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Famine, Affluence, And Morality
"Famine, Affluence, and Morality" is an essay written by Peter Singer in 1971 and published in '' Philosophy & Public Affairs'' in 1972. It argues that affluent persons are morally obligated to donate far more resources to humanitarian causes than is considered normal in Western cultures. The essay was inspired by the starvation of Bangladesh Liberation War refugees, and uses their situation as an example, although Singer's argument is general in scope and not limited to the example of Bangladesh. The essay is anthologized widely as an example of Western ethical thinking. Summary One of the core arguments of this essay is that, if one can use one's wealth to reduce suffering—for example, by aiding famine-relief efforts—without any significant reduction in the well-being of oneself or others, it is immoral not to do so. Singer raises a drowning child analogy: in his essay: inaction is clearly immoral if a child is drowning in a shallow pond and someone ''can'' save them but c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer (born 6 July 1946) is an Australian moral philosopher who is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. Singer's work specialises in applied ethics, approaching the subject from a secular, utilitarian perspective. He wrote the book ''Animal Liberation (book), Animal Liberation'' (1975), in which he argues for vegetarianism, and the essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which argues the moral imperative of donating to help the poor around the world. For most of his career, he was a preference utilitarian. He revealed in ''The Point of View of the Universe'' (2014), coauthored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, that he had become a hedonistic utilitarian. On two occasions, Singer served as chair of the philosophy department at Monash University, where he founded its Centre for Human Bioethics. In 1996, he stood unsuccessfully as a Australian Greens, Greens candidate for the Australian Senate. In 2004, Singer was recognise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Rachels
James Webster Rachels (May 30, 1941 – September 5, 2003) was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics and animal rights. Biography Rachels was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying under W. D. Falk and E. M. Adams. He taught at the University of Richmond, New York University, the University of Miami, Duke University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he spent the last twenty-six years of his career. He married Carol Williams in 1962, and they had two sons, David and Stuart. As a teenager, he won a national speech contest that enabled him to appear on American Bandstand and to meet John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. He taught chess to his 9-year-old son, Stuart, who became the youngest chess master in American history at age 11. At the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Rachels started in 1977 as Chair of Philosophy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Harcourt () was an American publishing firm with a long history of publishing fiction and nonfiction for adults and children. It was known at different stages in its history as Harcourt Brace, & Co. and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. From 1919 to 1982, it was based in New York City. The company was last based in San Diego, California, with editorial/sales/marketing/rights offices in New York City and Orlando, Florida, Houghton Mifflin acquired Harcourt in 2007. It incorporated the Harcourt name to form Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. As of 2012, all Harcourt books that have been re-released are under the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt name. The Harcourt Children's Books division left the name intact on all of its books under that name as part of HMH. In 2007 the U.S. Schools Education and Trade Publishing parts of Harcourt Education were sold by Reed Elsevier to Houghton Mifflin Riverdeep Group. Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International were acquired by Pearson, the intern ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Arthur (philosopher)
John Arthur (September 22, 1946 – January 22, 2007) was an American professor of philosophy and an expert in legal theory, constitutional theory, social ethics, and political philosophy. He taught at Binghamton University for 18 years. Early life and education John Arthur, son of L. James Arthur and Elizabeth Gleason Arthur, grew up in Denver, Colorado. Arthur earned his bachelor's degree in philosophy and history at Cornell College and his master's degree in political sociology and PhD in philosophy at Vanderbilt University. Academic career In total, John Arthur spent time teaching at five colleges and universities, including Brandeis University, Harvard University, Tennessee State University, the College of Charleston and Lake Forest College. From 1981 to 1988 Arthur taught at Tennessee State University. Finding the segregated conditions at TSU to be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, he organized a biracial group to f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Demandingness Objection
The demandingness objection is a common argument raised against utilitarianism and other consequentialist ethics, ethical theories. The consequentialist requirement that we maximize the good impartially seems to this objection to require us to perform acts that we would normally consider optional. For example, if our resources maximize utility through charitable contributions rather than spending them on ourselves, we are, according to utilitarianism, morally required to do so. The objection holds that this clashes with our intuitions about morality, since we would normally consider such acts to be "supererogation, supererogatory" (praiseworthy but not obligatory). It is argued that because consequentialism appears to demand more than common-sense morality, it ought to be revised or rejected. Singer's premise Peter Singer famously made the case for his demanding form of consequentialism in "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" . Here is the thrust of Singer's argument: *"Suffering ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin Press
Penguin Group is a British trade book publisher and part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. The new company was created by a merger that was finalised on 1 July 2013, with Bertelsmann initially owning 53% of the joint venture, and Pearson PLC initially owning the remaining 47%. Since 18 December 2019, Penguin Random House has been wholly owned by Bertelsmann. Penguin Books has its registered office in the City of Westminster, London.Maps ." . Retrieved 28 August 2009. Its British division is Penguin Books Ltd. Other separate divisions are located in the |
Larissa MacFarquhar
Larissa MacFarquhar (born 1968) is an American writer known for her profiles in ''The New Yorker''. She is the daughter of the sinologist Roderick MacFarquhar. She was born in London, and moved to the United States at the age of 16. MacFarquhar has been a staff writer at ''The New Yorker'' since 1998 and has written profiles on Barack Obama, Derek Parfit, Hilary Mantel, Robert Gottlieb, Richard Posner, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chelsea Manning and Aaron Swartz, among others. Her 2015 book ''Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help'' explores the motivations of people who take altruism to extremes. She is married to the writer Philip Gourevitch. Selected bibliography Books * Essays and reporting * * * * * * Online version is titled "The mind-expanding ideas of Andy Clark". References External links Larissa MacFarquharProfile on TEDMED TEDMED is an annual conference focusing on health and medicine, with a year-round web-based co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Strangers Drowning
''Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help'' is a 2015 non-fiction book about extreme altruism, altruists, authored by ''The New Yorker'' writer Larissa MacFarquhar. It's structured as a series of profiles on people she refers to as "do-gooders" including the humanitarian Dorothy Granada, Baba Amte and his family, and a couple who adopted 20 children. Themes MacFarquhar explores the concepts of morality, effective altruism and utilitarianism, alternating chapters between profiles and essays on the ambivalence and mistrust that's prevalent in literature and society towards people who dedicate themselves to helping others in extreme ways. The book's title refers to an adaptation of the thought experiment proposed by philosopher Peter Singer in his essay Famine, Affluence, and Morality: if I am walking past a shallow pond and see a child drowning in it, I ought to wade in and pull the child out. This will mean getting my clothes muddy, but thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Republic
''The New Republic'' (often abbreviated as ''TNR'') is an American magazine focused on domestic politics, news, culture, and the arts from a left-wing perspective. It publishes ten print magazines a year and a daily online platform. ''The New York Times'' described the magazine as partially founded in Teddy Roosevelt's living room and known for its "intellectual rigor and left-leaning political views." History 1914–1974: Early years Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in humanitarian and moral passion and one based in an ethos of scientific analysis". ''The New Republic'' was founded by Herbert Croly, Walter Lippmann, and Walter Weyl. They gained the financial backing of heiress Dorothy Payne Whitney and of her husband, Willard Straight, who eventually became the majority owner. The magazine's first issue was published on November 7, 1914. The magazine's politics were libe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York Times''. Together with entrepreneur Raoul H. Fleischmann, they established the F-R Publishing Company and set up the magazine's first office in Manhattan. Ross remained the editor until his death in 1951, shaping the magazine's editorial tone and standards. ''The New Yorker''s fact-checking operation is widely recognized among journalists as one of its strengths. Although its reviews and events listings often focused on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' gained a reputation for publishing serious essays, long-form journalism, well-regarded fiction, and humor for a national and international audience, including work by writers such as Truman Capote, Vladimir Nabokov, and Alice Munro. In the late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Effective Altruism
Effective altruism (EA) is a 21st-century philosophical and social movement that advocates impartially calculating benefits and prioritizing causes to provide the greatest good. It is motivated by "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, who are sometimes called , follow a variety of approaches proposed by the movement, such as donating to selected charities and choosing careers with the aim of maximizing positive impact. The movement gained popularity outside academia, spurring the creation of research centers, advisory organizations, and charities, which collectively have donated several hundred million dollars. Effective altruists emphasize impartiality and the global equal consideration of interests when choosing beneficiaries. Popular cause priorities within effective altruism include global health and development, social and economic inequality ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William MacAskill
William David MacAskill (' Crouch; born 24 March 1987) is a Scottish philosopher and author, as well as one of the originators of the effective altruism movement. He was a Research Fellow at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford, co-founded Giving What We Can, the Centre for Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours, and is the author of '' Doing Good Better'' (2015) and '' What We Owe the Future'' (2022), and the co-author of ''Moral Uncertainty'' (2020). Early life and education MacAskill was born William Crouch in 1987 and grew up in Glasgow. He was educated at Hutchesons' Grammar School in Glasgow. At the age of 15, after learning about how many people were dying as a result of AIDS, he made the decision to work towards becoming wealthy and giving away half of his money. At the age of 18, MacAskill read Peter Singer's 1972 essay " Famine, Affluence, and Morality", which motivated his philosophical and charitable interests. MacAskill earned his BA in p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
