9. Asking Too Much? Maty Beraja

“In the first part of this book I argue that in order to be good people, we must give until if we give more, we would be sacrificing something nearly as important as the bad things our nation can prevent. Now that we have a better idea of what our donation can prevent, it’s time to return and probe more deeply the sense that there must be something amiss with this moral argument because its implications go too far.” (pg.140)

Opinions Philosopher Liam Murphy & Kwame Anthony Appiah – “The world’s affluent people are obliged to provide enough aid to eliminate large-scale extreme poverty.” (141) Richard Miller – “We ought to give to the point at which, if we were to give more, we would run a “significant” risk of worsening our lives—but we do not need to go beyond this point.” Garrett Cullity – “We should give to the point at which further contributions would undermine our pursuit of “intrinsically life-enhancing goods” such as friendship, developing one’s musical talents, and being involved in the life of one’s community” Brad Hooker – “We are morally required to help those in greater need “even if the personal sacrifices involved in helping them add up to a significant cost,” but that we are not required to go beyond this threshold.” VS Jeffrey Sachs – Is not “seriously proposing that we solve world poverty by handing poor people enough money to meet their basic needs.” (142)

The Millennium Development Goals Reducing by ½ the proportions of the world’s people in extreme poverty Reducing by ½ the proportion of people who suffer from hunger Ensuring that children everywhere are able to take full course of primary schooling Ending sex disparity in education Reducing by 2/3 the mortality rate among children under 5 Reducing by ¾ the rate of maternal mortality Halting and beginning to reserve the spread of HIV/AIDS and halting and beginning to reduce the incidence of malaria and other major diseases Reducing by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water

“If each of us gave $200 per year, that would total $171 billion, or roughly the amount Sach’s United Nations task force believes is needed each year to meet the Millennium Development Goals. These goals, as we have just seen, seek merely to HALVE global poverty, NOT to ELIMINATE it.” (143) Do you think that this Development’s goal of just HALVING global poverty is beneficial, or should they expand their goals to solving ALL of the issues in global poverty? The Millennium Development Goals

“If everyone were doing their fair share, the total amount each of us would need to give in order to wipe out, or at least drastically reduce, large-scale extreme poverty would be in the hundreds, rather than thousands, of dollars per year.” (144)

DISCUSSION QUESTION! Two sides were presented in the dilemma of how to donate to the poor: rich people handing poor people money or not. Lots of statistics and examples of ideas were presented that contribute towards persuading you the direction Singer wants you to take. What direction do you think that is? Which side would you take that you think could make it more likely to produce a lasting solution to the many problems the poor face? And why?