Writing Project #2 – Compare/Contrast

Annabelle Heckert

Enter Name of the Instructor

English

12 December 2019

Writing Project #2 – Compare/Contrast

In the essay “Singer’s solution to world poverty”, he articulates that if Americans donate all their unnecessary income to the World Organizations, it can help in eliminating poverty. His article published in the year 1999, presents many hypothetical and factional situations which he has used to show how Americans unnecessarily spend their income. The author has linked the division of dollar amount to make the readers understand what it takes to save a child. Singer has used precise language to create strong sentences. His words and layout of the conversations make the readers understand the larger context, which is a moral obligation. He introduces himself to a utilitarian philosopher which he labels as ‘one who acts right or wrong based on their end results’. He presents such perception about the utilitarian philosopher, with the intention of providing solutions. The ethical style he used in the essay forces the reader to consider this issue in an ethical sense. With such a style of expression, in his essay, he has added a sense of credibility and a plea toward ethos.

In order to support his primary claims, Singer has also relied on the use of pathos. For example, at the start of the essay, he uses Dora-the main character, to immediately present an emotional response. He talks about a boy, who is unknowingly sold to organ peddlers. After realizing that she has done worst, and after when her conscience, curses her, she immediately recovers the child. Singer has created this dramatized situation to draw upon the emotions of the readers. By presenting an impoverished child throughout his essay, he has pulled over the reader’s sympathies. He continues to encourage the emotional response by writing “if the upshot of the Americans’ failure to donate the money is that one more kid dies on the streets of a Brazilian city ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"YmRuFzBM","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Singer)","plainCitation":"(Singer)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":65,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/8reWiRZH/items/VUNVS2VP"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/8reWiRZH/items/VUNVS2VP"],"itemData":{"id":65,"type":"article-journal","container-title":"The New York Times Magazine","issue":"September","page":"60–63","source":"Google Scholar","title":"The Singer solution to world poverty","volume":"5","author":[{"family":"Singer","given":"Peter"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["1999"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Singer)”. His mentioning of death compels the readers to read the text with emotive thoughtfulness. He has presented the text from Peter Unger’s “Living high and letting die” book. The excerpt from this particular book is, in fact, an imaginary example to probe about the reader’s intuitions.

Compared to this, in ‘feeding the hungry’, Jan Narveson has made a distinction between justice and charity. For him, the difference between justice and charity is clear, since the demand for justice is enforceable, but for charity it is not. In other ways, it is morally allowed to force someone to act impartially, but it is morally not right to ask someone to be charitable. He does not deny that humans should be charitable but he has created some limits ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"1CaXHmmC","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Narveson)","plainCitation":"(Narveson)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":67,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/8reWiRZH/items/WDRA8DTD"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/8reWiRZH/items/WDRA8DTD"],"itemData":{"id":67,"type":"article-journal","container-title":"Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach","page":"142","source":"Google Scholar","title":"Feeding the Hungry","author":[{"family":"Narveson","given":"Jan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Narveson). He actually urges the readers to draw a line so as to differentiate whether feeding the hungry is a matter of justice or a matter of charity. Narveson places this matter in the domain of charity and not in the domain of justice, as he believes that it is not a matter of justice. He holds the point, that though humans have a duty towards charity, it is not required until it hurts.

Principles and Policies: Later in his article, Narveson has made a distinction between policies and principles ADDIN ZOTERO_ITEM CSL_CITATION {"citationID":"EcMphgdS","properties":{"formattedCitation":"(Narveson)","plainCitation":"(Narveson)","noteIndex":0},"citationItems":[{"id":67,"uris":["http://zotero.org/users/local/8reWiRZH/items/WDRA8DTD"],"uri":["http://zotero.org/users/local/8reWiRZH/items/WDRA8DTD"],"itemData":{"id":67,"type":"article-journal","container-title":"Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach","page":"142","source":"Google Scholar","title":"Feeding the Hungry","author":[{"family":"Narveson","given":"Jan"}],"issued":{"date-parts":[["2017"]]}}}],"schema":"https://github.com/citation-style-language/schema/raw/master/csl-citation.json"} (Narveson). He believes that principles are theoretical claims, built upon man’s own distinction of thoughts. He does not consider them obligatory, same goes for the policies, which he believes are designed to implement principles. His own principles differ from the principle of greatest happiness, where he points out that even utilitarian conforms to the reasons which do not require adopting policies that require feeding the poor. In his essay, he has also referred to the arguments of Garret Hardin to prove his stance about differentiating between justice and hunger. Both of these authors believe that starvation does not erupt from the failure of people performing their duties, rather it erupts from crop failures, civil wars, and acts that are not related to ordinary poor. By all such stances, he therefore, proves that we do not serve the purpose of humanity by feeding the poor rather, we create more hunger.

In the movie- Battle of Algiers, the producers have telecasted the struggle of Algerian from French colonialism, during the era between the 1950s and 1960s. Gillo Pontecorvo, the writer of the movie has talked about the freedom struggle of Algerians and what they went through during their fight against the imposition of French. Pontecorvo has exposed the legacy of imperialism, which he believes is ruthless and devastating. In his story, he has unearthed the causes of terrorism, which he argues is a reaction, and not an action. Terrorism for him, erupts from resistance and when people are not getting the due rights, they should be enjoying. Compared to the writing, the movie has paid a lot more attention to the message of Pontecorvo, where it telecasts the ruthless punishments that the people in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and Afghanistan are facing. For him, things are not different, and the injustices that the take the form of terrorist extremism.

Pontecorvo’s exposition of events is quite simple and well-oriented. He has suggested that what all is happening in the countries, where violence has become a norm, has resulted from their fight against imperialism. The people there, have learned taking-up arms for their fight against the imperial powers. As people in the Western world, these people were also peaceful before the invasion of their territories. For Pontecorvo, those who grabbed their resources are the real culprits and not those who have been fighting for their due rights in their own territories. Pontecorvo’s exposition is a little different from that of Peter Singer and Jan Narveson. Singer and Narveson are some bit philosophical in their approaches, compared to Pontecorvo. Their exposition of the arguments is different as well. Singer's form of utilitarianism entails consequentialism, and if consequentialism is false then so is Singer's utilitarianism.  Consequentialism is sometimes presented as following from the facts of rationality, and it does not respect the separateness of persons. 

Lastly, in his essay, Singer is persuading the audience to leave some value for others voluntarily. As he believes that voluntary actions are more worthy. His writing, therefore, follows the same style, like the use of different illusions to create a narrative, unlike Narveson and Pontecorvo. Narveson’s rhetorical strategies are quite different from both these writers. His expression suggests that he isn’t arguing, but rather, making some pleas which demand to be low in tone and avoid aggressiveness, which he has done in a more mannered way. Narveson does argue at some places in his writing, but his expression had remained quite consistent with his approaches, unlike Peter, which has to use illusions to convey his arguments. Pontecorvo had been different from both of them since he had addressed an issue that had been consistent with the time frame of his writings. Further, the makeover of his writing, in the movie form has added some new dimensions to his message. In many instances, the Battle of Algiers had portrayed things that happened to be quite different in the original passage. The shared attribute in the writing of three authors remains their interest in exploring human philosophies, which target human sufferings and wants.

Works Cited:

ADDIN ZOTERO_BIBL {"uncited":[],"omitted":[],"custom":[]} CSL_BIBLIOGRAPHY Narveson, Jan. “Feeding the Hungry.” Applied Ethics: A Multicultural Approach, 2017, p. 142.

Singer, Peter. “The Singer Solution to World Poverty.” The New York Times Magazine, vol. 5, no. September, 1999, pp. 60–63.