Should wehelpthe poor Yourdiscussion should includeeither Essay

Should wehelpthe poor Yourdiscussion should includeeither Pogge'sarguments (in Poverty,Climate Change and Overpopulat - Essay Example As one of the many life-threatening social issues, poverty is associated to many deaths, including diseases and violence, especially in the underdeveloped countries. (Pogge, 2010).   A great factor in the increase of poverty is the unequal distribution of wealth, which leads to social inequality. The economic inequality skews the economic opportunities of people to gain the financial stability they need to ensure a life without poverty. The more unequal the distribution of wealth is, the greater number of people there is at the bottom of the economic and social structure. Pogge’s argument on helping the poor simply explains that the lower the poverty level is, the higher the sustainability would be. Helping the poor means the society needs to exert its efforts on the redistribution of wealth. This is a very big and idealistic step in the eradication of poverty. Since poverty is caused by the unequal structure, specifically economic, of the society, completely taking out pove rty is next to impossible. Pogge suggests a number of points on how to deal with poverty, thus helping out the poor people, and, as a result, helping out the society and the environment in one blow. In this regard, Pogge suggests that the society have a moral obligation to help the poor just because it will result in everyone’s self-preservation. One of the main arguments of Pogge’s perspective is that of Rolston’s. Rolston actually criticizes the point of Pogge that the society has the moral obligation to help the poor. He insists that helping out the poor, and the quest to eradicate poverty will paralyze our society. It’s not that society has no resources to help out the poor but in focusing more on eradicating poverty, the resources would be used up and the society won’t be able to answer to the other challenges that the society is facing, such as financial capability and ecological burden. Rolston suggests that if the society aims to eradicate poverty, it would need to look into the following challenges as well: redistribution of wealth, economic sustainability and population control (Rolston, 1996). Although affluent societies have the resources to answer these social issues, most poverty-stricken countries don’t have the capacity to do that. And the lingering question would be: would the affluent societies pursue the value of preserving the life of other societies while maintaining their own? Would they have the courage to redistribute their wealth to ensure that other societies would have the financial capabilities that they are enjoying? Rolston even suggests that most individuals protect what they value most, even if it results to the demise of another, taking it to account that it is beyond their control (Rolston, 1996). This is similar to Newton’s law of cause and effect. Every decision that we make affects other people, whether directly or indirectly. Rolston’s point shows that one of human na tural characteristics is self-preservation, and this could have a result in the downfall of another. Another point that contradicts Pogge’s perspective is the problem of population. Rolston suggests that feeding the poor is like feeding cancer (Rolston, 1996). It will only result to more problems later since the poor will only give birth to more poor later on. This correlates to his perspective that if the socie