The utilitarian argument construes the relevant ethical concerns, unsurprisingly, as utilitarian: the starting point doesn’t matter so long as the right results get over the line. This can be both one of utilitarianism’s greatest strengths and greatest weaknesses, and in this case the strength is that utilitarianism is highly accommodating of the fact that some but not all people are employees of Oxfam (or indeed any relevant charity or similar organisation). The obvious point to make is that If you’re not an employee of Oxfam then the utilitarian argument goes through, because giving to Oxfam is your means of getting those results over the line. If you are an employee of Oxfam, then perhaps you don’t need to give, because working for Oxfam is your means.

On another:

The sentence “his argument only allows for money going from non-Oxfam taxpayers to Oxfam employees” doesn’t include the important premise “the role of an Oxfam employee is to convert that money into good deeds done for the poor, for example by using it to pay for food in a famine”. The intended result is the same whether you are an employee of Oxfam or not (viz. paying for food in a famine). You want us to quibble about the wording (or rather: the wording as you have summarised it here) on grounds (which you leave implicit, so correct me if I’m wrong) that it is incoherent to say “everybody” when some people are already employees of Oxfam.

This seems to drastically confuse Singer’s actual aim (to convince the vast majority of people who are not Oxfam employees to give to Oxfam) for something not only very odd but plainly non-utilitarian, something like: “it is a deontological requirement that everybody give money to Oxfam”.

[–] corbin@awful.systems 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I was incorrect; the paper is about famine and aid in Bengal.

NSFW

Here is a PDF of Singer's paper. On p4 you can see the closest he gets to actually doing arithmetic. At that point he does not notice the problem I pointed out; he only notes that we can contribute labor instead of money, without considering that money is what compensates laborers. On p7 he admits that utilitarianism does not give a complete analysis, because it cannot predict a time when charity will no longer be necessary; however, he does not note that many charities are set up to provide eternal grift, including some of the biggest humanitarian-aid charities in the world.

Bonus sneer! Quote from Singer's paper (p9):

Another, more serious reason for not giving to famine relief funds is that until there is effective population control, relieving famine merely postpones starvation. … The conclusion that should be drawn is that the best means of preventing famine, in the long run, is population control. It would then follow from the position reached earlier that one ought to be doing all one can to promote population control (unless one held that all forms of population control were wrong in themselves, or would have significantly bad consequences). Since there are organizations working specifically for population control, one would then support them rather than more orthodox methods of preventing famine.

Isn't Singer so polite to leave us an escape hatch just in case we happen to "[hold] that all forms of population control [are] wrong in themselves"? But we have enough experience to know now that sterilization (USA), rules against too many children (CCP), and straight-up forced starvation (USSR) are inhumane. So while his ignorance could be acceptable in the 70s, I think that our half-century of intervening experience shows that he was, uh, naïve.

[–] jonhendry@awful.systems 5 points 1 year ago

I suspect that was simply Singer's nod to religious opposition to voluntary contraception and he wasn't necessarily suggesting that the things you list are viable options.

[–] YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systems 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don’t really get the sneer here, he mentions population control at a time when it was widely believed that overpopulation was a looming problem

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that the eugenics was mainstream doesn't make it not eugenics tho, or mean that it wasn't bad then too

[–] YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systems 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, but Singer does mean stuff like “supply birth control to people who don’t have birth control” and “make them rich and educated so they have fewer kids” which eugenics or not is a real policy response by governments which had to deal with famine pursued

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

singer's a fucking eugenicist though (as any disabled person would tell you).

[–] YouKnowWhoTheFuckIAM@awful.systems 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right, so go after him for that!

[–] mawhrin@awful.systems 2 points 1 year ago

i mostly keep noting that he's not a serious person and should not be treated as such.