When to Stop Lending a Helping Hand

In Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”, he states that if it is our power to prevent something bad without suffering anything of comparable moral significance, that we morally ought to do it.

I agree with this statement. However, I would also add reasons as to why helping others from another country – people we do not know personally – is a moral obligation. An analogy I would use would involve families. In a family, we are taught to be united because we bound together by blood. We grow up protecting our family regardless of our circumstances and the situation they are in. Similarly, helping out others in the world is essentially the same thing on a larger scale. Like families, we were assigned to wherever we were. Also like families, we protect and look out for one another. The only difference between these two scenarios, if anything, is that we will pay closer attention to our immediate families as opposed to our extended families.

However, concerning Singer’s method of solving problems, which would be to have each country donate a certain amount until they are at marginal utility is a bit absurd. While I believed that all countries should help one another out in a time of need, I think it shouldn’t mean that all countries should put themselves at a disadvantage because of that. This method follows a very communist like mindset, which puts everyone at an equal disadvantage. This, in my opinion will cause the entire world to suffer in the long run should this ever happen. Having said that, a donation until marginal utility seems like it would be superfluous and unnecessary, especially from every country. The notion that every country should be breaking even to stop the crisis is not a bad one, but realistically speaking, Singer should draw a line as to when donations will be enough, and also, what would happen if crises happened frequently; would every country then be forking out money at every crisis?