Famine, Affluence, and Morality

According to Singer, inaction is clearly immoral if a child is drowning in a shallow pond and someone can save it but chooses not to;[2] nor does placing greater geographical distance between the person in need and the potential helper reduce the latter's moral obligations:[3] It makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbor's child ten yards away from me or a Bengali whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away.

From the moral point of view, the prevention of the starvation of millions of people outside our society must be considered at least as pressing as the upholding of property norms within our society.The affluent, says Singer, are consistently guilty of failing to recognize this, having large amounts of surplus wealth that they do not use to aid humanitarian projects in developing nations.

Here is the thrust of Singer's argument: Philosopher Gilbert Harman considered "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" to be one of the most famous articles in ethics.

[6] In 1981, philosopher James Rachels said of the article: "one felt intellectual interest in the argument, but also guilt for not having contributed more money to relieve starvation".

[15] In a review for the Financial Times upon the release of the 2016 book version of Singer's essay, Daniel Ben-Ami argued that the key to eradicating poverty lies not only in charitable efforts but also in fostering a sense of agency among the impoverished.