Jeffrey Kaplan
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2023–2026
33:51 · 5.7M views · Jan 23, 2020
Philosopher Jeffrey Kaplan summarizes Peter Singer's 1972 essay 'Famine, Affluence, and Morality', arguing that failing to give to save lives is morally comparable to letting a child drown. It is a short lecture on the argument's structure.
HN recommends it as the best short exposition of Singer's argument for a duty to give.
4 comments from Hacker News
> If I gave $500 to kids cancer research every year for 5 years, and then I don't give this year, do I have blood on my hands every time a kid dies of cancer from now on? And if you didn't ever donate, you don't? > How does this work? Okay, since the topic at hand is steelmanning, that is, replying to the strongest possible argument, let's practice that. I invite you to watch this video, which is a short lecture that indeed exposes the strongest argument for this exact proposition. this video (Peter Singer - ordinary people are evil) I think the video is the best short exposition but you could try reading the paper the video is about [LINK] Or reading about the paper [LINK]
> I don't see why you should feel guilt. You should feel guilty because you can do something about other people's suffering, instead of being a greedy hoarder who has far more than he could possibly use in multiple lifetimes while other people starve and live miserable lives due to the system you benefit from. I think Peter Singer makes the argument very well [1] but many others in the history of philosophy have done just as good a job. Even Rawls is an option. 1. this video
Peter Singer's Famine Affluence & Morality (1972) argued similarly, that we allow human suffering & don't do anything, even though we could. And he said that makes us provably evil. Recent submission, a video on Singer's paper: [LINK] this video
You’re being facetious, but Peter Singer made this exact point about “ordinary people being evil” in a famous philosophy essay in 1972. this video