Bugatti Blues “The Singer Solution to World Poverty” presents a tantalizing and yet frustrating solution to what seems like the Holy Grail of problems to be solved. In it, Singer breaks down the concept of morality and, using a powerful hypothetical situation, argues that in order to remain true to our concept of morality, every one of us must take all the resources we currently spend on luxuries and direct them towards charities instead. However, though his arguments seem all but insurmountable, they are flawed, based on a premise that favors one extreme of reasoning. Singer begins his argument with by asking the readers to consider a situation where Bob must choose between saving the life of a child and protecting, essentially, his financial…show more content… Though it is reasonable to expect Singer’s audience to agree that saving a child’s life conforms to good morals, it is not reasonable to require people to ignore the influence of nature. If the child in Singer’s train setup were to be run over and killed, his/her death would be a tragic accident, a soul taken far before its time. As unsettling as it sounds, the same is rarely said about children perishing of diseases or starvation in the developing countries most targeted by charities. Though death should never be accepted as normal, problem areas are often environmentally unable to support as much life as they are asked to. “Ishmael”, a 1992 philosophical novel by Daniel Quinn, addresses this point in his claim that mankind is wrongfully attempting to take control over the world. Using a wise gorilla as a mouthpiece, Quinn explains that “...if there are forty thousand in an area that can only support thirty thousand, it’s no kindness to bring in food from the outside to maintain them at forty thousand. That just guarantees that the famine will continue” (Quinn, Page 138). In essence, Quinn’s criticism is that Man should be subject to the same ecological restrictions that other animals are. It is natural for an individual to be selfish; it is not natural for an organism to automatically sacrifice for another organism simply because they are of the same species (as
