Moral Equivalent To Murder Essay

The Moral Equivalent to Murder

Morally speaking, those who are absolutely affluent ought to do what we can to help and reduce the amount of people who are living in absolute poverty, without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance on behalf of the affluent. The argument is this, “First premise: If we can prevent something bad without sacrificing anything of comparable significance, we ought to do it. Second premise: Extreme poverty is bad. Third premise: There is some extreme poverty we can prevent without sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance. Conclusion: We ought to prevent some extreme poverty” (Singer, 200). While this is a good argument, it is something that others would think is easier said than done due to the fact that

In the previous chapter “Taking Life: Humans” Singer discusses different ways of taking like, including the different forms of euthanasia. This conversation eventually leads into ‘the acts and omissions doctrine’ which basically discusses the difference between acting on a situation involving someone and you know that act will lead to their death, and omitting from doing something that you know will lead to their death. The only thing that differentiates the two is the fact that acting on something is more socially unacceptable in certain situations. However, the two have the exact same consequence; the death of a person. Which leads us to believe that allowing someone to die is not intrinsically different the killing someone. This is how Singer uses this argument and applies it to the topic of rich and poor. Because if you believe in that statement, then you must believe that we are all murderers and we must contribute in order to reduce the amount of people in absolute