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Ellard Enva Ethics 120-Food Ethics-Engel

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Final Homepage

CONCLUSIONS PAGE

ENGEL

Mylen Engel Jr.: “Hunger, Duty, and Ecology: On What We Owe Starving Humans

September 11

Hunger Related

Innocent People Died on 9/11

3, 200—completely unncecessary. Preventable?-Maybe

33, 000—completely unnecessary, could’ve been prevented.

Bush Solution

Declared War on Terror

Didn’t Declare War on Hunger or Poverty

Hunger Related Problems	Hunger Related Solutions
Protein Deficiencies	The US alone grows enough grain and soybeans to feed the world’s human population several times over.
Diarrheal Dehydration	Each child needs a single packet of oral rehydration salts (15 cents per packet)
Acute Respiratory Infections	Antibiotics, Vitamin A therapy (10 cents per capsule)

Kantian argument: That we have an imperfect duty to help those in dire need. There is no specific person to whom we owe it, since we owe it to persons generally and because we cannot possibly help every person in dire need, we are free to fulfill the duty in various ways as various opportunities to help present themselves and the duty is a general duty that is never completely satisfied.

Peter Unger: On pain of living a life that’s seriously immoral, a typical well-off person, like you and me, must give away most of her financially valuable assets, and much of her income, directing the funds to lessen efficiently the serious suffering of others.

The Pond: On the way to give a lecture I notice that a small child has fallen in a pond and is in danger of drowning. Would anyone deny that I ought to wade in and pull the child out? This will mean getting my clothes muddy and either canceling my lecture or delaying it until I can find something dry to change into, but compared with the avoidable death of the child this is insignificant.

Kagan: Many people disobey the speed limit; few consequently feel free to run down pedestrians. I see no reason why we couldn’t teach people to think, “Well, I’m not doing all I should—but only a monster would fail to do at least…”

Singer: Other things being equal, if you can prevent an innocent person from dying with minimal effort, with no noticeable reduction in your standard of living of the standard of living of your dependents, with no risk to yourself or others, and without thereby failing to fulfill any other more pressing obligation, then you ought to do so.

UNICEF student dilemma: By cutting out a frivolous purchase here or there (e.g. a CD), even students could help to reduce the number of innocent children suffering and dying from absolute poverty and malnutrition with minimal effort and no noticeable reduction in their standards of living.

Bread: Buying the remaining twelve loaves of bread (in addition to the loaf that I regularly buy) right before the bakery closes each day just because I like the way it makes my kitchen smell=No day old bread left for shelters. I have knowingly squandered food that these women and children would have been able to eat and have, thus, knowingly caused them to suffer unnecessarily just so that I could experience an olfactory sensation. I have knowingly made the world a worse place by increasing the amount of unnecessary suffering it contains for an entirely trivial reason.

Others are making things worse: Does that that lots of other people are _________ make it any less wrong for me to _______? Not one bit. The fact that other people are behaving immorally does not justify my doing so.

Diet Ethics: Well-planned vegan and lacto-ovo vegetarian diets are appropriate for all stages of the life cycle, including during pregnancy and lactation. While children in underdeveloped countries are starving to death, more than one-fifth of US children are obese. Neither adults nor children need to consume any animal products at all. Dr. Spock agrees that a right, appropriately planned vegan diet is nutritionally superior to meat-based diets. We eat animals only because we like the taste.

Meat—It takes 12.9 pounds of grain to produce one pound of beef. Of course by purchasing meat because one likes its tate, one is squandering 12 pounds of grain, just to experience a particular gustatory sensation, and in so doing, one is actively making others—those in desperate need of that grain—worse off.

OBJECTIONS AND REPLIES

Objection	Author’s Reply
Iteration Objection: Send a modest portion of your income to famine relief organization and/or other organizations working to reduce unnecessary suffering. Because standards of living are vague and lack precise boundaries, there can be a repeated series of non-noticeable reductions in one’s standard of living, such that, before long, one is radically worse off than one’s original starting position and noticeably so.	Response: Suggestions are intended to be compatible with gradual increases in one’s standard of living so as to enable one to do even more to help reduce the amount of unnecessary suffering down the road. Most of us are morally required to send at least 2% of our income to famine-relief organizations and other organizations to stop suffering. Because standards of living typically continue to improve the longer people are in the workforce, most people are currently enjoying their highest standards of living.
The Liberation Objection: We have negative duties to do not harm, we have no positive duties to assist others. Though you could save the child with minimal sacrifice and no risk to yourself, you have absolutely no positive obligation to assist the child in any way. It would, however, be good of you to wade in and save the child. *No positive duties=no obligations.*	Response: This is morally outrageous. You should save the child, it would be clearly wrong if you did not do so. *You believe that there are both positive and negative duties.*
Malthusian Musings: Doing so will just exacerbate the problem. If lots more children under age 5 survive, then when they reach puberty and starting having their own children, there will be even more mouths to feed, and as a result, there will be even more human suffering due to starvation. It is better to let 12 million children starve to death each year than to save them have have 2-3 times that many children starving 15 years from now. Scientifically speaking-Left unchecked, organisms will reproduce until they reach the carrying capacity (K) of their respective ecosystems.	Response: We don’t think Malthusian worries about exceeding K. If ecologically based, global human population concerns give us a reason to let distant children die, they give us an equally good reason to let our own children die. You wouldn’t think of letting your own children die to help reduce human population. There are other, more effective ways of reducing human population growth: improving educational opportunities and employment for women, improving the economic security of the elderly, providing ready access to birth control, and providing abortion services. Instead of being required to send money to a famine-relief organization, you will be obligated to send money to humanitarian organizations, that are working to reduce the rate of population growth in underdeveloped countries through effective birth control measures.