The Singer Solution to World Poverty response

In my opinion, although Peter Singer's argument had good intentions, it was overall too unrealistic. Singer used situations that would hardly ever happen in the U.S., and even though he connected them to real life fairly well, the situations themselves were just too drastic to be able to compare to.

In the beginning and middle of Singer's argument, he proposes the idea of giving $200 to charities, a reasonable and easily doable proposal, something that I would be more than willing to do with a couple of friends. But as the paper continues on, he says that all American households should donate 30-40% of their yearly incomes, which is something extremely hard and unrealistic to ask, because some "luxuries" are important to one's future and can improve their quality of life. For example, Peter Singer would probably consider attending my school a luxury, not a necessity because there are public schools that can be attended for free. However, in my opinion, attending my school is a necessity in order to improve my quality of learning and better my chances of attending a prestigious college and a successful future. Also, my view on life is that you should always try to be the best person you can be, and to never settle when you know that there is something better for you out there. After going to the school I am currently at, it would be extremely difficult for me to settle for a school that probably offers less than half the opportunities my school has.

Although I disagree that "for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world's poor should be as close as possible to $20,000," I do agree with Singer in the fact that "so much of our income is spent on things not essential to the preservation of our lives and health," and that necessities should try to be stuck to. Through recent financial difficulties, I have learned that it is actually quite easy to live without the newest brand name jeans, or that going out to dinner does not mean you have to drop $100. But I know that in life, especially at Punahou, materialism is big. But we don't need unrealistic, made up situations like Bob's to understand that giving is easy and important. Most of what I learned and took from this paper is in the beginning, where Singer displays reasoning that touches you more than scares you into wanting to give.