Response to Famine, Affluence, and Morality

In Famine, Affluence, and Morality, Singer argues that "we ought to be preventing as much suffering as we can without sacrificing something else of comparable moral importance" (238), and that we have to change how we look at moral issues in order to make the decisions and to act upon the decision to prevent suffering (229-230). I agree with his statement but I also think that his statement is impractical. For example, on page 232, he raises a good point about how technology developed by human beings allows us not to make any excuses of distance being an obstacle to help someone who is suffering outside our local community. This may be true, but as he says “for those who like to keep their moral responsibilities limited,” (232) people who had been making excuses to not care outside of community would probably consider those technologies as something to make their life more convenient, and not as something to help others who are suffering. That is why those technologies are still unrecognized, and as long as it remains this way his argument that technology can allow more people to help is not a sound argument. And since he also argues on page 242 that acting upon it is more important than discussion, his conclusion about preventing suffering is not supported by his other conclusion about a philosopher. His conclusion lacks ‘how to act’ aspect. Who is to decide what is more morally important than others? Everyone has different values about their life and what is important to them. Everyone has different definition to the word ‘moral.’ By having a subjective aspect in the conclusion, it weakens the conclusion.