Recap: descritive morality, true morality
Principle of Beneficience
“you should help people when you are in need.”
=> evidence to show descritive morality
Moral Theory
Moral Theory is an implementation of modern morality.
- identify the “real” rules/principles
- explain why the rules are the rules
- “Why should you be moral?”
- How does it fit in with the “rest of the world”: metaphysics and epistemology
- metaphysical
- physical question
- where does the rules come front?
- what does it depended on?
- epistemological questions
- how do we know these rules are the rules?
- metaphysical
argument (philosophy)
Here are some properties of argument.
validity
the conclusion follows from the premises
soundness (philosophy)
conclusion follows from truthful premises; subset of validity.
Paul Singer’s Argument
Given that
- suffering from lack of food shelter, medical care, etc. is bad, and
- if solving suffering doesn’t need sacrificing something of comparable moral importance, then they ought to do it (Principle of Beneficience), we have that
a. affluent people have moral obligation to help the needy by giving substantial aid b. traditional distinction between obligation and charity is upset
We show this by arguing that by donating money, affluent anywhere can prevent global suffering. This is possible because the global village.
Donating money prevents suffering. By donating money, affluent people are not sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance.