We talked about Peter Singer and his opinions on charity in my class the other day, and I thought he made some pretty interesting comments regarding morality. I was wondering what the wise men of VGChartz thought about his position. A brief summary of his argument is as follows:
Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care (i.e. poverty) are bad. If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we ought to do so. Essentially, resources that would be spent on extravagance should instead be spent to alleviate poverty. You can look him up more for a more detailed, and perhaps more accurate, depiction of his views, but I think you get the core of his argument. What do you think of it?
I think this argument is sound for anyone who believes (a) pleasure is inherently good (b) pain and suffering are inherently bad. Since most people hold these values, it would follow that people should spend their excess resources on eliminating extreme suffering. This would be quite troublesome for everyone on here who spends money on unnecessary gaming consoles, high-speed internet, etc. What do you think? Do we have this moral obligation? Or is the enjoyment from playing high-end videogames more important than an impovershed child's life?
To ask one final time for those who didn't read the thread:
"Is it wrong to spend resources on luxories instead of using that money to alleviate poverty ?"
