PETER SINGER’S PHILOSOPHY OF EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM: THE MOST GOOD THAT ONE CAN DO

 

PETER SINGER’S PHILOSOPHY OF EFFECTIVE       ALTRUISM: THE MOST GOOD THAT ONE CAN DO

 

2.0 Introduction

The concept of giving grows rapidly on earth. Selfless giving for the well-being of the other is named as altruism as we have seen in the first chapter. Many are ready to empty themselves to help the downtrodden.  Many began to think to act giving in its effectiveness.  Peter Singer and William Macaskill are Pioneers who began to think of doing good in a better way.  They thought about the question, is it possible to have altruism effectively? The effective altruistic philosophical movement is a revolution to do the philanthropic activities in its most effectiveness. Peter Singer, an Australian Moral Philosopher, is the master brain behind effective altruistic philosophical development. Even though he is acclaimed as the most controversial moral philosopher and known as a professor of death, it is adventurous to know his philosophies. Through his works and thought pattern, he boosts the individuals to do as much good as possible in the world by sharing, giving and contributing and try to prevent the suffering of the people of the world. His effective altruistic philosophy is correctness to the ineffectiveness of the giving and sharing. Here in this chapter, I would like to explain the Peter Singer’s effective altruistic philosophy critically. The following questions are answered in this chapter. Who is Peter Singer?  What is the reason behind the development of effective altruism? What is meant by the philosophical development of effective altruism? How can humans do the most good on earth? Why should be we give to others?  What is meant by the concept ought in the effective altruism? What are the motivating factors of effective altruism?  Is it possible to be effective in today’s world? This chapter weighs the force of effective altruism and looks at the certain challenges of Singer’s thoughts.

 

2.1 Peter Singer: Life and contributions to philosophy  

Peter Albert David Singer is one of the most influential living moral philosophers of the twenty-first century. He was born in Melbourne on July 6, 1946. His parents were Jewish but migrated to Australia from Vienna (Austria) in 1938 to protect themselves from the Nazi persecutions.[1] His father was a businessman of tea and coffee and his mother practiced medicine. His grandparents were victims of Nazi persecutions and they were killed by Nazis in Theresienstadt concentration camp. One of his grandparents named David Ernest Oppenhum had written one book with Sigmund Freud too.[2] Peter Singer was born and brought up in the atheistic background and most of the practices of Jews were done to him.[3]

Peter Singer began his studies in Preshil and for a time, he attended Scotch College in Melbourne, Australia. After leaving school, Singer studied law, history, and philosophy at the University of Melbourne, where he graduated in 1967 with a Bachelor of Arts. His philosophical interests got colored with his conversation with sister’s (Joan Dwyer) boyfriend.[4] Since 1968 he has been married to Renata Singer; they have three children: Ruth, Marion, and Esther. Renata Singer is a novelist and author and she also has collaborated on publications with her husband. In 1969, he subsequently got an MA for his thesis Why should I be moral? After that, Singer was rewarded for his promising work with an offer to enter the University of Oxford, which he accepted. This led to his earning a BPhil, which is, despite its name, a graduate degree in philosophy in 1971. His dissertation would be on civil disobedience, supervised by the famous English moral philosopher R.M. Hare. Peter Singer later published this same thesis as a book in 1973 with the title Democracy and Disobedience. He calls R. M. Hare, English Philosopher and H.J. Mccloskey, an Australian philosopher as the most important mentor of his life. An experience with his colleague Richard Keshen in Balliol College, Oxford, called by himself as probably the decisive formative experience in his life.[5] At Oxford, his association with a vegetarian student group and his reflection on the morality of his meat-eating led him to adopt vegetarianism.[6]

When he was at Oxford, he was having a visiting professorship at New York University in 1973–74. During that time, he wrote his best-known and most influential work, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (1975). It greatly influenced the modern movements of animal welfare. In this work, he argues against speciesism, which is the discrimination between beings on the sole basis of their species and in this way, it is almost always a practice committed in favor of members of the human race against non-human animals. The idea is that all beings that are capable of both suffering and experiencing pleasure, that is, sentient beings should be regarded as morally equal in the sense that their interests ought to be considered equally.[7] Peter Singer argues in particular that the fact of using animals for food is unjustifiable because it causes suffering disproportionate to the benefits humans derive from their consumption. According to Singer, it is, therefore, a moral obligation to refrain from eating animal flesh (vegetarianism) or even go as far as not consuming any of the products derived from the exploitation of animals (veganism).[8]

In keeping with ethical principles that guided his thinking and writing from the 1970s, Singer devoted much of his time and effort and a considerable portion of his income to social and political causes, most notably animal rights but also famine and poverty relief, environmentalism, and reproductive rights. In 1971, Singer wrote an article entitled “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, which remains to this day one of his most known philosophical essays. Later, he published it as a book too. There, he imagines the scenario in which you are walking past a shallow pond, and as you walk past it you see there is a small child who has fallen into it and seems to be in danger of drowning. You look around to see where the parents are but there is nobody in sight. You realize that unless you wade into this pond and pull the child out, it is likely to drown. There is no danger to you because you know the pond is just a shallow one, but you are wearing a nice and expensive pair of shoes and they are probably going to get ruined if you go into the pond.[9] Of course, when you ask people about such a situation they always say, “Well, forget about the shoes. You’ve just got to save the child. That’s clear”. [10]But then you can say, “okay, you know, I agree with you about that. But for the price of a pair of shoes, if you were to give that to an organization like Oxfam or UNICEF, they could probably save the life of a child, maybe more than one child in a poor country where children are dying because they can’t get basic medical care”.[11]  This work is the starting point of effective altruistic philosophy.

 Singer’s work in applied ethics and his activism in politics were informed by his utilitarianism, the tradition in ethical philosophy that holds that actions are right or wrong depending on the extent to which they promote happiness or prevent pain. He was at La Trobe University during 1975-76 and later he was a professor of philosophy at Monash University in 1977, where he became the first director of the Centre for Human Bioethics. Singer is also the founding president of the International Association of Bioethics as well as the editor together with the prominent Australian philosopher Helga Kuhse, the academic journal Bioethics. In 1985, Singer and Kuhse co-wrote the famous Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants. [12]

In numerous books and articles published in the 1980s and after, Singer continued to develop his positions on animal rights and other topics in applied ethical and political philosophy including stem cell research, infanticide, euthanasia, global environmental concerns, and the political implications of Darwinism placing them within the context of theoretical developments in utilitarianism.[13] Even as his philosophical defense of animal rights gained currency in academia and beyond, however, his stances on other issues engendered new controversies, some of which pitted him against people who had supported his work on behalf of animal rights or had been sympathetic to his general philosophical approach. By the 1990s his intellectual leadership of the increasingly successful animal rights movement and his controversial stands on some bioethical issues had made him one of the world’s most widely recognized public intellectuals.

 In 1996, Peter Singer ran unsuccessfully as a Green party candidate for the Australian Senate. In 1999, Singer was appointed professor of bioethics at the University Centre for Human Values at Princeton University. He belongs to the school of Analytic philosophy and Utilitarianism. His most notable ideas are Equal consideration of interests, Drowning child analogy, Effective altruism, Argument from marginal cases. He is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and a Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne. He specializes in applied ethics and approaches ethical issues from a secular, utilitarian perspective. In 2004, Singer was recognized as the Australian Humanist of the Year by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies.[14] In 2005, the Sydney Morning Herald placed him among Australia's ten most influential public intellectuals. Singer is a cofounder of Animals Australia and the founder of The Life You Can Save. In 2008, Peter Singer was part of the film, and later book, Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers[15], featuring eight philosophers and directed by Astra Taylor.

In 2009, Singer wrote The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. There, Peter Singer demonstrates, that for the first time in its history, humanity has the financial and material resources to eradicate poverty worldwide. Despite this, today a billion people live on less than one Euro a day. Every year ten million children die from the effects of poverty. He argues that it is a situation that is ethically indefensible, and yet most of us are content simply to deplore it. In this powerful essay, Singer analyzes the psychological mechanisms behind our relationship to money, wealth-sharing, and solidarity between people.[16] Through a rigorous proof, he lays the foundation for twenty-first-century activism, which he sees as responsible and generous. He provides practical solutions with figures to support them, and, in this way, urges us to act immediately.

In 2015, he wrote The Most Good You Can Do. Singer's ideas have contributed to the rise of effective altruism. He argues that people should not only try to reduce suffering but reduce it in the most effective manner possible. His thought patterns are influenced by Karl Marx, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, Charles Darwin, Hegel, Kant, Derek Parfit, Henry Sidgwick, R. M. Hare, Jonathan Glover, and H.J. Mccloskey.[17] Now he has 74 years of age (2020) and at present, he is a professor of bioethics with a background in philosophy at Princeton University and laureate professor at the University of Melbourne.

 

2.2 Instigating strand behind the philosophy of effective altruism

What is the instigating strand behind the development of Peter Singer’s effective altruism? Suffering and happiness are the two important factors that determine the meaning of life. Suffering is a status of life which include distress, unhappiness, misery, affliction, woe, ill, discomfort, displeasure, disagreeableness.[18] Ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary philosophers had dealt a lot on suffering. In Book Delta of his Metaphysics, Aristotle provides a list of the different meanings of the term pathos. One of the meanings of pathos that he gives is a painful and destructive experience. In his own words, misfortunes and pains of considerable magnitude are called pathê.[19] For Aristotle, suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears calamities with great cheerfulness, not through the insensibility but the greatness of the mind.[20] Buddha says “life is full of suffering (dukkha) and suffering is ensured by our attachments or desires”.[21] Hedonism and Epicures have spoken a lot to avoid suffering and the necessity of ataraxia (ἀταραξία).[22]  For Nietzsche, ‘what does not destroy me makes me stronger’, ‘to live is to suffer and to survive is to find meaning in the suffering’.[23] For Kierkegaard, suffering is a necessary condition for all spiritual growth. The general understanding of suffering is to show the mercy of God.[24]   Levinas didn’t consider this view. Emmanuel Levinas calls it a scandal whenever extreme suffering is justified in terms of some higher good. As he notes, “pain is henceforth meaningful, subordinated in one way or another to the metaphysical finality envisaged by faith or by a belief in progress. These beliefs are presupposed by theodicy! Such is the grand idea necessary to the inner peace of souls in our distressed world. It is called upon to make sufferings here below comprehensible”.[25] All these thoughts have influenced Singer to think more about suffering. But the utilitarian understanding determined something as ethical or not based on suffering. Something that gives less suffering is more ethical than something that gives more suffering.

Peter Singer belongs to the category of utilitarian philosophers who consider the worthiness of action based on its influence on overall utility. It was founded on the consequences of action in terms of happiness and unhappiness.  Hedonistic utilitarianism was developed by Jeremy Bentham and he claimed the right act as the one that causes the greatest happiness of the greatest number.[26] He believed in psychological hedonism which underlines self-intrinsic motivations of human beings to double the pleasure and to minimize the pain.  The worthiness of pain and pleasure is related to the seven vectors called felicific calculus. Felicific calculus is a type of algorithm to calculate the quality and quantity of the pleasure a particular action cause.[27] It included several vectors like intensity, duration, certainty or uncertainty, propinquity or remoteness, fecundity, purity, and extent. Bentham considered these vectors as Circumstances too. He gave more importance to the quantitative realm of pleasure than the qualitative realm.[28] At the same time, Mill had given importance to the qualitative aspect of pleasure by arguing the greatness of cultural, intellectual and spiritual pleasures over the physical pleasures. He considered the right action as one that promotes pleasure.[29] Henry Sidgwick, the heart of Singer’s thought was not a psychological hedonist but an ethical hedonist. He emphasized pleasure as the rational object of desire than the natural object of desire. For him, pleasure and unhappiness were the same.[30] In the late nineties, Hastings Rashdall and G.E. Moore propagated ideal utilitarianism which argued not only with the intrinsic earnestness of happiness but also with beauty, knowledge, etc. In utilitarianism what Peter Singer follows is preference utilitarianism which underlines the rightness and wrongness of an action grounded on the preference of the one who acts than the pleasure, pain or an ideal that one holds. The initiator of this theory is R.H. Hare.

 Preference Utilitarianism tries to maximize the satisfaction of the preference of the people.[31] For him, preferences are to be reasonably informed. The quality of life of a person is recognized through one’s preferences. Preference utilitarianism can be criticized for desire. We can define preference as a mere desire. But Singer closes the mouth of the critiques by presenting the difference between the desire and the preference. Desire is a mere individual’s strong wish for something which may be erroneous and false. For him, preferences are idealized desire.[32] That means preferences should be founded and generated on the accurate information taken from the rational assessment of the situation. When Singer uses the words desire or preference, it demonstrates idealized desire. He underlines it by the following statements, happiness is an intrinsic value, we desire it for its own sake, we have to act in this world to satisfy the intrinsic preferences that each being has.[33] This preference is based on reason and not merely a personal choice or self-interest. He also emphasizes the universality of the individual preferences of an action. He writes; “Ethics requires us to go beyond ‘I’ and ‘you’ to the universal law, the universalizable judgment, the standpoint of the impartial spectator or ideal observer, whatever we choose to call it”.[34]  Singer says; “I hold on to the preference utilitarian approach because I cannot deny that for me, a good life is one in which my own considered informed preferences are maximally satisfied”.[35] It infers consequences in terms of preferences.

In his view, the portrayal of good is nothing other than the satisfaction of individual preferences.[36] But I find this theory a complicated one because different persons can have different preferences and priorities. I feel this theory as fully subjective. If one’s interests are satisfied, it’s called good. If one’s interests are not satisfied, it’s called bad. I think it goes beyond the simple enlargement of pleasure and eradication of pain for the majority in the long run. I think Singer’s theory may accept and justify even the one’s desire to kill oneself and to sacrifice oneself for God. His theory may accept suicide as a moral position. Preferences can be materialistic, intolerant and ignorant.  But this type of criticism can be defended even with certain points of Singer. According to Singer, two different persons have different preferences but both of them are rational. He considers rationality as the basis for the preferences. Materialistic, erroneous preferences are the result of the error of reasoning and errors of the facts of life.[37] A depressed person may prefer to die. But for Singer, it is erroneous reasoning and preferences. He even tried to present two types of idealized desires or preferences. Idealized preferences that are intrinsic and idealized preferences that are instrumental. Intrinsic preference is the one that desires for its own sake. Instrumental preference is a preference as a means to satisfy either instrumental or intrinsic preferences. A depressed person’s desire to suicide is not an intrinsic preference. Intrinsic preference tells a person to lead a normal life and it does not tell a person to kill oneself. To kill oneself is an instrumental preference. This instrumental preference is not at all apt for the person now. What Peter Singer considered as idealized desire is a true belief with proper information.[38] His view of idealized desire he presents as follows, “ ..for a preference to be one we should act upon, it should be based not only on accurate information but also on a claim and rational assessment of the situation. This is an idealized desired view”.[39] Misinterpreted and misdirected preferences need not be accepted without proper reasoning and understandings.  But my point is that even with the satisfaction of the informed desire, life can go badly. I think Singer considers all the preferences are done with due information. There is a possibility to have a badly informed one too. He keeps way that attitude. Therefore, his preference utilitarianism is based on mainly two factors: desire from proper information and universalizability.    

  With this attitude in mind, he jumps into an effective altruistic philosophy. By following Jeremy Bentham, J.S. Mill and H. Sidgwick, Peter Singer focused on the disparagement and eradication of the suffering of the beings. When Peter Singer talks about equality in his book Practical Ethics, he says, whenever something or someone suffers, we can have to consider all those things, if something or someone does not sense happiness or suffering, we should not take them into our considerations.[40] Unwanted sufferings should be eradicated from the world. In his writings, Peter Singer uses sufferings and pains simultaneously. He considers pain as something bad and he included suffering and all kinds of distresses in pain. Something that inflicts pain is always wrong too.[41] Even though the pain in itself is a bad thing, he underlined the momentary suffering to give up the long run suffering. Dentists give pain to the clients. A criminal is jailed. All these types of acts can be justified because all these lessen the pain in the long run. Singer also had considered suffering as the basis for the interest of a being.[42] Singer adds suffering always to sentient beings. For him, sentient beings are the beings who have the caliber to suffer or sense enjoyment or happiness.[43] Singer demands  “that we give equal weight in our moral deliberations to the like interests of all those affected by our actions”.[44]  Singer does not consider suffering as the status of God to show His mercy. For Singer, suffering in the world is the realm for humans to act. In his view, the school of suffering does not educate for eternity. According to Singer what our duty is to minimize the suffering of the world.[45] Therefore, I think, the fact that pushes Singer to live a life in this world is to exterminate the suffering of the world. To lessen the suffering of the world, he prefers effective altruism.

 

2.3 What is the philosophy of effective altruism?   

The world is full of suffering and everywhere we see injustice, death, etc. We all have to do something to overcome all these. For these, there emerged a philosophical movement named Effective Altruism, which looks forward to helping the needy based on evidence and reason. It is called effective because it is the best way to do the most good.  The word effective comes from the Latin word effectīvus, which means creative, productive or effective.[46] Peter Singer develops his philosophical concept of effective altruism in his three famous works: Famine, Affluence, and Morality; The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically. According to Singer, Effective Altruism is “a philosophy and social movement which applies evidence and reason to working out the most effective ways to improve the world”.[47] This definition does not speak of its motives, sacrifices, and costs. Effective Altruism is in contrast with egoism which is much based on self- interests or concern for oneself. Don’t consider effective altruism based on self -sacrifice. When you do the most good you can, you are also flourishing. It is the highest range for almost all persons.[48] It is nothing but personal fulfillment and happiness in giving and doing. The giving is small or big, people get satisfied and they feel good. Whenever an effective altruist does something, he/she will ask always whether it is the best one or way to be done. Saving a child or saving many which are better. He always prefers to do the best. Giving most is something vague and there is an emergence of many questions in it too. Some of the important questions discussed in effective altruism are as follows; What counts as the most good? Do every suffering count equally? Do we have more responsibility to a neighbor than the stranger?  What about values like justice, freedom, equality, and knowledge? To reduce suffering, is it good to harm an innocent person?

The effective altruistic philosophical movement has begun in 1972 with Peter Singer’s article called ‘Famine, Affluence and Morality’ in which he suggested until we reach the point of marginal utility, that is, the point at which by giving more, one would cause oneself and one’s family to lose as much as the recipients of one’s aid would gain. The term effective altruism (EA) originated from the umbrella title for Giving What We Can (GWWC) and 80,000 Hours (80K).[49] In 2009, Toby Ordy and Will MacAskill founded Giving What We Can, an international society to eliminate poverty in the developing country. GWWC began as a philanthropic society with the aim of inspiring individuals to give 10% of their profit.  In 2011, Will MacAskill and five of his friends founded 80,000 Hours, to provide career instructions for young people who want to have a larger social impact through their careers.[50] These two international organizations decided to come under the common umbrella and they chose the name Effective Altruism for their activity.  

In his Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Singer imagines the scenario in which you are walking past a shallow pond, and as you walk past it you see there is a small child who has fallen into it and seems to be in danger of drowning. You look around to see where the parents are but there is nobody in sight. You realize that unless you wade into this pond and pull the child out, it is likely to drown. There is no danger to you because you know the pond is just a shallow one, but you are wearing a nice and expensive pair of shoes and they are probably going to get ruined if you go into the pond.[51]  Of course, when you ask people about such a situation they always say, forget about the shoes. You’ve just got to save the child. That’s clear. But then you can say, okay, you know, I agree with you about that. But for the price of a pair of shoes, if you were to give that to an organization like Oxfam or UNICEF, they could probably save the life of a child, maybe more than one child in a poor country where children are dying because they can’t get basic medical care.[52] Many people were impressed by this article and they began to lead a life of effective altruism including Bill Gates, Vicente Ferrer, Warren Buffet, Angelina Joli and David Beckham.

According to Singer, we have to work together to avoid bad things from happening. The richest countries have to take initiative to help the poorer part of the world. Morality always speaks of what is good and ought. More than the statement of purpose, today what we need more is practical and applied ethics. Singer uses the analogy between saving a child in the pond and saving a child in a developing country dying from poverty-related causes implies that, for the cost of replacing one’s muddy clothes one can save a life.[53] Based on this analogy we can also tell that the child in the pond is near you but a child starved is not near you. Here we also want to think that a child falling in a pond is a rare emergency, whereas global poverty is an ongoing problem. Whatever be and wherever be we all have a moral obligation to help. We may say, one is near and another is distant. But physical distance can’t provide a moral indication of what is right and wrong. What determines our moral intuitions are inflexible automatic settings.[54] It is the same as the manual and automatic modes. Singer also had underlined two ways of reaching into the decisions. Firstly, we all have moral intuitions evolved which provides every person immediate and inflexible responses to common situations. Secondly, we all have our general capacities for reasoning that enable us to work out solutions from scratch.[55] From this we may say that, helping the one who is near me is a moral obligation and helping one who is distant is optional.  

Even though there are man-made and natural causes for suffering and death, suffering and death occur from starvation, lack of housing and medical care are bad. Singer says, we have to do whatever possible way to stop something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance.[56] It means doing something that is not wrong in itself. Whenever we do a moral action, we tend to justify it based on proximity and nearness. When the principles of impartiality, universalizability, and equality are accepted in its full sense, we won’t discriminate based on near or distant. Wherever be we provide the necessary assistance. Do not forget the expression of the world as one concept. Another problem is placed in the following statement numbers lessen the obligation.[57] We often think, not only myself, but others also are there in the world, therefore, let them help others but we should bear in mind, if I give more, I prevent more suffering from happening. Another absurd consequence may emerge here is that by giving more one begins to cause sufferings for one’s own life and one’s dependents. Do what we ought to do and don’t do less than what we ought to do.

To do or to give can be understood in two ways as charity and duty. For Singer, there is always a distinction between charity and duty. Duty is something that must be done. Charity is good to be done and wrong to be avoided. Giving money may an act of charity and nothing wrong in not giving money to others. When I sacrifice something for the other, I may be in a position to prevent starvation from society. It can be called as a supererogatory act:  it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do.[58] When one does such types of acts one might decide that it is good to make other people as happy as possible. If I don’t do this act, nobody is going to condemn me for this. Duty always tells us what we must do, as distinct from what it would be good to do but not wrong to do, function to prohibit behavior that is intolerable if men are to live together in society.[59]

Moral attitudes are generated from the needs of society.[60] For this view, I think, Singer is influenced by views of H. Sidgwick on ‘the codes of ethics.’ What we need is a basic moral code. It is always a question of conduct that is required and not required. Sidgwick speaks of two ways by which one can understand morality in its fulness in his Methods of Ethics. Firstly, he speaks of the Jural view, there he presents the seeking of the ethics for moral laws and the rational principles of conduct. This is more important because these inquiries lead to the actions that look for the ultimate good. Secondly, he speaks of the teleological view, there he presents ethics as a search into the true good and the search for the techniques to accomplish it.[61] Even though it is too difficult to understand his points, he moves on to his next position called intuitionism too. In intuitionism, he considers conduct as right if it is in keeping with certain ideologies.  It tried to explain the moral obligation of an individual independent of good and happiness. He has proposed the attainment of ultimate good by fulfilling one’s moral obligations.[62] He also underlined the fact that philosophical ethics must be systematic and precise.[63] Sidgwick says a method used in ethics is  “a rational procedure by which we determine what individual human beings ought or what it is right for them to do, or to seek to realize by voluntary action”.[64] It is not a process. It is not the outcome of certain feelings or character. He involved the necessity of immediate intuitionism and commonsense conception of virtue to understand what the right action is. For him, the common-sense conception of virtue is something that is implanted in the human being by nature itself. Without decision procedures, he makes the criterion of morality. It is a true investigation into the rational procedure of conduct. By the influence of Sidgwick, Singer says, we always ought morally to increase the balance of happiness over misery.[65] Singer’s conclusion is always like this; we ought to be preventing as much suffering as we can without sacrificing something else of comparable moral importance.

 

2.4 An ought to mode in the philosophy of effective altruism  

Ought is related to the sphere of duties. We must prevent the suffering of the world.  That’s is the position of Peter Singer. Many are ready to do what they ought to do but most of the people are self-interested. As Thomas Aquinas says, all the material goods are for human needs and they are instituted by the providence of God.[66] The division of human properties according to human laws should not hinder the necessary needs of human beings. When something a person has a superabundance, it is a right of the poor for its sustenance. He uses a famous quote of  Ambrose, “The bread which you withhold belong to the hungry; the clothing you shut away, to the naked; and the money you bury in the earth is the redemption and freedom of the penniless”.[67] This ought is a responsibility or a duty. It can be private, public and voluntarily one. If we save the starved one today. Their children can be in the starvation in the future. What is to be proposed is a public awareness or general responsibility towards these sufferings.

Singer explains what ought to do concerning the general principles in common-sense morality.  It is Sensus Communis. Sensus communis is the Latin translation of the Greek koinḕ aísthēsis.  

Common sense is sound practical judgment concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge that is shared by nearly all people. The first type of common sense, good sense, can be described as the knack for seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. The second type is sometimes described as folk wisdom, signifying unreflective knowledge not reliant on specialized training or deliberative thought. The two types are intertwined, as the person who has common sense is in touch with common-sense ideas, which emerge from the lived experiences of those commonsensical enough to perceive them.[68]

Common-sense morality is a faculty of judgment, which in its reflection takes account (a priori) of the mode of representation of all other men in thought; in order, as it was to compare its judgment with the collective reason of humanity, and thus to escape the illusion arising from the private conditions that could be so easily taken for the objective, which would injuriously affect the judgment.[69]  Here emerges the question of duality of  Is and Ought. These concepts are mainly seen in Hume and Kant. ‘Is’ is related to the sphere of facts and ‘ought’ is related to the realm of duties. For Kant, the fundamental principle of our moral duties is a categorical imperative. It is called an imperative because it is an order done to agents who could accept it but might not. It gives orders to one to exercise one’s particular will in a particular way, not to do some action or other. It is categorical in virtue of applying to one conditionally or simply because one possesses rational will, without reference to any ends one might or might not have. It is categorical because it applied to all rational beings. He also speaks of ought other than moral obligations. He calls this ought as a source for hypothetical imperative, a command with a rational will. It is something in its conditional form. If you are not well, go to the hospital. Kant also differentiates between problematic hypothetic imperative and assertoric hypothetical imperative. The problematic imperative means we might or might not will the end being mere possible. The assertoric imperative is one that orders one to behave in such a way to be happy.[70] Therefore, his ethical theory is hypothetical imperative is founded on the categorical imperative, which has no end in view declaring an action necessary. The moral duty of one is in the mental disposition.  His concept of ought in moral theory implies can. The action to which ought applies must indeed be possible under natural conditions. [71] It means that a person has the moral duty to do certain acts if one has the capacity or it is probable for them to act on. If one cannot do it, there is no moral obligation too. It may be regarded as a minimization of moral duty. It can also include the use of currently available resources.

We may tend to confuse with Hume’s law. ought cannot be derived from mere facts. Moral statements are not merely derived from the statement of facts. He underlined the difference between what is and what ought to be. It is called Hume's guillotine. Hume says;  

when of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is, however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ‘is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given, for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.[72]

Hume and Kant approved that there is no genuine reasonable transition between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ but while Hume had a certain belief of reducibility of ‘ought’ to ‘is’, Kant stressed the sovereignty and irreducibility of the compass of Ought. Both understood the way of apprehending normative truths is in completely diverse ways: Kant considered moral truths as synthetic a priori judgments, i.e., judgments framed without a route to sense experience and veracity is not strong-minded by the meaning of its constituent terms. It is something that is known by reason. Hume considered them as either factual truths or with no truth value. There is no duality in Kant because, in him, moral norms are the practical reason or are originated from reason.

By keeping this in mind, Singer too had differentiated between ought in a narrow sense and broad sense.[73]  Ought in narrow sense included the implication of can the same as I mentioned earlier in Kant. In the broad sense of ought, I might think for example, that I ought to know what a wiser person world knows, even though I am quite aware that I am unable to will myself into that position here and now. In the board sense, certain ideals are included but the narrow sense, one has to do as much possible for him to do. He also mentioned that better not to limit the meaningfulness of ought. ‘Ought’ is to be done with reasonableness. According to Singer, we all have an ought to eradicate poverty and suffering. The reason is just that we have the caliber to do it. He argues;

if you are living comfortably while others are hungry or dying from easily preventable diseases, and you are doing nothing about it, there is something wrong with your behavior ...the failure of people in the rich nations to make any significant sacrifices to assist people who are dying from poverty-related causes is ethically indefensible. It is not simply the absence of charity, let alone of moral saintliness: It is wrong, and one cannot claim to be a morally decent person unless one is doing far more than the typical comfortably-off person does.[74]

Why should we consider it as an ought? Singer argues; if suffering germinates only because of the scarcity of food, clothes, medicine, and housing, it must be labeled as worse. “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it”.[75] Sacrifice here means without causing anything else comparably bad to happen, or doing something wrong in itself, or failing to promote some moral good, comparable in significance to the bad thing that we can prevent. For example: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This may ruin my clothes but that would be insignificant while the death of the child would be very bad. The avoidance of death and suffering is possible is only through philanthropic acts.[76] The price of doing such an act is nothing but an insignificant reduction in our standard of living.  

His arguments tell us it as an obligatory act. ‘Ought’ is ‘is’. It is too much demanded by him. It may be a limitation to freedom of acting. What Singer prefers always the best choice to be taken I think it reduces our liberty to act and make choices for our self-governing principles. It may be an act against our own best choices. Our intrinsic value as persons is least bothered in this type of thought pattern. What we need to enact a limitation to this way of thinking. Every human has their moral value. Therefore, we must not sacrifice our own moral choices or equal one’s own to aid others. It involves us not to favor those nearest to us. Other moral concerns need not be favored at this moment. Do not worry about the things from which we get benefits. Think only about the altruistic ethical ends that we human beings wanted to fulfill.  Singer argues; “neither our distance from a preventable evil nor the number of other people who, in respect to that evil, are in the same situation as we are, lessens our obligation to mitigate or prevent that evil”.[77] We should not treat people differently. There is no difference between one is near and one is away. My moral obligation is only to help the needy. It is an ought of my life. I have to assist in the development of the situation of the people. It is a must for human sustainability. Therefore, he considers giving is an ought of human existence.

 

2.5 How to do the most good?  

In  this “global age of frantic individualism,”[78] there has been a shift away from collectivized thinking of one’s own society and a shift towards individual rights, which therefore makes social discrimination and inequality highly noticeable to a person.[79] Inequalities of the world call for the gooness from the part of earth and humans. In general, philosophy calls something as good if it is important and valuable. For Singer, good is something that promotes life.[80] Giving is an act of goodness. Giving is an act that promotes life. What should we give? Why should not we give? What we should do about it? What should I do to help? Do we have obligations to give? Do we need to give more to help the needy? These are the questions well defined and explained through the acts of effective altruists. The things on earth are for the needs of human beings. The division of human properties according to human laws should not hinder the necessary needs of human beings. When something a person has a superabundance, it is a right of the poor for its sustenance. The bread that is in our boxes is of the hungry.  The cloths in my hands are of the naked too. The money unused and kept in my account is of the needy and the poor and it is meant for the liberation of the downtrodden. Therefore, Peter Singer proposes certain arguments about giving.

 

2.5.1 What should be our attitude towards the poor?

 In pursuit of the most good one can do, Singer answers the question, what should be our attitude towards the poor?  Poor is the one who lives below the poverty line, who lacks equality with others.  Singer gives the following explanations to who the poor is. Poor are the people who are short of food for the day for the whole or eat only once a day.[81] Poor are the ones who have no saving of money as one has. Whenever one needs money, one runs towards the money lenders and get it high interest. Poor are the ones who can’t afford the situation of sending people to the school. Poor are the people who live in a house made with mud or thatches. Poor are the people who do not have nearby safe drinking water. Singer says, poverty is not merely unsatisfied material needs but accompanied by the degrading states of the powerlessness.[82] Singer defines extreme poverty as not having enough income to meet the most basic needs for adequate food, shelter, water, clothing sanitation, healthcare, and education.[83] Singer shows certain love towards the attitudes of Aquinas and Ambrose. Ambrose says, “You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself”.[84] Thomas Aquinas even has justified theft, “It is not theft, properly speaking, to take secretly and use another’s property in a case of extreme need: because that which he takes for the support of his life becomes his property because of that need”.[85] Pope Paul VI adds in his encyclical Populorum Progressio, “we must repeat once more that the superfluous wealth of rich countries should be placed at the service of poor nations. The rule which up to now held good for the benefit of those nearest to us must today be applied to all the needy of this world”.[86] Pope John Paul II underlined this view in his encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, “rich must serve the poor to overcome their deficiencies”.[87]  Effective altruism suggests that people with high incomes from the developed countries have to take an initiative to help the poor in developing and under-developed countries. On this basis, Singer proposes a principle of preventing bad occurrences.[88]

 

2.5.2 The principle of preventing bad occurrences

 The principle of preventing bad occurrences is the principle proposed by Singer for the most good that one does. This principle has a strong version and a weak version.   He adds, if we can prevent something bad, without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it.  It is called the strong version of the principle.[89] If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without sacrificing anything morally significant, we ought, morally, to do it. It is called the weaker version of the principle.[90] This version of the principle is frailer in two modes when it is compared to the act-utilitarian principle. According act-utilitarian principle, you have to perform an action that leads to or produces the most net welfare, with all the obtainable alternatives. This principle does not speak anything of the variance between doing harm and allowing harm or any alteration between the necessities to deliver benefits to the people or to avert harm to people or our special responsibilities to the dear ones or any restraints on which we permitted to do for a greater good etc.

The weaker version of Singer’s principle itself has certain defects. Firstly, it deals only with the very depraved consequences, we could avert. Secondly, let’s off the nail whenever thwarting maltreatment could entail us to sacrifice anything of moral significance, even if I wasn’t comparably significant.  Even though Singer’s principle has defects, he proposes a moderate version[91] - that we should prevent bad occurrences unless, to do so, we had to sacrifice something morally significant- only to show that, even on this surely undeniable principle, a great change in our way of life is required. On the more moderate principle, it may not follow that we ought to reduce ourselves to the level of marginal utility, for one might hold that to reduce oneself and one’s family to this level is to cause something significantly bad to happen. Better to prevent the bad occurrences on the earth is Singer’s suggestion.

 

2.5.3. Leave selfishness and hold on to social responsibility

According to Singer, in the search for the most good, effective altruists question the following question too.  Why don’t we give more?  It is because of our selfishness. Normally we all act in our interests. There is a battle between selfishness and altruism. He also just recollected one the stories heard of Thomas Hobbes. Once Thomas Hobbes was giving alms to a beggar, a priest asked him, would you have done it if Jesus had not instructed? Thomas Hobbes replied he felt pain when he saw the misery of the other. To reduce my mental pain by seeing this, I had given the alms. It may reconcile with the egoistic theory of human motivation.[92] One has to behave by emptying one’s egoism.  As he had discussed, something has moral value if something is done out of a sense of duty. Singer disagreed with Hobbes. Don’t do anything by simply feeling that is enjoyable to you. You are not responsible for your likes and dislikes but you are responsible for your obedience to the demands of your duty. [93] Singer gives a maxim to the world, out of a sense of duty, everything is to be done to the world.[94] Leave selfishness to the waste box and hold on social responsibility to the heart. For Singer, there is always a commitment to society and too downtrodden for each human being on earth. We have the moral obligation to help the global poor. He puts forwards four thought patterns.

Singer’s first argument is that if one is capable of preventing others from experiencing hardship but fails to do so, that individual’s inaction is analogous to causing others to experience hardship.[95]  We humans can help the places on which individuals are demanded. There should be certain moral reasoning behind these acts. First of all, we the humans must not harm unduly. The second type of reasoning is we must protect our kin from sufferings and wrongdoing. The third type of reasoning is we humans must guard our fellow human beings and neighbors from suffering and downtrodden. The last type of reasoning is to guard the protect strangers or unrelated foreigners from suffering and wrongdoings.[96] He asserts that all lives are equal donors should give as much to help a stranger in the same way they help their family members and neighbors. The powerfulness of his argument is that it strengthens the equality of all human life regardless of caste, gender, nation, color, etc.   To eradicate the suffering and to help needy are one’s responsibility on earth.

 

2.5.4 An identifiable victim effect

According to Singer, there is an identifiable victim effect on human beings. It is a challenge before the most good that one can do.  It is defined as follows, the identifiable victim effect refers to the tendency of individuals to offer greater aid when a specific, identifiable person victim is observed under hardship, as compared to a large, vaguely defined group with the same need.[97] This theory is accredited to Thomas Schelling, the American Economist. According to Schelling, harm to the particular person appeals to anxiety and sentiment, guilt and awe, responsibility and religion. But.…most of this awesomeness disappears when we deal with statistical death.[98] It has the character of vividness. It portrays characteristics that brand them as identifiable. Their particulars such as birthplace, economic status, educational status, work status are made known through the media to the public. They are depicted as innocent and helpless to generate certain emotional feelings among the public. There are ex-post and ex-ante characteristics for this concept.  We decide to save a child after a person or victim is in danger. Here the identifiable victim is seen as ex-post. But in the case of the statistical victim, it is different. The statistical victim is the one whose end or death cannot be prevented because he/she is only one among many. Nobody can identify and personalize the one and help. Here we take preventive measures to avoid an individual to be in danger. Here the decision to save a statistical victim is ex-ante. By seeing the risks of helping the poor, many keep aloof from the act of giving and there are blamed for their irresponsibility.  In our life, we can have both general information and particular information. For Singer, the single one gives more to many. The identifiable victim effect is the rule of rescue. The identifiable person moves us the abstract information.  Humans like particulars more than the generals.[99] This appeals more because of the two systems we use to define our reality.

 The first one is the Affective system. It is related to our emotional responses. It generates an intuitive feeling based on images real or metaphorical, stories and based on that it decides whether it is right or wrong and good or bad. Immediate action is generated based on this.  The second one is the Deliberative systems. It flows from our reasonable entities. It is generated based on numbers, words, and abstractions rather than stories and images. It is with logic and evidence and it is a processed consciousness. It takes time and not immediate. An individual has to pull our emotions. Mother Theresa says, if I look at the mass I will never act, if I look at the one, I will. We actually know, mass is made up of individuals. Our reason always tells us to help the individual with another individual than simply stopping at the one.[100] Our response to the abstracted facts always remains the same. Our tendency of responding only to the identified one is blocked to the smooth functioning of giving. There are still many who require help.

 

2.5.5 Parochialism vs universalism

Parochialism is another factor that hinders to do better to the others. Singer argues, always there is a fight between parochialism and universalism.[101]  Parochialism is defined as the status of mind, where the one concentrates only on the part than the whole. It is a narrow -minded approach where they give importance only to the small parts if the issue than the whole issue.  Universalism is defined as a status of mind where one concentrates on the whole than the part. It is a broad-minded approach where they give importance to the whole issue than the part. It is a type of moral position inclusive of all individuals, irrespective of culture, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, etc. They are absolutist in its fullness.[102] Nearness or proximity is always a question in doing good. Adam Smith, father of Economics writes, what should be our attitude when an earthquake or natural calamity swallow the inhabitants of China or India? Since the persons who don’t have any personal connection with that land, people might say, smith contends that he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility, as if no such accident had happened.[103] In his time, technology was not developed today. Normally, we all tend to give lesser help to strangers or foreigners than to the helpless persons in our nearby center. We are indifferent to them because they do not belong to us. But today we have to take into account the universe as a whole. For Singer, sympathy towards the needy or the helpless is something that is ordered by nature.[104]  I feel that he is influenced by Adam Smith to propound this view.

In Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he claimed that everyone in the world wanted to get attention from others and to be treated by others with reverence.   Because of these sentiments of humankind, we the humans are always in search for richness and to eradicate poverty. For him, poverty was nothing but exclusion from society.  We are by nature social creatures. He adds that nature when she formed man for society, endowed him with an original desire to please, and an original aversion to offend his brethren. She taught him to feel pleasure in their favorable, and pain in their unfavorable regard.[105] He continues to argue;

The poor man … is ashamed of his poverty. He feels that it either places him out of the sight of mankind or, that if they take any notice of him, they have, however, scarce any fellow-feeling with the misery and distress which he suffers. He is mortified upon both accounts; for thought to be overlooked, and to be disapproved of, are things entirely different, yet as obscurity covers us from the daylight of honor and approbation, to feel that we are taken no notice of, necessarily damps the most agreeable hope, and disappoints the most ardent desire, of human nature. The poor man goes out and comes in unheeded, and when amid a crowd is in the same obscurity as if shut up in his hovel.[106]

 To avoid this, Universalism is to be maintained. Prudence and justice based on reason only can eradicate these types of problems. For Singer, what we need to be in the world is an impartial person [107]or imaginary person without making any difference between the stranger and dearer. It is the same as the impartial spectator concept of Adam Smith.[108]  According to Adam Smith, to make a moral judgment, we are supposed to be in their circumstances by the way of imagination or observation.  Here humans go in into the passion of the other. By entering into their situation, we sympathize. ‘Sympathy’ is the term of Smith for the sensitivity of these moral sentiments. It was the feeling with the passions of others. It operated through a logic of mirroring, in which a spectator imaginatively reconstructed the experience of the person one watches. Singer and Smith consider human beings as mere imperfect sympathizers. We, the humans tend to be partial to our own lives and our activities; to our family members than our friends’ circle, our friends’ circle to aliens, and more partial to aliens than to those whom we do not know to exist or not. This partiality always influences human beings’ moral judgment. Being in the awareness of this partiality, we have to make corrections to these attitudes. We should make a moral judgment without having such partiality. The Impartial Spectator is that person; the one who can fully enter into others' circumstances, and approve or disapprove of their actions without influence from the fact of who they are. It is like the virtue of self-command. It is necessary to place ourselves in the place of the other.[109] Therefore, Singer underlines, effective altruist must be an impartial spectator. He argues; “the gap between the living standards of people in developed nations and those in developing nations has increased enormously, so that those living in industrialized nations have a greater capacity to help those far away, and greater reason to focus our aid on them; far away is where the vast majority of the extremely poor are”.[110]  By nature, we are ordered to help the downtrodden impartially.

 

2.5.6 Futility thinking and the diffusion of responsibility

Singer proposes futility thinking and the diffusion of responsibility also as threats to better giving. Futility is quality not having a result. Those who think of helping others feel that their act is useless, it won’t produce any result. It sees their act as empty, vain, and useless. Ephesians 4, 17 says, So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. By this type of futility thinking, we may hold the mentality that the poor are drops in the ocean. It is not worth giving, because no matter how much we do, the ocean of people in need will seem just as vast as it was before.  It also leads to the mentality; the smaller the risk of the people to be saved, the lesser the willingness of the people to help.[111]

 The diffusion of responsibility is “an attitude to describe phenomena in which none of the members of a large group take a particular action or take responsibility for anything that occurs”.[112] As Singer mentions “we are also much less likely to help someone if the responsibility for helping does not rest entirely on us”.[113] Diffusion of responsibility occurs when people feel less responsibility for taking action in a given situation because other people could also be responsible for taking action.[114] We become a mere spectator in the large group without taking any action even though we are there among the people. This type of attitude generates a feeling, it is not my responsibility, but it is yours. People become the propagators of the bystander effect. People hesitate to help the victim when others are present. The greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that one of them will help. Many are around, therefore, why should I extend my hand to help? This becomes our attitude. According to Singer, we should not reduce ourselves into a mere spectator, but be a proactivist.

 

2.5.7 Sense of fairness

A sense of fairness is another important factor that affects the most good that one can do. A sense of fairness is conceptually related to a sense of coherence, a feeling that the world makes sense, that there is order, predictability, consistency, and purpose to our lives.[115] We don’t clean the surroundings if many stand around us. In the same way, our willingness to help the poor can be reduced if we think that we would be doing more than our fair share.  Singer argues; “so strong is our sense of fairness, that, to prevent others from getting more than their fair share, we are often willing to take less for ourselves”.[116] One may think that he/she has more disposable income than me. Therefore, let him/her share the income. If others are getting better rewards than mine for the same act, we won’t ready to accept or do such an act. In Singer’s words, even the monkeys won’t accept such ones. Sense of fairness as a moral illusion developed because they enhanced the reproductive fitness of those who had them and the groups to which they belonged. For Singer, this fairness may create cooperation among people. He writes; “a society in which most people act fairly will generally do better than one in which everyone is always seeking to take unfair advantage because people will be better able to trust each other and form cooperative relationships”.[117] Nobody likes to be unfair, all like to be fair in giving and receiving. A society where people act fairly does better than the unfair act.

 

2.5.8 Culture of giving

Singer proposes a culture of giving in the 21^st century by holding all the above-mentioned difficulties of giving. As a utilitarian, he defines what is right and wrong based on consequences. He says, we all have the opportunities to save the life of the children. What we have to do is to reduce our spending and give it to the other.[118] We should give up our luxuries and help the other. Don’t think of where the child is but think, wherever be the child they have the same value. Don’t do anything to generate publicity. Giving has to make us happy. When I participated in the 50^th-anniversary celebration of Vicente Ferrer Foundation, Anna Ferrer, one of the founders said, one act can transform the world. That act is giving. You are the only one to do that act. That may be the reason for Peter Singe to argue for the culture of giving.

 To give is to share. To share is to care. To care is to love. Giving is done in respect of the love for mankind. As it is heard, giving is a choice. As Roy T. Bennet says; “attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely. Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance”.[119] Normally people make a reference group with whom they try to identify themselves.  Our giving is always related to what others are giving. We have a tendency to be appreciated and rewarded for what we give. Jesus had already exhorted the world not to make a trumpet sound when helping the poor is done. It may be the same as the hypocrites do in synagogues and in the streets to be flattered by all. Do it in secret; the left hand should not know what the right hand does. Many become generous to be flattered by others.

Singer speaks of the necessity of the emergence of the concept of an anonymous donor.[120] In the Jewish tradition, in place of the charity act what the Jews had done is tzedakah. That is called righteousness and justice. Whenever the Jewish people donated their money, time and possessions to the disadvantaged, they are not called benevolent, generous or charitable. But they did what is called as right and just.  Jewish thinker, Maimonides, speaks of Eight Levels of Charity in the Mishna Torah 10,7-14. He mentions the greatest level of giving as follows; “the greatest level, above which there is no greater, is to support a fellow Jew by endowing him with a gift or loan, or entering into a partnership with him, or finding employment for him, to strengthen his hand so that he will not need to be dependent upon others”.[121]  By holding the view of Maimonides, Singer says, those who receive the help should not feel any type of indebtedness to the giver and should not be humiliated by the giver. Singer argues; “giving when either the donor is known to the recipient or recipient is known to the donor ranks lower than giving anonymously and without knowing the recipient of the gift”.[122]  Giving can be local and global. Don’t limit oneself only to local, widen the horizon to the global.  We humans have to develop a philanthropic graffiti[123] to generate a selfless spirit and to give only to deliver public good. Our attitude is; If others give more, I also will try to give more. In the giving, they should not get worried about the motives that prompt them to give. A small penny is more valuable than not giving anything at all.

Singer puts forward the Foster parents’ concept,[124] in which persons who have enough money to support the children from underdeveloped or developing countries for their food, clothing, education, etc. and in return, they receive a letter from the economically adopted child. It is done to the identifiable child. Even though many are there around foster parents support one or two kids. The sense of fairness of the foster parents also is satisfied here because they receive a letter from the child in return. He calls this concept as putting a face on the need.[125] Singer argues, although the child was far away, the idea that they were the child’s foster parent made the child part of their family and helped overcome the barrier of parochialism. The one barrier that couldn’t be overcome was that the only way the foster parents could assist the child was by giving money. There may emerge a problem of one gets and others do not get the effects of it. He changed this concept into a sponsor a child with a plan international.[126] In this, potential sponsors are told that money that they provide does not go to the one they sponsor is pooled by receiving contributions from others and try to use it efficiently and to give support for the world wide programs.

Living modestly to give more is an argument proposed by Peter Singer to give more.[127] By holding this, a person with normal income can contribute 10% of income to the effective altruists and even he can save 10 % of his future too. It’s enough for the one to lead a comfortable life. Always at this point emerge a question, how much one has to give and how much one has to hold in his life. The answer is nothing but, until we reach the marginal utility that is, the level at which, by giving more, I would cause as much suffering to myself or my dependents as I would relieve by my gift.[128] Earn more to give more is another formula suggested by Singer. According to Singer, the more you can earn the more you can donate. Don’t be a bystander to suffering. The wealth of all is for is an attitude of effective altruists as Singer mentions. Considering the children as the downtrodden as my own, necessity of ethical career, the necessity of social awareness responsibility and giving part of yourself are the certain proposals given by Singer for the most good.[129]  These are necessary proposals of Singer to develop the culture of giving.  

The opt-in system and the Opt-out system are other proposals by Singer.[130] These systems are in service of organ donation.  One is registered donors and the other is potential donors. Saving thousands of lives is possible through organ donation. Here we are supposed to make the people make better decisions. He calls for a nudge theory and demands the right kind of nudge. Even though this term was first used by James Wilk in 1995, it was made popularized with the work of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, named Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness in 2008. Nudge is a conceptual theorem with positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions as to ways to impact the behavior and decision making of clusters or folks. Nudge theory is even criticized for not based on any trustworthy evidence, not preparing people for a lasting behavioral change and for diminishing autonomy, threatening dignity, violating liberties and reducing welfare.  That is why Singer had gone after the right kind of nudge with good evidence[131] and long-lasting changes too.  According to Singer, when we choose our interests, we often choose unwisely. Then he adds the right kind of nudge – whether it comes from government, corporations, voluntary organizations, or even ourselves – can also help us do what we know we really ought to do.[132] We have to generate a belief that personal to charity is an underpinning of good citizenship and fosters a more-rounded individual. This will help people to understand charity as incredibly gratifying.  He pursues the corporations, employers to give 1% of their salary to fight against poverty. If the employees opt out of it, the organizations have to nudge them to do be generous. It is necessary to promote the culture of giving in the present era.

Singer challenges the norm of self-interest in the culture of giving. Normally we humans tend to explain all human acts on the principle of self-interest. With this many underplays the benevolence of the people. Singer tells don’t tell the people to act without self-interest.  If they act in such a way, there is a chance for them to be irrational and foolish. Celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Ronaldo, Madonna support the activities of the poor, maybe for their publicity. But one thing is sure that, selfless behavior makes us uncomfortable. When a donor gives away money to a certain concert hall etc., they are not selfless. There is another version of this principle too. Form this principle itself, many became altruistic volunteers to help the poor. For Singer, contrary to what so many of us believe, there is an enormous amount of altruistic, caring behavior in everyday life. Robert Wutnow comments on like this, individuals who acted altruistically also had given a self-interested explanation.[133] Many had volunteered to work for the sufficient causes but their voice was as follows, it gave me something to do, or got me out of the house. But nobody made a comment I wanted to help. Whatever be we all work in self-interest terms. Singer feels this norm as self-strengthening and socially malevolent because we believe that no one else acts altruistically, we are less likely to do it ourselves; the norm becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.[134] There is a narrow and broad nature of self-interest.

We should not make a denial of our interests as an element of altruism. We can repute people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests. As I had noted earlier, Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth-century philosopher was known for his self-interest theory and believed every action is based on egoism. The story mentioned earlier told us that the money he gave to the poor because it pleased him to see the poor man happy. His gift became reliable with his theory itself. What he had done is just widened the concept and avoided the refutation of his theory. It has become compatible with generosity and compassion. His actions prompt us to say that the greatest joy comes from seeing people made happier. What he followed the broad notion of self-interest: seeing other people happy is my happiness. Singer attributes, what is really of import is the concern people having for the interests of others. If we want to encourage people to do the most good, we should not focus on whether what they are doing involves a sacrifice, in the sense that it makes them less happy. We should instead focus on whether what makes them happy involves increasing the well-being of others.[135] If we wish, we can redefine the terms of egoism and altruism in this way, so that they refer to whether people’s interests include a strong concern for others if it does, then let’s call them altruists, whether or not acting on this concern for others involves a gain or loss for the altruist. Others’ happiness as my happiness is the new dictum of the norm of self-interest. For the culture of giving, Singer suggests a realistic approach.

 

2.5.9 Realistic approach

In developing the culture of giving Singer’s approach is realistic. He believed that something that promotes good based on reason is realistic.[136] I think this thought of Singer is very well influenced by Hume and Kant. In Hume’s theory, good is something that gives pleasure. Right is a type of doing what gives us pleasure. Goodness is something that regulates the rightness.[137] For Kant, firstly we should know the right through reasoning and later good becomes our will to do the right.[138] In my opinion, the good and the right are something interdependent and we can’t separate one from the another and we can’t comprehend one without the other. According to my thinking, the good can have three versions. The first version may look like this. We all have feelings and emotions. By examining our feelings and emotions we can have some sorts of ideas of good. This is the primary version of the good. The second version is done through empathy. It is a process of trying to universalize the good in the right way. It is done with empathy with the support of reason. From here we move on to the last version of the good and then we understand the right by trying to achieve the good.

 Singer emphasized the gap and difference between what I ought to do as an individual and the moral principles I need to follow.[139] Many philosophers had underlined these facts. What is not advocated by the public cannot be named as a moral code. Many a time what an individual ought to do and the best moral code behind one’s actions cannot be equal. According to Kant, an action is right, if it is based on universal law.[140]  John Rawls also mentions public condition as a key criterion for justice.[141] Don’t rely on my nature as a reason to do something as an ought to act. Sartre says, when I ask myself what ought to do, I am free.[142] Simply depending on my nature as a reason lacks authenticity. It must be good in itself. As Kant proposes goodwill is the highest good. Goodwill is good not because of the good it brings about but because of its goodness in itself.  As Singer mentions, a will simply be led by nature or instinct is not an end in itself.[143] It merely becomes a means for achieving happiness and satisfying those necessities. Since the goodwill is good in itself, the will led by mere nature is not good. It is mere instinct. If we go after mere instinct or nature it cannot be a good act.

For Singer, the reason is the only cause which can make a will good in itself. The reason is a practical activity the same as Kant proposes. Something that becomes real only when it is guided by reason. If an act more reasonable, it is more realistic.  There is praise and blame theory.  Many do good acts only because of praise and blame. I praise someone for doing something good and blame for doing something worse. Don’t do anything to increase my standards of giving. All lives on earth have equal value and therefore I need to respect and support. The equal value of all humanity must be guided by sufficient reasons. That should be an attitude that guides every effective altruist. A realistic approach is nothing but a life of fulfillment.[144] Doing good is something that brings fulfillment in life. As Buddha advocated, place your heart on acting good, again and again, you please do the same good and act, in the end, your life and heart will be filled with joy and satisfaction.  It is the same as just man as a happy man on Plato and Aristotle. We cannot have a happy life without having a life lived with sensibility, nobleness, and justice. Helping others is always good and it will make one feel about oneself in a better way too. It generates a happiness hypothesis; a person who gives more is blessed a lot than a person who receives. All these factors and thought patterns can help the people of the 21^st century to do the most good on earth. Now let me explain the motivating factors behind effective altruism according to Singer.   

 

 2.6 Philosophy of effective altruism: motivating factors  

Singer discusses the motives of effective altruism. Is it love, the motive of effective altruism? Is it empathy, the motive of effective altruism? Is it reason, the motive of effective altruism? Effective altruists always try to make effective changes in the lives of the downtrodden. They give donations and all to reduce the suffering of the suffered. What is the motivating factor of them? As we say, all that we need is love.  Is this the motto?  David Hume says; there is a passion for human beings to love mankind.[145] This can be underlined in the evolutionary process of Darwin too, there is only the survival of the genes like ours. Singer says, We the humans have only cooperation with whom we have relationships and we provide services for them.[146] Only survive those which are in a mutually beneficial relationship. According to Frans de Waal, “universally humans treat outsiders far worse than the members of their community, in fact, moral rules hardly seem to apply to the outside”.[147] We have love only towards our groups. Therefore, love cannot be the ultimate motive for effective altruists because they proclaim universal altruism.

 Singer also asks whether empathy can be the motive of effective altruists or not. What is empathy? Empathy is to place yourself into the place of others and to identify yourself with the state of mind and sentiments of others. It understands and shares the feeling of the other. For France de Waal, empathy is a grand theme of the epoch, it is beyond family, community, and society and it includes all of humankind.[148]  Barak Obama, the former President of the United States of America, mentions of empathy deficit of humans in his speeches.[149] When Singer talks on empathy, he mentions two types of empathy; cognitive and emotional.[150] Emotional empathy includes empathic concern (feeling and concern for the other people) and personal distress (personal unease in reaction to the emotions of others).  it refers to what one feels to others. Cognitive Empathy includes perspective-taking (taking into myself the point of view of others) and fantasy (imagining feelings of the other as my experience). It includes knowing something as same for other beings too. Emotional empathy is limited because people feel needy if they are known or shown or identified. One or two only will be getting the befits of the emotional one. Many children may not generate any feeling in them. Cognitive empathy is broad and thousands of children will be benefitted. In the first type, they are empathized with the individual child and are unable to empathize with the larger groups. Effective altruists are not limited to empathic concepts.

 For Singer, effective altruists are not utilitarian but they share the number of their moral judgments with them.[151] In precise, other things being alike, we ought to do the most good we can.  As I have mentioned earlier, the empathetic concern is merely one aspect. Other aspects do not vary among the judgments. Utilitarians are inclined to have more empathic than others but effective altruists are not behaving on grater emotional empathy. What they emphasize is the expansion of empathy - what we hope is not to think of the world as one family but to appreciate the fact that the life of the strangers also has the same value as the life of my dear ones. Effective altruists hold this view, the stranger also has the same value as my near ones. At the same time, they are concerned with the numbers too. Singer acclaims the fact that they are sensitive to numbers not because of mere empathy but because of reason.

According to Singer Reason is the motivation factor for effective altruists.[152] I think his arguments are through the thoughts pattern of Sidgwick and Kant. It can be questioned even on the claim of David Hume, reason as the slave of passions. According to Hume, reason by itself is not able to take action.[153] For Singer, to put a reason as the motivating factor of effective altruists., we have to reject the instrumentalist view of reason. Instrumental concept of reason tells, that reason can tell only what we need and it may be able to tell us what to need or what to want. We can place Kant’s concept of the moral law as the law of reason against Hume’s view. Kant believes that moral law comes from reason and it applies to all simply because we are rational enough to understand and act on it or simply because we possess a rational will.[154] Kant looks at two things with admiration and awe; the starry heavens above and the moral law within. Even though he speaks of a generation of feelings through the eternal truth of reason, he couldn’t explain how the veracity of the eternal truth can give feelings in an individual. Since there exists such difficulty, reason cannot be a mere slave.

Henry Sidgwick had given clarity to the claimed reason as the basis. Sidgwick speaks of the self-evident fundamental axioms.[155] The most important fundamental axioms are, the good of one individual is of no more importance, from the universe, than the good of any other; unless that is, they are special grounds for believing the more good is likely to be realized in the one case than in the other. As a rational being, we are supposed to do good universally and it is attainable only by my efforts too. I think it is the background for the maxim of benevolence too. As he places, since we are human beings, we are ethically bound to do good to others, considering others as much as possible as myself. It looks like an extension of empathy to the whole world as Bloom proposed. All these judgments give rise to dictate of reason as Sidgwick claims. Dictate of reason means, if humans are purely rational ones, this pure rationality leads us to action.[156] For Singer, pure reason is the pure motive of the effective altruists that lead to action.

 In my view, even though we consider the dictate of reason as we assumed from the maxim of benevolence, human beings are not purely rational beings. Many maxims support and conflict with these. Supporting one may be sympathy (feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune) and philanthropic enthusiasm (hope for the betterment).  Conflicting one may be egoism, nationalism, and racism, etc. Good of all is better than the good of a small part. Ignoring many creates a sense of discomfort. It is what Sidgwick calls as the normal emotional concomitant[157] or expression: preference of good of the whole to part. Singer says we are reasonable and rational. If we don’t follow our reason, we are offending our self-respect.[158] Those who use reason to do good to the whole don’t lack emotional motivation but it brings an emotional response within them. The reason for human beings germinates an emotional response to human beings. Like this, reason can give away emotion and passion. By proposing reason generates an emotional response in human beings Singer had given a small kick to Hume’s view.

To the point of the preference of whole to the part, Bernard William says; humans’ beings cannot take everything from the point of the universe.[159] He says certain dispositions and commitments are the ones that give meaning to one’s life and reason for living it and he believed there is nothing in humans as to the disposition to establish the substance of human life. According to Singer, the point of the view of the universe is possible for effective altruists. They make a certain kind of detachment from through reasoning. Even though it is not total in itself, it evaluates everything independent of dispositions, affections, and projects. The point of view of the universe varies from person to person. My view is not equal to your view. Reason plays a well-established role here by modifying and redirecting our emotions and passions and critically evaluates all these processes to act ethically. The reason is not a mere slave. Singer says; “if our capacity to reason also enables us to see that good of others is, from a more universal perspective, as important as our good, the new has an explanation for why effective altruists act by such principles”.[160] There is a rational insight for every effective altruist. They are moved by the arguments than mere empathy. From the point of view of the universe, a child in the strange world also is the same as your child. Loving your child does not mean to throw away and hate the other children. Rationality helps the effective altruist to think of helping needier than limiting to one or two.

I think the supremacy of reason helps the people who are informed by analytical information for emotional impulses, to override the emotional impulses of the people to act less effectively. Normally we tend to act less effectively. Here, according to Singer, effective altruists move from point and shoot mode (normal settings) to manual mode (override the automatic settings).[161] In the point and shoot mode, our intuitive responses are quick and easy to operate and in normal conditions, it functions well. But in rare circumstances, it’s too difficult for them to function well, it should be changed to a manual mode. That means we have to place away out instinct reactions and we have to think with reason and act.  This manual mode of decisions is drawn from the conscious thought process, reasoning as well as emotional attitude.[162] Effective altruist uses this type of cognitive loading. They make judgments with greater use of the conscious reasoning process.  Singer’s rational necessity for the effective altruist compels me to call them as rational calculating machines. For them, the reason is the decision-making factor and compassion, mercy, emotions are merely supportive. They believe higher reasoning brings higher moral effects and impacts too. 

For Singer, effective altruism is an amazing opportunity to make this world a better place and to save thousands of lives.[163] when we give, it should not be seen in the level of sacrifice. If we see it in the bag of sacrifice, it will be a lower level of well-being and it will make us less happy.[164] Money is necessary for consumer goods but money can’t give happiness. Happiness is a State of comprehensive satisfaction, characterized by its fullness and stability. A basic understanding of happiness is eudaimonia. Happiness is a eudaimonic turn, where eudaimonic comes from the Greek eudaimonia, standardly translated as happiness. Eudaimonia is not a particular kind of experience or feeling, but a particular kind of life, where reason almost always plays an important role. The link between happiness and reason is drawn by Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics, where he argues that happiness resides in rational activity by virtue.[165]  Happiness is claimed as the highest end of human life.  Giving others provide happiness at heart and brings satisfaction in life. Self-esteem is an important component of happiness. By their act, effective altruists cultivate reasonable self- esteem, a type of self-esteem generated out of the commitment to the world and response to what ought to do. It comes out of relevant evidence and values that are not open to the reasonable criticism of others. I think it is an idea of sound ethical decisions.

To be a reasonable individual, the self-esteem generated must be founded on evidence and reasonable values. This helps us to see the well -being of the other as the well-being of myself. For Singer, the acts of effective altruists are the expression of the core of one’s identity. They do not because of it as their duty, but because of seeing it as that what one wants to do. Singer argues, if we want to encourage people to do the most good, we should not focus on whether what they are doing involves a sacrifice, in the sense that it makes them less happy. We should instead focus on whether what makes them happy involves increasing the well-being of others.[166] If we wish, we can redefine the terms of egoism and altruism in this way, so that they refer to whether people’s interests include a strong concern for others -if it does, then let’s call them altruists, whether or not acting on this concern for others involves a gain or loss for the altruist. We call them as effective altruist not because of sacrificing their interests but because of the kind of interests they have. Reason with shreds of evidence that give people fulfillment and satisfaction is the ultimate motivating guide for effective altruists.  

 

2.7 Conclusion

The effective altruistic philosophy of Peter Singer is a philosophical development to do the most good in the point of view of the Universe. It is an address to reduce the suffering of the world. Singer’s effective altruistic philosophy can be summarized as follows: all humans on earth are equal, therefore treat equally and just fully. They deserve equality in everything in the world; the world is filled with suffering and only the rich and generous-minded people have a responsibility to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Resources to alleviate this suffering on earth are limited, therefore the allocation of the resources must be done to help the needy and downtrodden. To do the most good on earth is an ought of human existence. It is a must and our responsibility to give. His arguments can be summarized in one-word global moral responsibility towards the global poor. We the human should try their level best to exterminate unjust systems of the world or society which try to double and encourage our interests at the expense of sustaining and exacerbating global human suffering. Our responsibility is to go beyond the frontiers and proximities. All our activities must be based on sufficient reasonable pieces of evidence. If not, we may go into taking action. My fulfillment of life is nothing but to see a world without suffering. Make a difference with my act. I also believe the same as Singer, all these acts will make a difference in the suffering of the people. It will reduce the suffering that we see around. But I don’t agree with the must concept of Singer. Our presence can make a difference in society. Don’t forget many waits outside me to get help. Therefore, I should act in its fulness to reduce suffering from society. Smile on the face of the other because of me is the ultimate end of effective altruism. If I become the cause of other’s happiness, that is the fulfillment of my life and existence. Therefore, the effective altruism of Singer is nothing but self-satisfaction or self-fulfillment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Cf. D. AITON, "Ten Things You Didn't Know about Professor Peter Singer": The Weekend Australian (27 February 2005) 12.

[2] Sigmund Freud and D.E. Oppenheim wrote together the book Dreams in Folklore.

[3] Cf. P. SINGER, Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna (Oxford 2005) 35-37.  

[4] Cf.  ibid., 36.

[5] Cf. ibid., 40.

[6] Cf. ibid., 41.

[7]  Cf. P. SINGER, Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (New York 1975) 46-53.

[8] Cf. ibid., 63-65.

[9] Cf.  P. SINGER, Famine, Affluence, and Morality (Oxford 2016) xvii.

[10] Ibid., 32-33

[11] Ibid., 36.

[12] Cf. P. SINGER - H. KUHSE, Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (Oxford 1985) 20. 

[13] Cf. P. SINGER, A Darwinian Left (New Haven 2000) 35.

[14] Cf. P. SINGER, “What is it like to be a Philosopher?”; In http://www.whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/peter-singer (10 August 2019)

[15] Cf. ibid.

[16] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (New York 2009) 38-39.

[17] Cf. P. SINGER, “What is it like to be a Philosopher?”; In http://www.whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/peter-singer (10 August 2019).

[18] Cf. B. GERT, Common Morality: Deciding What to Do (New York 2004) 18.

[19] Cf. ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, trans. H.G. Apostle (Grinnell² 1979) 5, 21-23.

[20] Cf. Ibid.

[21] A. PIATIGORSKY, The Buddhist Philosophy of Thought (London 1984) 67.

[22] Ataraxia (ἀταραξία, literally, "unperturbedness", generally translated as "imperturbability", "equanimity", or "tranquility") is a Greek term first used in Ancient Greek philosophy by Pyrrho and subsequently Epicurus and the Stoics for a lucid state of robust equanimity characterized by ongoing freedom from distress and worry. In non-philosophical usage, the term was used to describe the ideal mental state for soldiers entering battle. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataraxia (15 September 2019).

[23] Cf. G. WRISTLEY, “Nietzsche and the Value of Suffering - Two Alternative Ideals”; 

In:https://www.georgewrisley.com/Nietzsche% 20and%20the%20Value%20of%20Suffering.pdf (15 September).

[24] Cf. S. M. NASON, “Kierkegaard and the Problem of Suffering” ;  In https://www.academia.edu/8931995/Kierkegaard_and_the_Problem_of_Suffering_an_Initial_Sketch (15 September 2019).

[25] R. WHITE, “Levinas, the Philosophy of Suffering and the Ethics of Compassion”: The Heythrop Journal  LIII (2012) 11-13.

[26] Cf. J. H. BURNS, “Happiness and Utility: Jeremy Bentham’s Equation”;  In https://www.utilitarianism.com/jeremy-bentham/greatest-happiness.pdf ( 15 September 2019).

[27] Cf. J. BENTHAM, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation (London² 1823) 2-4.

[28] Cf. ibid., 16.

[29] Cf. J.S. MILL, Utilitarianism (London² 1863) 43-47.

[30] Cf. P. SINGER, Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford 2017) 35.

[31] Cf. ibid., 41.

[32] Cf. ibid., 42.

[33] Cf. ibid., 43.

[34] P. SINGER, Practical Ethics (Cambridge 1983) 12.

[35] Ibid., 13.

[36] Cf. ibid., 290.

[37] Cf. ibid., 293.

[38] Cf. ibid., 295.

[39] Ibid., 296.

[40] Cf. ibid., 57-60.

[41] Cf. P. SINGER, Writings on an Ethical Life (New York 2000) 320.

[42] Cf. ibid., 319.

[43] Cf. ibid., 323.

[44] P. SINGER, Practical Ethics, 21.

[45] Cf. P. SINGER, Writings on an Ethical Life, xi.

[46] Cf. “Effectiveness”,

In:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effectiveness#:~:targetText=    The%20origin%20of%20the%20word,between%201300%20and%201400%20A (18 September 2019).

[47] P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do (London 2015) 5. 

[48] Cf. ibid., 6.

[49] Cf. ibid., 18. 

[50] Cf. ibid., 19.

[51] Cf. P. SINGER, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, xvi.

[52] Cf. ibid., xvii.

[53] Cf. ibid, 11.

[54] Cf. ibid., 13.

[55] Cf. ibid., 26.

[56] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 23.

[57] Cf. ibid., 27.

[58] Cf. P. SINGER, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, 37.

[59] Cf. ibid., 29.

[60] Cf. P. SINGER, Practical Ethics, 14.

[61] Cf. H. SIDGWICK, Methods of Ethics (Cambridge² 1874) 138-143..

[62] Cf. ibid., 177.

[63] Cf. ibid., 146-147.

[64] Ibid., 148.

[65] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 21.

[66] Cf. T. AQUINAS, Summa Theologica II-II, q.  66, a. 7,  5051.  

[67] AMBROSE OF MILAN (395), “De Nabuthe Jezraelita”, in:  Rich and Poor in Christian Tradition, trans-ed. W. SHEWRING  (London² 1948) 68.

[68] S. ROSENFELD, Common Sense: A Political History (Cambridge 2014) 22.

[69] Ibid., 23.

[70] Cf. H. ALLISON, Essays on Kant (Oxford 2012) 65.

[71] Cf. I. KANT, Critique of pure reason, trans. Marx Muller (New York³ 1922) 473.

[72] D.HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, 302.

[73] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 24.

[74] P.SINGER, “ It is duty to give”,

In:http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/duty_Peter /0Singer/20%C2%A9&targetText (24 September 2019).

[75] P. SINGER, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, 27.

[76] Cf. ibid., 28.

[77] P. SINGER, “It is duty to give”,

In:http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/charity/duty_Peter/0Singer/20%C2%A9&targetText (24 September 2019).

[78] P. MISHRA, Age of Anger, (New York 2017)  16.

 

[79] Cf. S.JOSEPH, “Remarks on Age of Anger”, in: https://sjcmonk.blogspot.com/2020/04/age-of-anger-history-of-present_27.html.

[80] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 24.

[81] Cf. Ibid., 26.

[82] Cf. Ibid., 28.

[83] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, xiii.

[84] AMBROSE OF MILAN (395), “De Nabuthe Jezraelita”, in: Rich and Poor in Christian Tradition, 69.

[85] T. AQUINAS, Summa Theologica II-II, q.  66, a. 7.

[86] POPE PAUL VI,  Populorum Progressio, 23.

[87] POPE JOHN PAUL II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 5.

[88] Cf. P. SINGER, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, 28.

[89] Cf. ibid., 30.

[90] Cf. ibid., 32.

[91] Cf. ibid., 47.

[92] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 40.

[93] Cf. ibid., 59.

[94] Cf. Ibid., 61.

[95] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 148.

[96] Cf. P. SINGER, Writings on an Ethical Life, 65.

[97] Cf. K. JENNI, "Explaining the Identifiable Victim Effect”: Journal of Risk and Uncertainty 14 (2007) 235–257.

[98] Cf. T. SCHELLING, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own",in:  Problems in Public Expenditure Analysis , ed. Chase (1968) 128.

[99] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 48.

[100] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 50.

[101] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 50.

[102] Cf.  H. AELDERING, “Parochial vs. universal cooperation: Introducing a novel economic game of within and between group interaction”: Social Psychological and Personality Science (February 2019) 46-48.

[103] Cf. P. SINGER, Writings on an Ethical Life, 75.

[104] Cf. ibid., 78.

[105] A. SMITH, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London² 1789) 84-85.

[106] Ibid., 90.

[107] Cf. P. SINGER, Writings on an Ethical Life, 86.

[108] Cf. A. SMITH, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, 123.

[109] Cf. ibid., 126.

[110] P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 52.

[111] Cf. ibid., 53.

[112] Ibid., 54.

[113] Ibid., 57.

[114] Cf. J. M. DARLEY, "Bystander Intervention in Emergencies: Diffusion of Responsibility": Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 8 (1968) 378.

[115] Cf. D. MATTHEWS, “Fairness”;

In https://glosbe.com/en/en/sense%20of%20fairness.

[116] P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 56.

[117] Ibid., 57.

[118] Ibid., 65.

[119] R. T. BENNETT, The Light in the Heart (Oxford 2016) 113.

[120] Cf. P. SINGER, Rethinking Life and Death (New York 1994) 95.

[121] MAIMONIDES, Mishnah Torah, Laws of Charity; In http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/maimonides.pdf. 

[122] P. SINGER, Rethinking Life and Death, 96.

[123] Cf. P. SINGER, Writings on an Ethical Life, 135.

[124] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 68.

[125] Cf. ibid., 69.

[126] Cf. ibid., 73.

[127] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 72.

[128] Cf. ibid., 74.

[129] Cf. ibid., 77.

[130] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 74.

[131] Cf. J. V.  HEIJDEN, “From mechanism to virtue: Evaluating Nudge-theory”: Evaluation 21 (July 2015) 43.

[132] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 74.

[133] Cf. R. WOTHNOW, Ideology and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and European Socialism (New York 1989) 45.

[134] Cf. P. SINGER, Practical Ethics, 14.

[135] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 77.

[136] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 151.

[137] Cf. D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, 144.

[138] Cf. I. KANT, Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals, 128.

[139] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 153.

[140] Cf. I. KANT, Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals, 129.

[141] Cf. J. RAWLS, Justice as Fairness (Cambridge 2001) 43.

[142] Cf. J. P.  SARTRE, Existentialism is a Humanism (New York 1946) 4.

[143] Cf. P. SINGER, The Life You Can Save, 154.

[144] Cf. ibid., 165.

[145] Cf. D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, 45.

[146] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 75.

[147] F. WAAL, The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society (Oxford 2009) 36.

[148] Cf. ibid., 38.

[149] Cf. M. HONIGSBAUM, “Barak Obama and the empathy deficit”: The Guardian (January 2013) 3.

[150] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 78.

[151] Cf. ibid., 79.

[152] Cf. ibid., 81.

[153] Cf. D. HUME, A Treatise of Human Nature, 46.

[154] Cf. I. KANT, Groundwork for Metaphysics of Morals,130.

[155] Cf. H. SIDGWICK, Methods of Ethics, 144.

[156] Cf. ibid., 145.

[157] Cf. ibid., 146.

[158] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 86.

[159] Cf. B. WILLIAMS, Utilitarianism for and against (Cambridge 1973) 96.

[160] P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 98.

[161] Cf. ibid., 92.

[162] Cf. ibid., 101.

[163] Cf. ibid., 104.

[164] Cf. ibid., 106.

[165] Cf. ARISTOTLES, Nicomachean Ethics I, 7.

[166] Cf. P. SINGER, The Most Good You Can Do, 102.