When Sanctions Aren’t Enough: Our Moral Obligation to Alleviate Individual Suffering Sooner
In ‘Famine Relief and the Ideal Moral Code’, Peter Singer argues that those in affluent countries have a moral obligation to give away much more of their money than they do (Singer, 1972). I will argue how Singer’s principle holds even stronger in a modern context, because our current governmental methods of alleviating suffering through economic sanctions are ineffective, and therefore increase our individual obligation to donate more to those in immediate need.
I will outline Singer’s 1972 premises and conclusions, followed by several popular objections to his argument. I will then place Singer’s argument in the context of the current Ukrainian conflict, where I will draw difference and comparison between his original argument, and how it holds today. In doing this, I will focus on the role of government intervention, specifically contrasting what Singer says governments ought to do, with what they actually do. My argument will demonstrate that our current economic interventions do not alleviate immediate suffering, in many instances multiply it, and are motivated by goals of deterrence and regime change. Therefore, we have an even greater individual moral obligation to be more effectively altruistic.
Singer uses two principles which seek to link the promotion of good with personal sacrifice. We refer to these as the strong and weak principles (Singer, 1972). Both arguments consist of two premises. The first, that suffering in the Third World is a bad thing. Singer does not argue for this premise, as he believes it to be intuitively true. And second, if we can prevent a bad thing without sacrificing something of moral importance, then we are morally required to prevent the bad thing. Where the strong and weak principles diverge is motivated by what, and to what extent, is to be sacrificed. In the strong principle it is something of comparable moral importance. In the weak principle it is something of significant moral importance (Lord, 2022a). He concludes in both arguments that we are therefore morally required to give significantly larger amounts of money to aid organizations than we currently do.
The weaker principle requires us to help until doing so will cause us to give up something of significant moral importance. We are likely to get to this point long before we give up something comparable. Objections hold that neither principle makes consideration of proximity to those suffering or distinction between the number of people involved in helping. Singer holds that these produce psychological differences, but not moral ones. That the absurdity of numbers lessening obligation is just the ideal excuse for inactivity (Singer, 1972). Or that proximity, either emotional or physical, makes it more likely that we shall help, but not that we ought to. That this form of moral egalitarianism argues that physical proximity doesn’t matter. Similarly, there are objections that the weaker principle is simply an empirical claim about what happens if we give money to aid organizations, and not one of moral consideration.
Through the lens of rights and entitlements, John Arthur argues that residents of the Third World do not explicitly have a positive right to our help, so we are not violating their rights when we fail or refuse to help (Arthur, 1981). Arthur argues that Singer’s principle predicts that we’re forbidden from not donating. The rights principle holds that we are permitted to not donate. And while he doesn’t dispute Singer’s principle, he augments the conclusion by arguing that the moral code which contains Singer’s principle is therefore inconsistent.
Writing in 1972, Singer acknowledges globalization’s increasing importance upon moral arguments, but concedes that they have an ‘unrecognized difference’ (Singer, 1972). The ‘global village’ Singer refers to is now digitally omnipresent. Today, much of the money we have can still be used to prevent something bad from happening without giving up something of significant moral importance, but let’s update Singer’s Third World premise and place it in the context of the current Ukrainian crisis. If Singer is originally focused on suffering caused by natural disasters in Bengal, what changes when we place similar suffering in the context of Russian invasion? Does his argument still hold?
Singer’s argument hangs on how much we are required to give to prevent something bad. In the case of residents of the Third World, he articulates that there are inherent problematic practices which perpetuate longer-term suffering, such as population control (Singer, 1972). He believes that in donating to aid agencies, we should accept the risk and be charitable anyway. That motivation to alleviate immediate suffering ought to be the deciding factor. At best this means that we should at least give our money to different people, but that in either case it does not absolve us of our moral obligation to help.
In doing this, he motivates an argument about the responsibility of government. If we give a disproportionate amount of our money to aid organizations, it likely causes governments to do less (Lord, 2022b). He believes this to be wrong. He argues that because giving is regarded as an act of charity, it is not thought there is anything wrong with not giving. That the charitable are praised, but the non-charitable are not condemned (Singer, 1972). Therefore, it is viewed as inessential to help those outside of one’s own society, but if all gave, we would not have to individually sacrifice as much, and it is government’s role to motivate increased donation.
So, there’s a tension between what we expect of our elected officials, and what we have an individual moral obligation to do ourselves. In the current Ukrainian conflict, the primary instrument of governmental aid is the imposition of economic sanctions. Western countries have cut Russia out of the global economy, rolling back decades of globalization in a matter of weeks. Financial institutions are blocked, trade is restricted, ports are closed, and markets have stalled. Lowry motivates an argument that there are four ways we can think about the efficacy of sanctions (Lowry, 2022). First of deterrent. That we use sanctions to stop the invasion from happening. These were ineffective. Second, sanctions as a compellent function. That we use them to remove Russian presence in Ukraine. Again, so far ineffective. Third, that we can use them to affect regime change in Moscow. Ambitious, but unclear. And fourth, sanctions are forces for behavioral change, and exhaust the adversary through attrition (Lowry, 2022). Deliberately ineffective in the short term.
None of these governmental motivations have proven effective in the immediate alleviation of suffering for the millions of displaced Ukrainian refugees now heading west. These long-term economic weapons have so far failed to achieve their desired political outcomes, and it remains unclear if they ever will. As we see from the rhetoric of western leaders, the targeted outcome of economic sanctions is not the alleviation of Ukrainian suffering, but the deposing of Russian leadership through private citizen pressure and financial hardship (Shear & Kanno-Youngs, 2022). Sanctions do little to help the Ukrainian people, but this is not their goal. Russia is highly tethered to the global economy, especially for natural resources, and private Russian citizens are collateral damage when it comes to economic weaponization. It is not their fault, but it is their problem. Therefore, we can argue our current methods of economic sanction multiply suffering and hardship, in both the lack of relief for those displaced in Ukraine, the politicized outcomes such sanctions seek, and for those having financial and societal hardships imposed upon them in Russia.
This reasoned approach to empathic motivation is where we return to Singer. His argument of effective altruism holds that our compulsion to help must be weighed with where we can have the most impact, and it is ultimately an argument about where best to donate (Singer, 2013). In doing this, he uses the example of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to eternally push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back when he reaches the summit. That in our consumer spending habits, we chase the gratification of goods, but never really get off the hedonic treadmill of consumption. Singer argues that donating more material sums of money, and redirecting that financial effort brings meaning and fulfillment to our lives, builds self-esteem, and increases well-being in ways material goods would never achieve. It is literally life-giving. He places this argument in the context of charitable giving itself. We can spend one hundred dollars training a seeing eye dog, or we can spend that same one hundred dollars bringing relief to five visually impaired children. For Singer, it is clear where to route the money.
Finally, if we believe the economic weaponry of our governments to be ineffective, and see a clear, reasoned path to effective altruism, we can see that Singer’s argument strengthens in a contemporary context in that we are morally obligated to individually donate more because of the inefficiencies of our government’s actions. If we lean on Singer’s drowning boy in the pond example (Lord, 2022a), sanctions are the moral equivalent of draining the pond, defunding the parks department, or hiring a new groundskeeper. In all situations, the boy dies while we stand by and wait. Therefore, we are obligated to act with individual immediate urgency.
In conclusion, Singer’s argument is that we are morally required to part with a large amount of money to alleviate the suffering of those in the Third World. By placing Singer’s premises in a modern context, we find it is more imperative that we do so, because of the inefficiency of the economic warfare of sanctions, and the politicization of what those sanctions seek to achieve. If sanctions play the long game, then through effective altruism we are even more morally individually obligated to donate immediately, and Singer’s argument holds even stronger in 2022 than it did fifty years ago.
Latest Articles
