Peter Singer managed to anger
animal rights activists with a recent article in the New York Times Magazine, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty.” With his typical
flair for sweeping (and baseless) moral judgments, Singer argued that
Americans who do not give at least 20 percent of their income to solve
world hunger are morally equivalent to someone who would sell a Brazilian
child to be killed for his or her organs (a situation he borrowed from
the Brazilian film “Central Station.”)
Unfortunately for Singer,
he angered some animal rights activists and groups by recommending that people
donate to Oxfam which, all things considered, is probably the best place
to donate money if stopping world hunger is where you want to concentrate
your charitable giving. The only problem for the animal activists is that
Oxfam helps poor people in the developing world buy cattle and other animals
for agricultural purposes.
Since Singer is already on record
that eating meat is superfluous and therefore equivalent to murder except
in dire emergency situations, his position seems to be that Americans
are heartless murderers regardless of what they do. Are we to save a child
at the expense of a poor cow? In his book, Animal Liberation, Singer is unwavering in his view that this is unacceptable, especially
since animal agriculture is completely unnecessary.
Aside from this there are a couple
other problems and inconsistencies with Singer’s argument. First, he repeatedly
mentions the horrors faced by children in the Third World, which is certainly
a legitimate concern. It is surprising that given his well-known
views on suffering, that Singer does not simply recommend that Americans
underwrite a program to painlessly euthanize children who are probably
going to starve to death or die from malaria anyway. This would probably
be less expensive as well as meet Singer’s utilitarian criteria of minimizing
suffering.
Second, Singer’s attempt at equating actively murdering someone with refusing to contributing to aid organizations is absurd, especially in the context of international aid. Singer
laments that aid from the developed world to the developing world is far
below goals set by the United Nations, but never mentions that a large
part of the reason is the horrible track record of such aid. The main
reason people starve in Third World countries is due to the corrupt, incompetent
governments there and, as heartless as it may sound, feeding those governments
more aid money is often counterproductive and may prolong suffering
by making corrupt regimes survive longer than they would without the aid.
Already this year controversy erupted
when it was revealed that aid intended to help out poor Russians was diverted
into the accounts of Russian politicians. Studies of the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank aid programs suggest that up to half of all such aid to
the most impoverished parts of the world may be diverted. Certainly some
groups such as Oxfam do a wonderful job, but Singer’s emphasis on large
amounts of giving for such a narrow purpose is extremely shortsighted
and by no means the obvious best solution to combat world hunger.