Today poverty remains one of the biggest issues in the world. A child dies of hunger every five seconds and millions of people are suffering from starvation. In his solution to world poverty, Professor Peter Singer proposes that those who have money to buy luxurious goods ought to spend it instead on other peoples’ necessities; no money should be spent on fancy clothes or cars, new television sets, etc. This solution both has its positive and negative aspects. Its positive aspect is Singer’s pictured outcome of his plan—that more lives of starving children would be saved, and its negative aspects lie in the plan’s unsound premises and possible consequences. Although I appreciate Singer’s altruistic pursuit, the solution is far too unrealistic to be put into effect.

The idea of the Singer Solution is indeed benevolent, that is, if it is within one’s ability, one should help those in need as much as possible. Singer presents moral issue by raising the concern that innocent beings are dying from hunger around the world, while people from developed countries are pouring money into luxuries simply for pleasure. It could be argued that those people value superficial substances over lives of children. Thus, they fail to live up to their moral obligations. Furthermore, the money donated to charitable agencies could make a life-or-death difference to children in need. Since about 80 percent of the world’s population lives on less than two dollars a day, even a donation considered small by average US citizens--not to mention all the money saved by not buying luxuries--can make a huge difference in the lives of children from the Third World, Therefore, the purpose of Singer’s Solution is highly praiseworthy.

On the other hand, the Singer’s Solution, is highly idealistic, because many underlying problems are neglected by Singer in his seemingly persuasive reasoning. One of them is the practical uncertainty about whether aid will really reach the people who need it. This particular problem can be illustrated by the Teddy Bear Program, which collects money to buy and send Teddy bears to children who were in car accidents. It was later found out that only about 18 percent of each donation was spent on Teddy bears and 65 percent was spent on “administrative costs.” This is often the case;, the amount of money which those in need actually receive from charities is all-too-often reduced, even before being made known. Another question with Singer’s Solution brings to mind is what would happen to the advancement of technology? Nowadays, technology shares a large portion of our expenditures, but since the technology that makes our life easier and more convenient is considered a luxury, would there be any need to advance technology when we are only limited to necessities for ourselves? These and other problems, when not addressed, will directly derail the plan.

I am disposed to disagree with this solution. Singer’s argument has largely taken the form of appealing to readers’ emotion rather than logic, and the logical fallacies of Singer’s premises can be easily pointed out. Obviously, people’s incomes are not fixed and guaranteed. People do not become less morally valid by saving excess income in order to pay for future necessities rather than providing necessities for others today. Perhaps a better approach would be to donate an agreed-upon portion of excess income—certainly not all--to charities, or to give away one’s left-over wealth to a certain organization before death. Moreover, it is not the people, but the government, which possesses much more global control, and therefore should make the effort to distribute wealth save millions of suffering lives.