Famine, Affluence, and Morality
E418189
Famine, Affluence, and Morality is a highly influential 1972 essay by philosopher Peter Singer that argues affluent individuals have a strong moral obligation to prevent suffering and death from poverty when they can do so at relatively little cost to themselves.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Famine, Affluence, and Morality canonical | 1 |
| Peter Singer's 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4164768 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Famine, Affluence, and Morality Context triple: [Peter Singer, notableWork, Famine, Affluence, and Morality]
-
A.
Institutes of Moral Philosophy
Institutes of Moral Philosophy is an 18th-century treatise by Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson that systematically explores ethics, human nature, and the principles of moral judgment.
-
B.
On the Basis of Morality
On the Basis of Morality is a philosophical treatise by Arthur Schopenhauer in which he argues that genuine ethics is grounded in compassion rather than rational duty or self-interest.
-
C.
The Science of Ethics
The Science of Ethics is a major 19th-century philosophical work by Leslie Stephen that systematically examines moral philosophy and the foundations of ethical theory.
-
D.
Utilitarianism: For and Against
Utilitarianism: For and Against is a philosophical book co-authored by J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams that presents a classic debate over the merits and criticisms of utilitarian moral theory.
-
E.
The Methods of Ethics
The Methods of Ethics is Henry Sidgwick’s seminal 1874 work of moral philosophy that systematically analyzes and compares major ethical theories, especially utilitarianism, intuitionism, and egoism.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Famine, Affluence, and Morality Target entity description: Famine, Affluence, and Morality is a highly influential 1972 essay by philosopher Peter Singer that argues affluent individuals have a strong moral obligation to prevent suffering and death from poverty when they can do so at relatively little cost to themselves.
-
A.
Institutes of Moral Philosophy
Institutes of Moral Philosophy is an 18th-century treatise by Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson that systematically explores ethics, human nature, and the principles of moral judgment.
-
B.
On the Basis of Morality
On the Basis of Morality is a philosophical treatise by Arthur Schopenhauer in which he argues that genuine ethics is grounded in compassion rather than rational duty or self-interest.
-
C.
The Science of Ethics
The Science of Ethics is a major 19th-century philosophical work by Leslie Stephen that systematically examines moral philosophy and the foundations of ethical theory.
-
D.
Utilitarianism: For and Against
Utilitarianism: For and Against is a philosophical book co-authored by J.J.C. Smart and Bernard Williams that presents a classic debate over the merits and criticisms of utilitarian moral theory.
-
E.
The Methods of Ethics
The Methods of Ethics is Henry Sidgwick’s seminal 1874 work of moral philosophy that systematically analyzes and compares major ethical theories, especially utilitarianism, intuitionism, and egoism.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
ethics essay
ⓘ
philosophical essay ⓘ |
| academicDiscipline |
applied ethics
ⓘ
moral philosophy ⓘ |
| addressesEvent | 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War refugee crisis ⓘ |
| arguesAgainst | moral permissibility of spending on luxuries instead of life-saving aid ⓘ |
| arguesFor | radical revision of our moral conceptual scheme regarding giving ⓘ |
| author | Peter Singer ONNED1 ⓘ |
| centralClaim | affluent individuals have a strong moral obligation to prevent suffering and death from poverty when they can do so at relatively little cost to themselves ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | Australia ⓘ |
| criticizes |
common moral intuitions about charity
ⓘ
distinction between duty and supererogation in giving to the poor ⓘ |
| ethicalView | we ought to give much more to famine relief and global poverty relief than is commonly thought required ⓘ |
| famousArgument | drowning child analogy ⓘ |
| hasForm | argumentative essay ⓘ |
| hasReception |
considered one of the most influential essays in applied ethics of the 20th century
ⓘ
widely anthologized in ethics textbooks ⓘ |
| influenced |
contemporary debates on global justice
ⓘ
effective altruism ⓘ
surface form:
effective altruism movement
practical ethics ⓘ |
| keyConcept |
marginal utility in giving
ⓘ
moral significance of suffering and death ⓘ obligation to assist ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainTopic |
beneficence
ⓘ
charity ⓘ effective altruism ⓘ global poverty ⓘ moral obligation ⓘ utilitarianism ⓘ |
| moralPrinciple | if we can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought morally to do it ⓘ |
| philosophicalPosition | consequentialism ⓘ |
| philosophicalTradition | analytic philosophy ⓘ |
| publicationType | journal article ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1972 ⓘ |
| publishedIn | Philosophy and Public Affairs ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
duty of rescue
ⓘ
global distributive justice ⓘ obligatory vs supererogatory acts ⓘ |
| relatedWork | The Life You Can Save ⓘ |
| supports |
impartial consideration of interests
ⓘ
the idea that distance and nationality are morally irrelevant to the duty to help ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general educated public
ⓘ
philosophers ⓘ policy makers ⓘ |
| usesExample | saving a child from a shallow pond at little cost to oneself ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Famine, Affluence, and Morality Description of subject: Famine, Affluence, and Morality is a highly influential 1972 essay by philosopher Peter Singer that argues affluent individuals have a strong moral obligation to prevent suffering and death from poverty when they can do so at relatively little cost to themselves.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
Peter Singer's 1972 essay "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"