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Is there an ethical duty to rescue others from poverty? According to the United Nations, about 25,000 people die every single day from hunger or hunger related causes. Statistics show that this is one person every three and a half seconds. Unfortunately, it is children who die most often. Poverty is the state for the majority of the world’s people and nations. Nearly 1 billion children live in poverty, 630 million live without adequate shelter, 300 million have no access to safe water, and 250 million have no access to health services. Why is this?
Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Is there an ethical duty to rescue others from poverty? As a world power it is America’s obligation to provide assistance to other nations in need. Working with the economy and social structure, we can aid the societies in need. One of the big economic problems today is poverty, and it is increasing every day. Some people cannot help it, and yet some people can. Some people may not be able to look for jobs to make some money because of the health reasons or other issues, but others might be able to but are just too lazy.
Either way, it is our responsibility to help people in need in any way we can. Whether we are helping them with chores, giving them food or money, or helping them to get a job, we should care. To become a better person, we must help others regularly little by little. After a while, these acts will become a habit and so the virtuous acts part of our everyday life. According to Aristotle, virtue ethics is not something that we are born with but something that any person can acquire throughout their life. The best way to become a virtuous is to follow in the footsteps of a virtuous person.
If there is an obligation to provide assistance, should we focus on our country first or the nations who need the most? First of all, we should help our nation. By creating more jobs in our country we can stimulate the economy. So how can we create more jobs? Many economists have suggested that driving down the value of our currency could help many US companies. For example, we could look at the company such as Boeing. This could lead the company to sell their aircrafts cheaper to foreign countries. More sales from across the world could finally convince companies to hire more workers and invest more in the US.
Another way to help our nation would be to ban the adjustable rate mortgages. These brands of mortgages are very hard to regulate and almost always lead to the foreclosures. We should halt the foreclosures on primary residences, businesses and farms until the end of depression. This will allow Americans to stay at their homes, businesses to continue operating, and farms to continue to produce food. This will allow them to survive the crisis until they are able to resume paying their mortgages and repaying their loans. Once our nation is protected, we can focus on other nations in need by providing them with humanitarian aid.
Increasing aid to poor countries is simply morally good. Over two billion people suffer from the poverty. We can alleviate this poor people with our aid. As utilitarianism thought us we should maximize the greatest good for the greatest amount of people. Increasing aid from the US could lead other wealthy countries to join as well. Poor countries do not have the budgets to address systemic poverty among their people. That is why the US must intervene, with support from wealthy countries. In summary, as a great and generous nation, we are ethically obliged to rescue other nations from poverty.
In order to better assist poor countries, we should boost our economy by using the strategies mentioned above. Once our economy improves, we will be able to provide the countries in need with financial assistance. With our encouragement, other rich countries will join our great mission to lower mortality rate from starvation. Together we can solve this global problem. Good deeds live forever, and therefore our highest priority should be saving people from poverty. Work cited T. Halbert, E. Ingulli. Law & Ethics in the Business Environment 5th edition. Mason: Thomson Higher Education, 2006