The Life You Can Save

“On your way to work, you pass a small pond. On hot days, children sometimes play in the pond, which is only about knee-deep. The weather’s cool today, though, and the hour is early, so you are surprised to see a child splashing about in the pond. As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who is flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. You look for the parents or babysitter, but there is no one else around. The child is unable to keep his head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don’t wade in and pull him out, he seems likely to drown. Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for him, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?”

This is a thought experiment put forth by Princeton philosopher Peter Singer in his book, The Life You Can Save. At first glance, it hardly seems like a moral dilemma at all. Of course you should save the child. There is nearly unanimous agreement that walking by and ignoring the child is morally repugnant.  It’s not just that it would be a kind act to save the child; rather, you are actually morally obligated to do so. Ruining a pair of shoes is a trivial cost to you considering what’s at stake (though Singer still should have made clear that these shoes were tied so tightly that you wouldn’t have time to take them off first).  But what follows logically from this thought experiment has changed drastically the way I choose to live my life.

The truth is that we all face this dilemma every day, yet few of us realize it. How can this be true? There are millions of children who die each year from poverty-related causes. Usually these deaths are caused by diseases such as measles, malaria, or diarrhea. For those of us living in developed nations, these diseases pose no serious threat to us. But people living in extreme poverty are vulnerable due to a lack of safe drinking water, sanitation, and medical treatment. However, it is not impossible to prevent these deaths. By donating to an effective charity, you can provide the world’s poorest people with the resources that are critical for their well-being. You can save somebody’s life.

Every time you purchase something that isn’t essential for fulfilling your basic needs, you are doing something which is morally equivalent to ignoring the drowning child. That may sound harsh, but it is undeniable that you could have used that money to help someone living in extreme poverty. If you are morally obligated to ruin an expensive pair of shoes to save a child’s life, then you are also morally obligated to forgo purchasing an expensive pair of shoes to save a child’s life. However, there are a few things which may not be critical for your well-being but nonetheless would be ethically justifiable to purchase. A college education, for example, isn’t essential for my survival, but it is an investment that will allow me to donate even more money in the future. But, generally speaking, we all spend way too much money on things we simply don’t need.

Admittedly, Singer’s thought experiment is a bit simplistic and doesn’t perfectly correspond to the real world in the way he suggests. Poverty is an extremely complicated problem, and therefore there is no simple solution to it. It’s not as easy as picking up a child out of the water. The truth is that nobody really knows how exactly to solve poverty. We can’t just expect that if we throw enough money at the problem it will go away. However, we do know that we can help poor people and make their lives more bearable in the meantime, and that alone should be sufficient reason to give.

Another difference between Singer’s thought experiment and real world poverty is that most of us are not in a position to directly help those in need. In the thought experiment, we are the ones who are directly responsible for saving the drowning child. But, unless you work for an aid agency, that is not the case for helping impoverished people. Most of us need to rely on charities to do the work for us, and so we are only contributing indirectly by supporting the charities financially. And how can we trust that charities really are doing what is in the best interests of the poor? If you think it is safe to assume that every charity will spend your dollar wisely, then you clearly haven’t researched this issue thoroughly. A lot of donations may be ineffective due to excessive bureaucracy, waste, and unintended consequences. That is why it is crucial to ensure that your donation will go to a charity that has demonstrated its programs are effective.

During this past summer, I worked as a cashier at a Cracker Barrel restaurant and store, and I gave away 25% of my earnings. Using a website called GiveWell, I was able to research which charities are the most effective. GiveWell has an extremely rigorous evaluation process and only recommends charities that can provide substantial evidence that they are improving the lives of poor people. Currently, GiveWell’s #1 rated charity is the Against Malaria Foundation, which distributes bed nets to protect people from mosquitoes in regions with high rates of malaria. By donating to the AMF, I can reasonably claim that I have helped to save someone’s life, and to me that is more fulfilling than anything else I could have spent my money on.

I understand how difficult it would be to give up all luxuries and lead a truly ethical life. Nobody is perfect, and it would be counterproductive to guilt trip somebody every time he buys a movie ticket. On the other hand, I think that giving nothing at all is being unreasonably selfish. Perhaps there is some middle ground here. Just think about your own life. Don’t you think you could still live a comfortable life without going on expensive cruises or dining at fancy restaurants? We must learn to care for one another and be willing to sacrifice some things for each other if we wish to make a positive difference in the world.