Famine, Affluence, and Morality

Famine, Affluence, and Morality (1972) by Peter Singer is a philosophical essay which argues that you have an obligatory moral requirement to donate money to relief agencies that can save lives that you would otherwise spend on luxuries. ¹

The argument rests on four main points: ¹

• If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without sacrificing anything of moral significance, then we are obliged to do it.
• Hunger, disease, and other sources of suffering, disability, and death are very bad.
• Luxuries that we spend money on are not of moral significance.
• By donating money to relief agencies, we could prevent very bad things from happening.

Therefore, we must donate the money that we would otherwise spend on luxuries to relief agencies instead. ¹