Point made but not strongly enough

Many of the points that Singer made in his argument certainly make a lot of sense. Especially when the point of charitable acts being praised but not giving to these "charities" is not condemned. As well as the discussion of saving a child that you physically see drowning versus helping a person that you do not see that is suffering. I think however in that specific argument, Singer severely downplays the feeling that a person "ought" to save someone that they physically see drowning versus someone that they do not physically see suffering. It does not really change that a person "ought" to help a person in suffrage no matter where in the world they are, but I think tries a little too hard to leave emotion out of this argument just to make his point. 

Human beings run on incentives. If someone sees another person in need of help, there is an emotional incentive right away to help that person because that person will see the result of what they did to help. The same thing can be said for people that would rather spend their money on new clothes or a new car rather than helping someone that they have no physical or emotional connection to what so ever. A person has the incentive to spend money on new items because they actually get those items in return for the money that they may have worked hard for and spent. If they were to send that money off to a charity to help a person in Bengal, they would receive nothing of physical or emotional value to them in return and are therefore much less likely to do so.

I would have to say that Singer makes the point that he is trying to make, but he does so by purposely avoiding or downplaying a huge part of human nature and how a person's personal emotions severely affect their decision making especially when it comes to their personal wealth. If he were to make his argument more well rounded rather than simply stating that he understands these things, then he may get a better response.