[Epistemologist]

Quote by: The Bacon Guy It might not be possible for a rich man to give anything away without suffering himself. If we assume that one dollar alleviates one unit of suffering for a starving African child, but that for a particular rich man, losing one dollar causes two units of suffering, he is then, from your own premises, morally obligated to keep his money.

It is possible that a person simply cannot give. Then, yes, according to this argument, he/she would not be obligated to give. But is this frequently the case with the affluent? I doubt it.

Quote by: Arawn-ap-Hywel To assume this takes away the rights of those whom may prefer to suffer. And whilst we continue to handout, some of those whom are suffering have no motivation to alleviate their situation Whilst it is laudable to be charitable in order to set someone back on their feet, it is difficult to reconcile those whom leach off such charity

If they prefer it, then it's not really suffering to them. But I think it is reasonable to assume that those who experience famine, disease, and disasters are for the most part suffering. Regardless of how they react to the end of their suffering, we would still have a moral obligation to help if we can help.

Consider a little kid drowning in a shallow pool. We walk by, and think that we can save them. We may get mud on our shoes, but we still can save them. And even if the kid slaps you afterwards because he was trying to commit suicide, you've done your duty. It would have been unreasonable to assume he was trying to commit suicide without further information, even if he wasn't hollering for help.

Quote by: Arawn-ap-Hywel A great man once said "The poor are always with us!" It is part of society and of the type of locality people are in, parts of the world have always suffered from droughts or floods, tornados or hurricanes yet still the populations choose to live their and often still insist on trying to create large families that they cannot sustain. This world is tough, and it is a fact of life for all creatures that the weak do not survive

To simply accept the historical/evolutionary status quo is irresponsible. If there is something wrong, namely, suffering, we should try to stop it. We can make the world better than it is under the status quo. Shrugging it off as part of nature is not right.

Quote by: Cephus Just giving money to the poor doesn't guarantee that they'll stop being poor, simply because the reason they are poor to begin with is they don't know how not to be. Give the poor $10,000 and they'll buy $10,000 worth of drugs and alcohol and still have nothing. It really makes no sense to just go around handing out cash to people who have demonstrated nothing but a complete failure to properly use it.

Simply giving cash is not what we would be doing because cash is not the only disposable thing that the affluent can give. They can give time and effort to making sure that more than just money is handed out.

They can even make sure that more than just handouts are given out; they could, for instance, spend resources to train people to live a better life or even effect population control measures so the problem of stupid people living unwisely is lessened in the next generations. But whatever it is, these initiatives take resources that the affluent can and thus should give. Disposable income doesn't have to directly go to the suffering, as it could be spent on these programs.