<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Peter Singer’s famous and influential article is criticised in three main ways that can be considered libertarian, although many non-libertarians could also accept them: 1) the relevant moral principle is more plausibly about upholding an implicit contract rather than globalising a moral intuition that had local evolutionary origins; 2) its principle of the immorality of not stopping bad things is paradoxical, as it overlooks the converse aspect that would be the positive morality of not starting bad things and also thereby conceptually eliminates innocence; and 3) free markets – especially international free trade – have been cogently explained to be the real solution to the global “major evils” of “poverty” and “pollution”, while “overpopulation” does not exist in free-market frameworks; hence charity is a relatively minor alleviant to the problem of insufficiently free markets. There are also various subsidiary arguments throughout.</p></abstract>

Peter Singer’s famous and influential article is criticised in three main ways that can be considered libertarian, although many non-libertarians could also accept them: 1) the relevant moral principle is more plausibly about upholding an implicit contract rather than globalising a moral intuition that had local evolutionary origins; 2) its principle of the immorality of not stopping bad things is paradoxical, as it overlooks the converse aspect that would be the positive morality of not starting bad things and also thereby conceptually eliminates innocence; and 3) free markets – especially international free trade – have been cogently explained to be the real solution to the global “major evils” of “poverty” and “pollution”, while “overpopulation” does not exist in free-market frameworks; hence charity is a relatively minor alleviant to the problem of insufficiently free markets. There are also various subsidiary arguments throughout.

Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”: Three Libertarian Refutations

Studia Humana

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Peter Singer’s famous and influential article is criticised in three main ways that can be considered libertarian, although many non-libertarians could also...

Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”: Three Libertarian Refutations

Publié en ligne: 27 août 2020

Pages: 135 - 141

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sh-2020-0022

Mots clés
Peter Singer, libertarianism, effective altruism, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”

© 2020 J. C. Lester, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”: Three Libertarian Refutations

Publié en ligne: 27 août 2020

Pages: 135 - 141

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/sh-2020-0022

Mots clésPeter Singer, libertarianism, effective altruism, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”

© 2020 J. C. Lester, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
Peter Singer, libertarianism, effective altruism, “Famine, Affluence, and Morality”