Essay World Hunger and Absolute Poverty

Singer has the same views that most of us have when it comes to poverty and especially poverty in young children. He argues that if we can prevent something horrible from happening, such as the poverty of children in our world, without sacrificing anything of importance that is remotely comparable, that we should do anything in our power to do so. Singer climbs

It is estimated that 740 million people are starving in the world today. (Prakash and Conko 357) There are about 7.2 billion people in the world, so the hungry population accounts for 12.7% of the population. The time has come to change these statistics. It is the 21st century and we, as humans, now have the technology and resources to reverse these terrible numbers. There are two arguments on what we should do with this new technology, however. One side, researched by a science policy analyst, stated that biotechnology still has kinks to be worked out and is not the best way to combat world hunger. Another side by a AgBioWorld Foundation vice president and a world-renowned scientific researcher, professor, scholar, and director of the

We all heard countless solutions on how to solve world poverty. In Peter Singer’s article “Rich and Poor”, he discusses how he thinks this problem can be fixed. Singer claims that we all have a responsibility to support people who are in extreme need and are suffering from absolute poverty. Singer believes that poverty could be fixed if people give up their luxuries and give the money that they spent on unnecessary things to those who are destitute. In Singer 's mind, we all have a duty to give until we are no longer able to, or until the problem with the world poverty will be solved. Singer feels that it is necessary for people who are more wealthy to help those who are less fortunate by donating money right away to organizations that help fight poverty. In his opinion, by not helping those in need we are negatively responsible for their suffering and thus failing to live a moral life.

The article, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty,” by Peter Singer provides the argument that Americans should spend some of their income to help those in need, instead of using it on luxuries that they don’t need. Singer supports his argument by indicating that we are somewhat like the characters in the story. I have mixed feelings with Singer’s claim because he expects that people have money to help, but many people could be dealing with financial problems that would limit their ability to help. It is not right that Singer should make Americans feel guilty, by using life or death situations.

“Hunger”, by Lan Samantha Chang, is a cautionary tale of an immigrant Chinese family in this complex story about unrelenting hunger, oppression, love and loss. Narrated by Min; the deeply unhappy and obedient wife of Tian, a gifted violinist, finds work as a music teacher in New York, but ultimately fails to land a permanent job at the school. Driven by personal failure and his unrelenting hunger for the violin Tian cruelly forces his two daughters, Anna and Ruth to play the violin, so they can follow in his footsteps. Tian’s inability to separate himself from his violin ends up destroying his family. Chang uses Tian’s obsessive hunger for the violin as a symbol of his identity, showing us that we must be careful

Singer makes the argument that wealthy people living a successful life should help those suffering in poorer countries around the world. He starts his argument by stating two principles. One is that no matter what the cause is death and suffering are bad. Second is that if one can prevent something morally bad from happening and not cause moral trouble for oneself they should do it. Singer uses

Peter Singer discusses that we have extensive responsibilities to the people of the world who are in poverty, nonetheless he wants you to recognise that we can encounter these responsibilities without altogether losing our worldly materialistic properties. He starts his rationalisation by emphasizing the realities which blatantly distinguish between our way of life and those who struggle to meet their "basic human needs for adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health care or education" (2011: 191). This is a strong and unbiased approach that makes even the most agreeable objections ethically inadequate. In relation to describing the ‘us’ in Singer’s argument it is vital to remember his collocation of absolute and absolute poverty.

Based on Robert McNamara’s description, absolute poverty is the severe deprivation of humans’ basic necessities of life, and is currently one of the leading causes of human misery (Singer, 2010, p.127-128). As citizens of developed nations, Singer believes we

This web page's goal is to introduce the visitor to the problem of world hunger and provide ways to access more information through books and other web sites. The page was created as a final project for an Environmental History class held at the University of Vermont spring semester 2000.

In the article Rich and Poor, Peter Singer sees extreme poverty as “not having enough income to meet the most basic human needs for adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health care or education” (pg. 234). Singer does not fail to compare those in extreme poverty to people who are living in absolute affluence. He suggests that it is the responsibility of those living in affluence to help those who are in need of obtaining even the basic human needs. He also argues that the affluent not helping is the moral equivalency of murder. Singer realizes that even though the rich can give to the poor these resources that they need, the rich do not feel enough of a moral mandate to do so. I disagree a bit with Singer because he seems to suggest that everyone who has the basic necessities is morally obligated to give but, I believe that this idea of a moral mandate to give should only apply to the extremely wealthy. Like Singer’s first premises says “If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.” (243) If the absolute affluent have large amounts of money, they can help to at least make people live comfortably without losing anything of great significance. The increasing poverty rates, not just in America but, globally cannot be solved if the extremely wealthy continue to do wasteful spending and choose to not put their money more towards programs and charities that better the lives of the people in their

Peter Singer argues, in “Rich and Poor” that it is our obligation morally to help people that are in extreme poverty. The three main premises are as follows, if we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it, absolute poverty is bad, and there is some absolute poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. By the end of “Rich and Poor” Singer concludes that we ought to prevent some absolute poverty. Throughout this paper there are many problems that I have found to be true.

In discussing Singer’s argument, it is important to explain his definition of global poverty. Singer clearly states that extreme poverty is “not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs” but also

This definition can be used throughout the world to define absolute poverty because basic needs are the same for all humans. A fixed income is often used to define absolute poverty throughout the world; living on less than $1-2 per day (Palmer, G, 2010). The difficulty with this figure is that in richer countries it will still be impossible to obtain the basic needs on that amount of money whereas in poorer countries it may be possible to live on such a low sum, albeit with great difficulty. This illustrates the problem that placing a figure of money to define poverty creates and shows why the different term, relative poverty, is often used.

Poverty is the biggest problem all across the world and whatever we do to solve it, never gets resolved. To answer these question two philosophers, Singer and Shiva approaches to the problem of the world poverty and gives their opinion towards it. Singer is utilitarian and thus sees the problem as utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is focused on “the consequences of the action, and it produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.” Singer thus looks more towards the solutions for the world poverty. Whereas, Shiva argues that Singer is just giving money to this problem without caring about the causes of poverty. Thus, she approaches towards what

Throughout this article, Tom Risen discusses the objectives set by the United Nations to end extreme poverty and World Hunger. The objectives set by the United Nations were known as the Millennium Development Goals and most of the goals were achieved throughout the reform. The United Nations set formidable goals to diminish global poverty and hunger by 2015. While the project successfully cut World Hunger into a small percentage and poverty in half, the multinational groups were conflicted about how much developing regions such as sub-Saharan Africa can enhance by the year 2030. The campaign was also able to help reduce the death of children under the age of five by vaccination efforts against measles. Mr. Risen additionally describes how the