Marginal Utility and consumption

Name
Course
Institution
Date
Singer illustrates a hypothetical situation that tries to justify the importance of creating happiness to the lives of others rather than creating misery. The bottom line of this notion lies in principle of utilitarianism. The author presents cases where the subjects would have acted in the right way in order to prevent harm to the victims. In the article, World Poverty, Peter Singer indicates that the indefensible for some people to live luxurious life while other are starving to death. He denotes that further increase of the comfort is senseless since it would be worthwhile to donate to the poor (Davis, 2007, p. 199). Given that the marginal utility of any good or service decreases as the quantity increases, a set amount of something is more useful when people have little of it than when they have a lot. This principle accounts for equal consideration of interest (Elms, 2013, p.321).
There are several significant differences between spending money on luxuries instead of donating to organizations for saving lives. It is morally right to save $200 for a dinner and donate this amount to the rest fortunate people in the society. Moreover, a person sacrificing someone else life to buy a new stereo system and an advanced TV to enhance her enjoyment indicates sadism and selfishness. Living comfortably at expense of one’s life is not ethical since the money for such luxuries could add life to someone (Chatterjee, 2004, p.233).
More evaluations on the marginal utility indicate that equal considerations of the interest could incline us towards equal distribution of resources in our society. This is because, social equality could relieve feelings of hopeless inferiority that can exist when members of one race or sex are always depicted as worse off than members of another race or sex (Castells, 2010, p. 65).
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