Famine, Affluence and Morality.

[steady flame]

I could discuss this topic for years, and I probably will. The subject of this paper has caused me great internal turmoil for a long time. To those who are familiar with this well-known essay by Peter Singer. I simply ask for your thoughts. Because, at least to me, I see no flaw in the logic portrayed and feel as if every day I bear the guilt of not acting upon what I know to be unjust and wrong. I know that selling my earthly belongings and donating everything I ever earn would not "solve" any world issues on their own. But I feel that if I am capable of mitigating even a small amount of pain and suffering in this life, Then I should. It is objectively the "right" thing to do.

Yet here you are, sitting in your home, with everything you need to survive in excess. Comfortable and calm. Simply because society deems that due to a lack of proximity, the world's problems are not yours to solve.
The way humanity's current societal structures function seems so fundamentally flawed and unjust.
And I don't see a solution to any major humanitarian issues without drastic change.
But part of me thinks that change will never come and that the meaningless monotony of the average person's life is ignorant and immoral.

[heavy roost]

I'll keep my response simple, alot of the people who have all the money dont have the best morality, so the arguments are moot until rich people listen

[cobalt locust]

I haven’t read Peter Singer’s essay but I hope you don’t mind me participating. Essentially, I believe the solution is to get familiar with the butterfly effect and manifest more and more positive actions to create that beautiful butterfly outcome over time. Sometimes, drastic action must be taken because time is of the essence and it’s worth the risk to make big changes that will create more or less chaos in the process (revolution either state wise, technology wise, etc.). Most of the time however, I believe it’s the little things added together over time that make the best, wisest, most positive change. It just takes time and patience and lots of careful attentive consideration for the big picture. I will quote Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings: “Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk, that keeps the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.”

However, with the butterfly effect it is also possible to do many small negative actions that create abominations over time, like the ones you are probably mentioning here (famine, etc). Thing is, we most often don’t even realize that these small actions will lead to negative outcomes. In fact, most of the time we think we are doing small positive actions that are actually detrimental on the long run. That’s why careful attentive consideration (probably like the essay you’ve read) are so important for the bigger picture. I remember when I witnessed many documentaries talking about many problems in the world caused by our actions in western society. I believe I felt kind of similar to how you appear to be feeling now. I became a minimalist and was happy doing it. I just focused on keeping a few useful and meaningful items for myself (like a computer, a bicycle, a hammock and a few clothes) and stopped buying so many things that never actually brought all that much joy to me in the past.

Pick up an object and think: « How much joy has this item really brought me in the past » if you don’t get much of a reaction out of it, get rid of it, sell it, recycle it. Now it could become someone else’s burden or treasure. So it’s even better to go through that process before you buy something: « How much joy do I really think this item will bring me? Do I really, absolutely want this? Need this to be happy? Or am I just filling an empty void? If so, why don’t I feel happy without this? Maybe I should work on that first before buying the thing. Then if you are still convinced you want to buy it, go for it. You will be richer in the long run, have less debt, have more time doing the things you really enjoy doing. You will spend less time cleaning up and cluttering your life.

I’ll also add that I think focusing mainly on your local area of livelihood first, is key. How can we expect to solve the worlds problems if we haven’t yet solved our own local problems? It’s often the area we know most about, that we have most experience in dealing with, therefore it should be the area we can create most impact /bang for our buck. There are obviously always exceptions to this but I’d argue most of the time, that’s where most significant change happens. After having sold most of my belongings, I had money to travel and experience other ways of doing things. I came back to my hometown, sold the house, started a business in construction/welding. Focused on building locally and serving my community. I’m not saying what I’ve been doing is perfect, by no means (I don’t think anyone could claim that anyways). I think I have put myself in a better happier situation however. And I must keep holding myself accountable and keeping in mind that butterfly effect that brought me here. Because again, I could easily fall back into the trap if I’m not careful. As my business is growing, I have to carefully think down the line, where my business is going and what effects it will cause to the bigger picture. I could easily be motivated by money alone and start building useless crap that people don’t really need and spend lot’s of naïve energy on convincing them they need it (marketing). Instead I want to build things that bring meaning into people’s lives and that’s what I’ve been doing. People will spread the word around for you when it’s something meaningful to them and that is what has been happening to me. There are plenty of better examples than mine out there as well.

[limpid rapids]

I have read the paper you are talking about and while I agree on most parts, one argument that Singer makes hinges on practicing what you preach. Mind you, this does not invalidate the entire paper, but it is what I perceive as a flaw in the logic.

Singer suggests that it seems unlikely, untenable even, that one could convince others to give when the person preaching these acts is not giving anything themselves. However, in recent times there have been numerous occasions of celebrities advocating for people to donate generously to help disaster-stricken regions while not giving anything themselves.

The key here is that it is usually not known at the time that the preacher is not giving. It is discovered later. So the people following and donating could well be under the assumption that they are doing what the preacher is doing as well, and perhaps they would not give if they knew the preacher was not giving either.

Either way, that circles back to Singer's point that knowing others are not giving does not absolve the personal moral responsibility to give until giving more would cause more suffering than it would relieve. It could well be that deceptive preachers are a force for good in such a scenario, but I find it difficult to reconcile this with other moral standards of contemporary society.

As for your consideration that perhaps people as individuals are simply immoral; I don't agree. The key that explains why people are so averse to giving away large amounts of what they own to people they do not know is not because they themselves are immoral.

Quite the opposite: they are merely adhering to the morals instilled by our modern societies. Our societies, especially the western ones, do not value the group. They focus on the individual, and how to defeat other individuals living in the same system (Capitalism).

It is a symptom of our modern ideologies that giving generously to people beyond our direct environment is considered, as Singer puts it, charity as opposed to duty. To change the morality of the society, I honestly believe we need to reconsider the prime ideology our nations follow.

[limpid rapids]

Is it a good read. I can highly recommend it. It's maybe 20-30 minutes of material. Your general observations seem to be very compatible with the arguments and conclusions Singer produces within it.

The PDF can be found through google fairly easily (for free)

[cobalt locust]

Thank you for the recommendation, I'll give it a read

[cobalt locust]

The last 3 to 4 pages of the essay I believe are worth talking about so I'll copy-paste them here for ease of reference. The first 11 pages of his essay, which pretty much talk about how it is good to do our best to help out those in need is true and pretty much irrefutable if we value morality, so I will leave them be. Here are the 3 to 4 last pages of Peter Singer's essay: <<Another, more serious reason for not giving to famine relief funds
is that until there is effective population control, relieving famine
merely postpones starvation. If we save the Bengal refugees now, others, perhaps the children of these refugees, will face starvation in a
few years' time. In support of this, one may cite the now well-known
facts about the population explosion and the relatively limited scope
for expanded production.
This point, like the previous one, is an argument against relieving
suffering that is happening now, because of a belief about what might
happen in the future; it is unlike the previous point in that very good
evidence can be adduced in support of this belief about the future. I
will not go into the evidence here. I accept that the earth cannot support indefinitely a population rising at the present rate. This certainly
poses a problem for anyone who thinks it important to prevent famine.
Again, however, one could accept the argument without drawing the
conclusion that it absolves one from any obligation to do anything to
prevent famine. The conclusion that should be drawn is that the best
means of preventing famine, in the long run, is population control.
It would then follow from the position reached earlier that one ought
to be doing all one can to promote population control (unless one held
that all forms of population control were wrong in themselves, or
would have significantly bad consequences). Since there are organizations working specifically for population control, one would then support them rather than more orthodox methods of preventing famine.>>

<<A third point raised by the conclusion reached earlier relates to the
question of just how much we all ought to be giving away. One possibility, which has already been mentioned, is that we ought to give
until we reach the level of 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. This would mean, of course,
that one would reduce oneself to very near the material circumstances
of a Bengali refugee. It will be recalled that earlier I put forward both
a strong and a moderate version of the principle of preventing bad
occurrences. The strong version, which required us to prevent bad
things from happening unless in doing so we would be sacrificing
something of comparable moral significance, does seem to require
reducing ourselves to the level of marginal utility. I should also say
that the strong version seems to me to be the correct one. I proposed
the more moderate version-that we should prevent bad occurrences
unless, to do so, we had to sacrifice something morally significant only in order 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. Whether this is so I shall not discuss, since, as I have said,
I can see no good reason for holding the moderate version of the principle rather than the strong version.>>

<<Even if we accepted the principle
only in its moderate form, however, it should be clear that we would
have to give away enough to ensure that the consumer society,
dependent as it is on people spending on trivia rather than giving to
famine relief, would slow down and perhaps disappear entirely. There
are several reasons why this would be desirable in itself. The value
and necessity of economic growth are now being questioned not only
by conservationists, but by economists as well.5 There is no doubt, too,
that the consumer society has had a distorting effect on the goals and
purposes of its members. Yet looking at the matter purely from the
point of view of overseas aid, there must be a limit to the extent to
which we should deliberately slow down our economy; for it might be
the case that if we gave away, say, forty percent of our Gross National
Product, we would slow down the economy so much that in absolute
5. See, for instance, John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State (Boston, I967); and E. J. Mishan, The Costs of Economic Growth (London, I967).
242 Philosophy & Public Affairs
terms we would be giving less than if we gave twenty-five percent of
the much larger GNP that we would have if we limited our contribution to this smaller percentage.
I mention this only as an indication of the sort of factor that one
would have to take into account in working out an ideal. Since Western societies generally consider one percent of the GNP an acceptable
level for overseas aid, the matter is entirely academic. Nor does it
affect the question of how much an individual should give in a society
in which very few are giving substantial amounts.
It is sometimes said, though less often now than it used to be, that
philosophers have no special role to play in public affairs, since most
public issues depend primarily on an assessment of facts. >>

<<On questions
of fact, it is said, philosophers as such have no special expertise, and
so it has been possible to engage in philosophy without committing
oneself to any position on major public issues. No doubt there are
some issues of social policy and foreign policy about which it can truly
be said that a really expert assessment of the facts is required before
taking sides or acting, but the issue of famine is surely not one of
these. The facts about the existence of suffering are beyond dispute.
Nor, I think, is it disputed that we can do something about it, either
through orthodox methods of famine relief or through population control or both. This is therefore an issue on which philosophers are competent to take a position. The issue is one which faces everyone who
has more money than he needs to support himself and his dependents,
or who is in a position to take some sort of political action. These categories must include practically every teacher and student of philosophy in the universities of the Western world. If philosophy is to deal
with matters that are relevant to both teachers and students, this is an
issue that philosophers should discuss.
Discussion, though, is not enough. What is the point of relating
philosophy to public (and personal) affairs if we do not take our conclusions seriously? In this instance, taking our conclusion seriously
means acting upon it. The philosopher will not find it any easier than
anyone else to alter his attitudes and way of life to the extent that, if
I am right, is involved in doing everything that we ought to be doing.
243 Famine, Affluence, and
Morality
At the very least, though, one can make a start. The philosopher who
does so will have to sacrifice some of the benefits of the consumer
society, but he can find compensation in the satisfaction of a way of
life in which theory and practice, if not yet in harmony, are at least
coming together. >> End of essay

[cobalt locust]

Ezra: So this is a complex situation. Although many things have changed in the past 50 years and new solutions have come to light since then, these types of problems still persist and still need to be dealt with. We first need to remember that all suffering in the world will obviously never be completely erased. The nature of everything is to constantly seek new challenges. Once one challenge is dealt with, we seek to grow further and inevitably encounter newfound sufferings. Therefore we need to get comfortable with suffering, yet still seek to reduce unnecessary suffering when it is blatantly immoral.

As encouraged in Peter Singer's essay, we must learn to sacrifice for the betterment of all we co-exist with on this planet. However, we must be careful how we do this. We must stay aware of the future consequences of our actions whether we initially think them to be of good intent or not. We also need to be working more often on the source of the problem rather than the end result of the problem. Instead of just blindly throwing money at a problem, we need to truly understand why the problem occurred, and how to truly fix it. Using the resources into a well thought out solution. Thing is, nature has a delicate balance short-term and a tenacious balance long-term. Same way a natural disaster like forest fires, floods, earthquakes, viruses and the sort, immediately destabilize a system, so do drastic changes in human behavior like in technology, sociology and war. It often takes time and intelligent effort to make the destabilized system re-adapt afterwards but it is surprisingly tenacious all the same.

If the cause of the problem and the solution to it are obvious beyond a doubt, and you are pretty certain you know how to help, then by all means, do it. But so often people either offer their help when it is not needed, or misdirect their help because of misinformation. You can find many examples of charity institutions that either don't know what they are doing, or know what they are doing and taking advantage of a bad situation for their benefit. You must seriously search for the right institution to contribute to and even better, go on the grounds of operations and get your hands dirty if you can, so to know what is actually going on. Or have someone you trust go there who can report back as you contribute financially.

The ironic thing however, is most problems in poor countries or war torn countries are caused by more wealthy countries (not all, but most). And without working on the problems in those wealthy countries that are causing the problems to the less fortunate in the first place, it can be like attempting to empty the sinking boat with a cup. Surely if someone in the boat who is unaware of the hole in the boat sees you emptying the boat with a cup, they might be happy to see you are doing something to help. But if you are aware of the hole in the boat, you should try to patch it first.

That is why it is often best to see if there are any priorities in your locale first and then branch out later when you think you can be more effective elsewhere.

[cobalt locust]

We also need to remember that natives of the lands of the earth have been doing quite fine for many millennia without us. It seems to only be when we meddle in their affairs that we screw things up. The same goes for other nations where we meddle in their affairs. So we need to distinguish the difference when a people have problems caused by natural disaster and problems caused by other nations. Natural disasters should be all hands on deck, problems caused by others nations should be throwing problem causer over board wether it be captain or sailor.

[limpid rapids]

I do not agree with your assessment that we can trace disasters back to foreign involvement unless you want to take a highly reductive perspective in which you trace back further and further until you find the factor you're looking for.

In reality it's far more complicated than simply blaming foreign powers meddling in local affairs. Since my specialty in the humanities is the Korean Peninsula, I'll use the Arduous March famine in the DPRK as an example as it connects to the topic well.

The Arduous March (고난의 행군, konanŭi haenggun) is officially recognized to begin as a famine in 1994 and lasting several years. The contributing factors leading into this disaster are varied and cannot in any way be reduced to simply 'foreign involvement.' For starters, Kim Il Sung would routinely purge political opponents (perceived or otherwise) to remove any criticisms of his policies starting from essentially the very moment he was installed as head of the North-Korean state due to his guerilla background (the USSR wanted a governing body of Soviet Korean technocrats to do the actual ruling, but they needed a name with popular appeal).

Since North Korea has very little arable land, the Soviet Koreans urged Kim Il Sung to pursue a light-industry policy following the end of the Korean War, which would provide the population with their basic needs and steer away from the war economy of heavy industry. However, they would face significant resistance from Kim as Soviet Russia in the years following Stalin's death became more critical of Stalinism, which in turn caused distrust of all Soviets by Kim who was a Stalinist himself (further reinforced by the perceived weakness of Russia's retreat from Cuba to end the nuclear crisis). Eventually, through willpower and routine purges, the military industry was revived in spite of the general population's suffering in large part due to mass mobilization of said population.

In an echo of China's 'Great Leap Forward', the 천리마 (ch'ŏllima) movement was called into being by Kim after he looked to China for allies in light of his distrust of the Soviet Union. Up until this point, the post-wartime economy was actually showing reasonable growth, but to facilitate this ch'ŏllima, Kim decided that he would divert 30% of the nation’s GDP to the military in a parallelism effort 병진 (pyŏngjin), which almost immediately flatlined the economy because it’s simply not possible to spend that much of your nation’s wealth on weapons.

As mentioned, Kim would routinely purge people who tried to correct this course, and eventually nobody was left to critique him. What’s more, Kim Il Sung had the laws written so that his signature was required to create new policies. As the country spiraled towards crisis, his son Kim Jong Il would take over more and more, but since his father’s autograph was a requirement, he, too, could not (or perhaps truly believed in his father’s ideology and so did not want to) change course. When Kim Il Sung died and Kim Jong Il gained full control, this need for a signature of Kim Il Sung effectively paralyzed the government of NK.

When the country was then hit by natural disasters like floods and subsequent, almost ironically, droughts, the political heads of state were in no condition to respond in any comprehensive way other than trying to save what could be saved, using a military policy of 선근 (sŏngŭn, ‘military first’) and reducing the area in which the state would continue to provide people with food to, essentially, nowhere except P'yŏngyang; leaving the population to figure it out for themselves (and well over a million people simply could not).

To reduce this disaster to the foreign influences of international politics that did not even concern themselves much with the DPRK is quite simply not possible and ignores the great responsibility that local policy makers carried.

What's more, humanitarian aid that was offered to help the nation overcome the disasters was met with hostility from North Korea, which in essence prevented itself from being helped.

This poses another issue for the moral question of the paper by Singer. Vast amounts of money went North Korea's way during this disaster, but it would frequently harass aid workers or outright refuse aid entirely. This means it sometimes doesn't matter how much is given. It cannot help mitigate the disaster if those struck by disaster are unwilling to accept that they need help.

[cobalt locust]

Well I did say most, not all, That was my impression, but I may still stand corrected if more times than not it is not caused by foreign involvement. Even just the probability when there are so many different countries that can be involved should mean otherwise. But I understand North Korea is very much a problem from within. Thanks for sharing the details, It’s good to be aware of that information.