Going back to your first intuition: the only way to defend it, as far as I understood it, would be showing that the life of a person in a developing country is of so little benefit to humanity that it doesn't even deserve to be saved, even though saving them just requires to avoid buying the most advanced computers or trips to Tahiti (!)
I can't see how one could defend that

No, in that case, you're not wrong. Singer writes (I highlight the important part) : "if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without there by sacrificing anything of comparable
moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it."
A problem would appear in the following situation: saving your child or two stranger's children.
Anyway, to go back to Singer's article: fortunately, most people can *both* provide for their own children and prevent (at least temporarily) the death of children in poor countries.

I see where you're going but to me that's a digression. We're talking about very poor people here - including children: people who didn't even have enough time to grow moral or immoral

Well, you've just admitted that you'll never give 1 dollar to any humanitarian organization, without knowing all of them and without having a global audit report in your hands.
However, that is okay for Singer, because helping the poor (or whether the duty of helping the very poor when we have extra money) can be done without the help of humanitarian organizations. Maybe Singer should have insisted on that more

True

Then you should probably talk with Illuminatis and Reptilians etc., not philosophers please. Thanks for talking about this thing that you can't talk about though, it was very interesting

Thank you, you spent a lot of time gathering all those sources, to manage not to answer my question whatsoever. This is a masterpiece. Once again, I asked "Any solid proof? And not just isolated cases, but a systemic critique: embezzlement... And what about other organizations?" And, instead of providing statistics, a global proof, scientific studies, you wrote about isolated cases from a very few organizations, actually mostly just one. Don't get me wrong, these sexual abuses and other crimes are absolutely shocking, but rationality requires us to look at statistics, to get a real overall view, and not just following the sensational/shocking news that sells well.
Some of the reactions here confirmed to me that it's very difficult to have a reasoned conversation on Singer's article because too many people feel attacked in their ego and can't tolerate the simple possibility that they may not be doing the right thing. But looking for the truth is not always about trying to feel well

however they're not like a wild animal either. Their genetics were crafted by humans to fulfill a human designed function — LuckyR

Wait, is it true that if we released farm animals in the wild they would ALL just die? What if we released them in an appropriate environment? What if we were to release them gradually, to allow time for adaptation?

But the animals will at least have a chance at autonomous life. — Vera Mont

-> Vera Mont answered this a bit already

As someone with inside knowledge, I concur. — L'éléphant

Could we know this "inside knowledge"?

The organizations that he mentions, are known to be professional scammers. — Tarskian

Any solid proof? And not just isolated cases, but a systemic critique: embezzlement...
And what about other organizations?

Humans tend to use the individual's helplessness as a justification for omitting to make the most marginal and relatively undemanding changes to our styles of life — mcdoodle

I agree (and I'm not immune to this criticism myself)

Singer doesn't ask himself what "needs" and he doesn't distinguish between relative and absolute poverty. — Ludwig V

So, about relative poverty, you mean that the non-poor might become poor if they give only 3,15 dollars every year so that no one dies from starvation? (See calculation above). Anyway, if you're going to go into economic territory (and this is indeed important), I'd like sources and proof.

A moral argument that presents morality as a duty and a chore has missed the point of morality — Ludwig V

So you thank people in the street for not killing you everyday? No, you do know that this is their duty. Even if the law disappeared, you would think it's their moral duty. Singer's argument is that we are killers by omission (with responsibility shared with millions of others, of course) and therefore should not be considered charitable when we refuse to participate in these crimes. I think you're right when you say that most people feel bullied and lectured when presented with even the *possibility* that it's all true. Personally that's not my case, I'm not afraid to find out that I might be a huge a--hole.

Say I spend money on plane tickets to visit my daughter on vacation. Say you're employed by the airline. How much are you going to give to the poor if you lose your job? If I don't recharge my emotional batteries by taking a vacation how much quality will I bring to my employment when I'm working? Less quality equals less compensation, less compensation means less discretionary income to give to the poor — LuckyR

But the money to be donated by the non-poor is so ridiculously small that almost anyone without a job could make this donation. It's not a question of helping the poor buy a swimming pool, but simply lifting them out of extreme poverty. In a calculation above, I focused on ending world hunger, and that requires a donation of $3.15 a year from every non-poor person in the world (!)

I do not believe everyone is equally morally valuable and so his conclusions dont apply to me — Ourora Aureis

May I hear some arguments about this please? Why would you be (or others) morally more valuable than the starving child in Guatemala?

I condemn the poor who fail to produce enough to give to others. The only ones I truly celebrate are the victims, the ones who through no fault of their own need the fruits of the wealthy — Hanover

Hm, okay... And what's the ratio of “victim kind of poor” to “lazy poor who deserved it”?

I don't think an amount equivalent to about 1/5th of US public sector spending divided up amongst amongst the entire world is going to solve global poverty — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'll believe you when you've managed to refute the studies and facts (but it's hard to refute facts...) carried out by numerous experts over many, many years on the subject. This site could be a good start: https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/stories/how-much-money-would-it-take-to-end-world-hunger/
It also leads to this site: https://fts.unocha.org/plans/overview/2022
Or let's focus on world hunger only: “We need about $23 billion just this year [2022] to meet the needs of people facing starvation and acute malnutrition", the study *factually* says. Giving this amount doesn't mean that the problem won't reappear the following year, I agree, but we could conceivably donate this amount every year. And what is this amount when shared among the non-poor people of the world? 23000000000/(8000000000-700000000)=3.15dollars per year to donate (!)

Thank you, interesting article.

there are numerous positives associated with alternatives to where to spend one's money aside from giving to charity — LuckyR

For example? And how would this be an objection? Singer would just add: use your discretionary dollars to help people in need, whether it is through humanitarian organization or not.

"Even if giving to charity definitely saved lives, which in reality, is not actually proven"
Well, it is proven in some cases (fortunately!), through laws, testimonies, journalism, etc.

Not sure I understand. Isn't it obvious that all the money I give to one domain is money I didn't give to another?

If everyone stops all "unnecessary" economic activity in the developed world those economies will collapse, massively affecting global trade, agricultural production, vaccine production and development, etc. This would probably also reduce global stability and security. And then this would probably have a net negative impact on the developing world, both in the short and long term — Count Timothy von Icarus

Not everyone. All it takes is enough people to solve the hunger problem (not offer caviar). That's not a lot of money, is it? To be calculated.
According to Oxfam, for example: “A tax of up to 5% on the wealth of the world's multimillionaires and billionaires could raise $1,700 billion a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty and finance a global plan to eradicate hunger.” So, without going through the billionaires, but mobilizing everyone fairly: 1700000000000/(8000000000-700000000) (8 billion people on earth - the 700 million poor who won't be financially participating, of course): each human should give $233. And that would trigger a crisis?

I'd save the drowning child if I wanted to, and I'd donate to charity if I desired to as well. — Inyenzi

But the question isn't: do we want it? But rather: should we do it? Replacing “should” with “want” doesn't answer a moral question, it kills the whole moral philosophy. Why not. But a bit off-topic to me.

I care about my welfare more than I care about other people's, and I'm not responsible for the state of the world, or the negative welfare of other people that I didn't cause — Inyenzi

Well the whole point of the article is to show that you (and I) are indeed responsible for things happening very far away. Or at least these are crimes by omission, or complicity.

Societies are made up of individuals. We can't separate the two by saying that individuals can't change society. What's more, individual action can consist precisely in trying to mobilize groups. Finally, even if an individual action didn't change the overall system, the individual would still have acted well (from a deontological point of view).

It could be true that the money is better spent on enjoying it in a prosperous country rather than just extending a miserable life in an impoverished one. — flannel jesus

Actually interesting! How could we refute this argument? I guess this way (?):
We can't be sure that this child that we save will keep having a miserable life.
It's far from being obvious that all people in prosperous countries deserve to live/live more pleasantly. They can be spiritually low, and letting them buy a pool doesn't necessarily make humanity better.
What do you think?

Well, first, it would be hard to survive in my society without a phone, so this is not really luxury. Second, this is an ad hominem argument. I know I'm far from being an angel.

Yes it could exist (waiting for the animal to die naturally until we eat it, etc.) but it wouldn't be economically viable. Also extended lactation on goat milk is quite a good idea. This avoids separating kids from their mothers and killing the kids. And it would be quite cost-effective, as far as I know. This can only be done with goats though.

To be honest, I'm more and more convinced it's possible to show that livestock farming as a whole is negative (when it's physically and economically possible to avoid it), even when it's not industrial. However, I still eat a bit of meat from time to time, and quite a lot of cheese (which involves the death of many calves and the distress of their mothers who are separated from them). So I'm aware of the gulf that exists between doing and having to do. That's why it's a good idea to act gradually, starting by avoiding animal products from intensive farming.

choosing not to be natural, but to be human — Fire Ologist

But doesn't "being human" mean "not being just natural"?

Interesting answer. I guess it's a matter of degree (between "just being" and "existing with angst"). By the way, unfortunately (I guess) some humans do not suffer the guilt/awareness of doing harm in the satisfaction of their pleasures at all.

Sorry there was a misunderstanding, I didn't mean plant-based food that looks like meat

Thank you very much. It was likely a discussion about this had been created already but I couldn't find it.These arguments didn't convince me but it was interesting to read them. From 3 to 6, these are "two wrongs make a right" fallacies.

that's poetry, not anything based in actual fact. — Philosophim

"sub specie aeternitatis" is not poetry, it's an approach that is logically deduced from the fact of necessary causality. For Spinoza, time is something closer to "poetry" than eternity. As for my own position, it differs from Spinoza's, because I think that causality logically turns into its opposite in a dialectical way. (Brief Solutions to Philosophical Problems, solution 10)

I agree with you when saying that "Science often thinks in terms of causality as well."

I'll try to rephrase it. The effect comes from the cause (by definition), so the effect includes the cause. For example, the plant includes its seed, because the plant is the-seed-that-grew. The plant is the continuation of the seed. (This continuation already blurs the border between cause and effect, by the way).
But we can also say that the cause includes its effect. Of course, we cannot perceive the effect while the cause is still here (we cannot see the plant when there's just a seed), but, if causality is necessary (like science and Spinoza say), then the cause has to produce this effect, in this specific way and at this specific moment. So, in a way the effect is already there in the cause, for nothing else can happen but this effect. As Philosophim says:

we have to watch it unfold — Philosophim

It is true, we cannot perceive the simultaneity of the cause and the effect, we can just think about it. To Spinoza, "watching it unfold" is indeed just something that "we" do, humans, through what Spinoza calls "imagination" (which doesn't mean hallucination). But humans can comprehend, with rationality, that, in a way, everything happens at once, which is what Spinoza calls "considering things sub specie aeternitatis", "under the aspect of eternity", as you probably know.

Now, back to what I was saying in the previous comment: as you can probably feel, this reasoning leads to a cause that is hardly distinguishable from the effect, and vice versa, which kills causality (how could we think of causality without distinguishing a cause from an effect?). This applies to both concrete and abstract causal things.
Now, it is true that :

The only option in which logic applies is two physical entities interacting. — Mark Nyquist

Science often thinks in terms of laws and not causes indeed. For example, law of gravitation: is it the Earth that attracts the moon or the other way around? The answer is: both, it's a law, a relationship, not a causality.
("Causality can exist thanks to the absence of causality": I agree it's not easy to understand without a larger context. That is the very conclusion of what I wrote beforehand, it's just a weird and a bit striking way to put it.)

I think it was right to talk about Descartes in this thread, as long as we also see the limits of Descartes's reasoning. The beginning of Heidegger's Being and Time is, by the way, very much inspired by the cogito.
BUT what Hegel shows is that cogito is not only a thought of being, but the being of thought as well. So it is true that consciousness is a precondition of being, but it doesn't mean that there could be a consciouness without any beings to be conscious of. Of course, it's not a subject that can be summed up in a few sentences. (source: Brief Solutions to Philosophical Problems Using a Hegelian Method, Solution 1 and 2)

First, we should point out that, not only the first cause but any cause is supposed to be necessary.
But this necessity kills causality itself: it's actually a problem in Spinoza's works that you probably already heard of. Since the cause cannot not produce the effect, it means the effect already lies in the cause somehow (and it means that time is a kind of illusion for Spinoza but that's another matter).
But then: how can the cause produce an effect, since the effect already exists?
Therefore, nothing can really be produced, and this kills causality. Or rather, it shows that causality is contradictory: causality can exist thanks to the absence of causality, and vice versa. That, of course, is a very short presentation of this subject (source: Brief Solutions to Philosophical Problems Using a Hegelian Method, Solution 10)

When two 86-year-old Russian women talk about this thread while being interviewed...! Have a look at the end ->
"Irina and Ioulia, both 86 and childhood friends, came together to pay tribute to Alexeï Navalny.

Both are regulars at opposition demonstrations or, "when it was possible", against the war in Ukraine. Irina also remembers, as a child, attending Joseph Stalin's funeral. "That day, I cried... What an idiot I was!" She was also at the airport in January 2021, when Alexeï Navalny returned to Russia after being poisoned. "They changed the arrival airport at the last minute, the cowards...".

However, she is not only angry with Vladimir Putin's regime, but also with her fellow citizens, who failed to defend their rights: "If there had been more than a few hundred of us waiting for him... Even in my own social circle, there are only a few people who think like me. It wasn't Putin who killed Navalny, it was Russia." " (from Le Monde)

I think we're going round in circles, or that people defend what they want to defend before knowing whether they can defend it. I'd also like to think that there are different degrees of responsibility, and that I'm hardly responsible at all for not fighting injustice (because it's up to the leaders to do so, or because the leaders prevent me from doing so, or because it's pointless as long as others don't follow me... etc.). But this would need to be proven.
Thank you for your answers though.

It wasn't about the existence of a cup, or any particular physical objects as such. It was rather about the the nature of our belief in the existence of the unperceived objects or world. — Corvus

But it's not a belief. The world really exists. And it really exists precisely because there is nothing outside of ideas or perceptions. Since there is nothing outside those, there is no "outside" at all, and since there is no outside, the so-called "inside" is actually the world itself. So the world does exist. It lies within the idea itself. Idealism leads to realism and realism leads to idealism. It's a "loop".

How would we as humans comprehend any intelligence, other than the one by which humans comprehend anything? — Mww

he regards it as an unavoidable product of the understanding — Jamal

In my view, Hegel has very convincingly criticised Kantian criticism, thereby answering the question posed in this thread.
In particular, he explains:
- that we cannot draw a limit between what we can know and what we cannot know because, in order to draw this limit and know where to place it, we would already have to know what there is beyond this limit (a limit must know what it delimits).
(that answers:

he saw the limits of espistemology — Jack Cummins

)
- that, to talk about the thing-in-itself, Kant keeps using (human) categories: the thing-in-itself "is not" a phenomenon (= use of the category of negation), etc.
- that there is nothing fundamentally new about the idea of the transcendental, because "knowledge of the conditions of knowledge" is... knowledge.
(Source: Hegel, beginning of The Phenomenology of Spirit and beginning of Science of Logic)

To sum it up, Kant is a metaphysician without knowing it (and therefore is an incomplete metaphysician).

As for the existence of an object that would come "only" from human intelligence, "only" from understanding:
It is true that all knowledge is humanly shaped.
BUT it doesn't lead to a pure subjectivism or even a transcendental idealism. Here is the condensed proof. If we can not have any knowledge about the external world, then we can't even say that this "external world" exists. So there would only be an "internal" world. But how could there be an "internal world" without an external one? So it means that our so-called "internal world" is not "just internal", "sadly internal"... It is the world itself.

(Source: Brief Solutions to Philosophical Problems Using a Hegelian Method, Solution 2)

I don't have time to answer all messages, so I selected just a few ones. Of course feel free to keep this debate going without me anyway (except if you think this is a "poorly written question").


Interesting insight thank you.

(…) one the 0.5% shot down on the street and never heard from again? You don't: it's risk you take.

Agree. But then, two comments: 1. All the people who didn’t join to make up that “enough” will be held responsible, although just partly and indirectly, of those killed and imprisoned ones. Because, had they joined their peers, the regime would have been overthrown (with limited and/or temporary casualties, and political prisoners freed). This is what I mean: the people who have stayed at home for fear of demonstrating may be friendly and cordial, but they are by no means "neutral". There is no neutral zone, because inaction is always also action. They are definitely not as responsible as snipers on the roof, but their responsibility is not 0 either. Right? 2. It could at least be said that those who stay at home in such a situation value life higher than freedom. Which is understandable, and I'm likely to join them, but morally questionable.

then I'd be calling for an impossible administration of justice.

But I thought this post was about

Indeed I'm first looking for the truth, not the thesis that is most applicable in practice. A good example of this would be denazification in Germany from 1945: in May 1945, there were 8 million members of the Nazi party. In Bonn, 102 out of 112 doctors were Nazis. In Bavaria, 94% of judges and prosecutors and 77% of finance ministry employees were former Nazis... and so on. So obviously these people were guilty, at least partially or indirectly, of Nazi crimes, but it was impossible to prosecute them and put them in prison, for practical reasons.

you are morally culpable, but not criminally culpable — unenlightened

Yes indeed that's what we're reflecting on.

I do believe in the existence of the cup when I am perceiving it, but when I am not perceiving it, I no longer have a ground, warrant or reason to believe in the existence of it.

Indeed, and this is what Berkeley said. Something that would exist independently of a perceiving mind is unverifiable. Because, if you check that such a thing exists, well, too late, you're using thought again. That is the powerful argument by Berkeley.
BUT it doesn't lead to a pure and insane subjectivism, as Berkeley himself noted (although Hegel showed it way better, according to me). Here is the condensed proof. If we can not have any knowledge about the external world, then we can't even say that this "external world" exists. So there would only be an "internal" world. But how could there be an "internal world" without an external one? So it means that our so-called "internal world" is not "just internal", "sadly internal"... It is the world itself.
(source: Brief Solutions to Philosophical Problems Using a Hegelian Method, Solution 2)