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Peter Singer - PowerPoint Presentation

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Uploaded On 2016-07-13

Peter Singer - PPT Presentation

on Famine Affluence and Morality Thomas Nadelhoffer Dept of Philosophy Elie Wiesel Nobel Peace Laureate Holocaust Survivor Sometimes we must interfere When human lives are endangered when human dignity is in jeopardy national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant Whene ID: 402806

numbers moral singer people moral numbers people singer million peter fail cost psychological genocide emotion point food prevent amp

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Presentation Transcript

Slide1

Peter Singer on Famine, Affluence, and Morality

Thomas Nadelhoffer

Dept. of PhilosophySlide2

Elie Wiesel:Nobel Peace Laureate, Holocaust Survivor

“Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must- at that moment- become the center of the universe."

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." Slide3

Moral Malaise & Misguided Priorities

Steelers’ Heinz Field: $281 Million

Eagles’ Lincoln Financial Field: $512 Million Slide4

The Toys of the Mega-Rich

World’s Most Expensive Private Jet: Airbus A380

The “Flying Palace”

Cost: $300 Million

World’s Most Expensive “Gigayacht”: Wally Island

325 ft. long and 70 ft. wide

Cost: $200 MillionSlide5

The Face of FamineSlide6

Facts About Hunger & PovertyNearly one in four people live

on less than $1 per

day

.

3 billion people in the world today struggle to survive

on $2 per day.

To

satisfy the world's sanitation and food requirements would cost only US $13

billion--what

the people of the United States and the European Union spend on perfume each year.Slide7

The Key Moral QuestionEvery 3.6 seconds someone dies of hunger.

 

The question is:

W

hat, if anything, do we owe them?Slide8

Peter Singer’s ChallengeTwo Fundamental Moral Assumptions:

Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care are bad.

If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.Slide9

The Shallow Pond Slide10

Singer’s ResponseThe Proximity Thesis

Does Distance Make a Difference?

Singer and the Sorties Paradox

The Descriptive vs. the Normative

Do Numbers Make a Difference?

Singer and the Reductio ad Absurdum

“Should I consider that I am less obliged to pull the drowning child out of the pond if on looking around I see other people, no further away than I am, who have also noticed the child but are doing nothing?”Slide11

Charity vs. DutyCharity as an ideal excuse for moral inactivity.

Upsetting the moral categories.

Helping as obligatory rather than supererogatory.

“The moral point of view requires us to look beyond the interests of our own society.”Slide12

Objections:

Too drastic

Over-demanding

Counter-intuitive

Population Control*

Helping at Home FirstSlide13

“What is the point of relating philosophy to public affairs if we do not take our conclusions seriously?”

--Peter SingerSlide14

Psychological BarriersSlide15

“The statistics of mass murder or genocide—no matter how large the numbers—do not convey the true meaning of such atrocities. The numbers fail to trigger the affective emotion or feeling required to motivate action. In other words, we know that genocide in Darfur is real, but we do not “feel” that reality. In fact, not only do we fail to grasp the gravity of the statistics, but the numbers themselves may actually hinder the psychological processes required to capture attention and create emotion.”

--Samantha PowerSlide16

Compassion Fatigue“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” –Mother Theresa

“At what number do other individuals blur for me?” –Annie Dillard

Compassion Fatigue: New Studies

Numbers and Psychological Numbing

Evolution, Genocide, and Moral Obligation

Innate but not Immutable!Slide17

We Owe Them…