"One World" by Peter Singer: Globalization

Essay by nc8498@gmail.comHigh School, 12th gradeA-, September 2007

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This age has seen the complete globalization of the world. Large businesses and investment funds have moved beyond domestic and national markets and made a presence nearly everywhere on the globe. The people of the world are more interconnected than they ever have been before, and supporters of globalization believe that both developed and developing countries benefit from this. Critics claim that globalization has done more damage than good and has created a large, irreparable gap between the rich and the dying poor. In his book, One World: The Ethics of Globalization, one of the world's leading philosophers, Peter Singer, asserts that "…how well we come through the era of globalization (perhaps if we come through it at all) will depend on how we respond ethically to the idea that we live in one world." Singer's book is divided into six chapters that validate this assertion by discussing large the large issues of environment, economy, law, and humanitarian efforts in great depth.

Defining and understanding what it means to live in one world and what it means to "respond ethically" is essential to understanding how these issues can be resolved.

There are many aspects to living in one world and to accept the idea that all people live in world one a person must accept them. As inhabitants of the planet earth, all people share a single and unique environment. Atmosphere pollution, global warming, melting glaciers, and the subsequent rising ocean levels are problems that affect every nation despite the fact that almost all of the pollution came from the careless actions of a few nations. The economies of individual nations are so intertwined with the economies of other nations now that organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) have been formed. To live in one world as...