A response to Peter Singer in the film Examined Life

Tianzong Jiang
HUMI 1
April Berney

First not to mention the content of this film, I do not like the way this documentary is filmed. I’d rather have ten talking heads appearing throughout the movie. Well, the director can include cut-away and other inserts to make it interesting, have these philosophers walking on the streets is just distracting. Although I can’t agree with the cinematography, the producer was able to invite enough high caliber philosophers to talk in this documentary, including the great Slovenian continental philosopher Slavo zizak and peter singer. These ten people did make some good points. I especially like the third scholar, Peter Singer.
In this film singer raised some questions about ethic, I’m going to respond to two of them. For the first one he talked about how people should use their money. He said that the price of a pair of shoes can save more than one children in a poor country. It makes sense if we simply think that people have the obligation to help each other, we are wrong. I think it is a problem of power. Sure when have excessive amount of money, we should, and many people are, help out poor people, but the reality is, people are still poor, in the United States and in the world. Therefore it is not a simple ethic problem, but whether the power of a nation is big enough, so it is capable to exploit other countries or prevent itself from plundering by other countries. Does the United States have the obligation to help other countries? It definitely does, although it is doing some charity but it is merely enough. The western world has the privilege of high tech and military power that allows the United States and its allies to dominate the world that these countries to accumulate much more resources and wealth, and leave the rest of the world in poverty. It is not a right thing to do, but the western world has been doing this, for centuries, because they have the power to.
Same as the shoe story, human can treat livestock in this way is because human has the power. Back in the time when we were hunting and gathering, we killed animals to taste their flesh just like today we eat domestic animals. Sometimes we do think about if we are ethical about this issue, but we do not care. Nobody is going to be a vegetarian just because we think mass produce meat is unethical, no country will be willing to give up power just because the people think exploiting other countries is unjustified. People need high quality life, and that requires other people to suffer for them. Normally we say “do not build your happiness over other people’s pain”, but in real word it’s the opposite.
Although peter singer was careful enough to notice the existence of the problem, he did not observe the core of the question. It’s doesn’t matter whether it is ethical or not, the determine factor is power. People do things based on their favor. The West depredate the East is because it can bring countries wealth. The leaders know the world suffering and the people of industrialized nations are enjoying their lives, but they will never change the way they behave, they will never give up their advantage. The question Peter Singer raised was not about ethics, but about material.