interests rejects our instinct to favor those close to us.

Giving our children only as much as we give each starving African child could be psychologically devastating and practically disastrous, but the argument does not require this — only that we make sacrifices insignificant compared to the harm that we can prevent. Property rights : If we believe that we have a right to our legally obtained property, and someone else in need has no right to it, we might still stay that it is morally wrong not to give, even though within our rights.

Population and the ethics of triage: What if feeding poor people will simply lead to more poor people in the future? Should we instead allow nature to limit the populations in poor countries to sustainable levels?

This would mean allowing millions or billions to die of malnourishment, and would only be acceptable if we were confident that it would prevent even greater suffering in the future. But we cannot be confident of that, and we can in fact provide aid that helps limit population growth while relieving suffering, such as education, contraception, and farming technology.

Leaving it to the government: The government may be a more effective giver than private charities due to its greater resources.

If we give privately, do we allow the government to shirk this responsibility? There is no reason to be confident about this. We should both give privately and actively encourage government aid. Too high a standard? Does human nature make us incapable of altruism? Clearly not. Giving up luxuries to instead help the poor would sacrifice things that make a well-rounded life.

But we would not think it acceptable for a doctor at a train crash to help a fraction of the victims and then go to the opera. Is it counterproductive to advocate such a high standard? Possibly, but this has no bearing on the ethics of individual giving. The public recommendation that might result in the highest amount of giving could well be less than the amount that ethically, we should really give.

Insiders and Outsiders The shelter : Imagine a nuclear fallout scenario where a group of 10, people in a city had invested in a luxurious underground bunker, which could be extended to accommodate another 10, people for the 8 years of expected fallout danger by eliminating all luxuries swimming pools, tennis courts, etc. If you were one of the 10, people in the bunker, how many of the people clamoring outside the door would you vote to admit? The real world : There are about 15 million refugees in the world, [14] most of which are receiving refuge in poor neighboring countries.

For many such people, repatriation will not be an option in the foreseeable future, and the countries where they are currently living cannot support them with a decent standard of living.

The refusal of richer nations to accept significant numbers of refugees also causes poorer countries to tighten their borders, since they know that refugees that they admit will not be resettled elsewhere. The ex-gratia approach : Most Western countries adopt the approach that they have no obligation to take in refugees, except in the case of granting asylum to the few who manage to reach their borders.

The curious asylum exception may be due to the proximity, identifiability, or small number of such refugees, or the perceived difference between acts and omissions. The fallacy of the current approach : We should weigh the consequences of our refugee policies on all who are affected, using the principle of equal consideration of interests. There are certain and uncertain consequences of admitting larger numbers of refugees. The certain benefit to the refugee is as large and fundamental a benefit as any person can enjoy.

The downsides quoted by those who wish not to admit larger numbers of refugees are almost all uncertain. These include burdens on the welfare system, the criminal system, the environment, the economy, race relations, and cultural identity. The presence of diverse, hard-working and grateful refugees may in fact create benefits in these areas. It is likely that there is some number of refugees that would cause these potential downsides to be comparable to the interests of the refugees, but that number is far greater than the number who are actually admitted today.

We can do great good by increasing our refugee intake gradually and carefully monitoring the effects on society. The real-world situation is ethically very similar to the case of the fallout shelter. The Environment The Western tradition : Predominant Western attitudes towards the environment come from the traditions of the Old Testament and Greek philosophy, both of which view the environment, including all non-human life, as subservient to humans and of no moral concern.

Even if we accept this view, preservation of the environment is still extremely important because of our complete dependence on it. It is valued as something of immense beauty, a reservoir of scientific knowledge, and source of unique recreational opportunities. Some such resources cannot be replaced once destroyed, such as the ecology of a virgin forest. In our utility calculation, we must therefore count the effect of such destruction on all future generations of humans in comparison with the economic gain that might be created for the next few.

We are not accustomed to thinking so far into the future. We should include the interests of all beings who can have interests, which includes sentient animals. The killing of non-human persons is generally wrong, and the killing of sentient non-persons presumably most animals is also wrong if the lives they would otherwise lead would be positive and they will not be replaced. This may very well be the case for the millions of animals that die when a valley is dammed and flooded.

Some people also believe that we should count non-sentient entities, such as trees or species as a whole, in the moral calculation. Should we? Reverence for life : Instead of sentience, could life serve as the dividing moral line? It is hard to justify this because non-sentient life does not experience pleasure, pain, or desires. How could we go about assessing the relative weights to give different forms of life?

By what metric could we even divide the importance of the living from the non-living? Can this be justified? The fact that every species plays a role in an interdependent ecosystem does not imply that individual organisms have value, since no individual is necessary for the survival of the ecosystem. Instead, could entire species or ecosystems have morally relevant interests? Like in the case of extending interests to non-sentient organisms, there is no intelligible justification for this belief.

Developing an environmental ethic : In light of the harm that we can do to all sentient beings into the very far future, we should develop an ethic that weights permanent harm to the environment very heavily. It should frown upon extravagant or unnecessary leisure activities that consume fossil fuels or forests or emit greenhouse gases. Of particular concern is meat consumption — the factory farming system wastes over a third of the grain grown in the world and is responsible for a huge amount of deforestation and greenhouse gas emission.

Ends and Means The end does sometimes justify the means. But which ends justify which means? Individual conscience and the law : Sometimes we must decide whether it would be the right thing to do to break a law.

In doing so, we should consider whether it is ethically relevant that the specific action is illegal. Law and order : Here are two ethical reasons for obeying the law. They can be overridden by greater interests, and they do not apply to law-breaking that is kept secret. Obeying the law contributes to an orderly and successful society — not doing so may encourage others follow suit, leading to the breakdown of order.

When the law is broken, the community pays the expense of enforcing it and penalizing the lawbreaker. Democracy If legal channels exist to change laws, we should attempt to use them before resorting to illegal behavior.

If we are unable to change an unethical law, it may be ethical to break it. In a democracy, however, this may involve deciding that our own moral judgment is better than that of the majority. In an indirect, representative democracy like the US, it may not.

The majority can clearly be wrong, but we should keep in mind that majority rule follows from granting each person equal power. Overriding majority rule gives one person or group more power than others — a system that we would likely and in fact did reject when deciding how to govern society.

We should thus coerce the majority only in extreme circumstances. Disobedience, civil or otherwise : Civil disobedience is a peaceful illegal attempt to better bring about majority rule, either by better informing the public or preventing the government from frustrating majority rule.

It is not difficult to justify once legal means have been exhausted, since the costs incurred are minimal and democracy is not undermined. In addition to civil disobedience, coercing the majority through illegal action is justifiable in extremely unethical cases such as nationally supported genocide.

We must judge whether individual cases meet this threshold on our own, since the majority cannot rule on itself. We should do so carefully, using a rational consequentialist viewpoint rather than acting on gut feelings. There are strong general consequentialist arguments against the use of violence beyond the direct harm done to the victims.

These include that violence may have a hardening effect on society that begets further and possibly systematic violence, and that often the effects of violent actions cannot be well foreseen — in many cases it backfires.