Princeton University philosophy professor Peter Singer is that rarest of species, the ethicist whose name many people actually recognize. This is because of his knack for raising important ethical issues in provocative ways, making enough people upset to create productive and sometimes transformation debate.
In a recent interview with the Carnegie Council’s Julia Taylor Kennedy, Singer touched on many of his most publicized themes, including global poverty. Here he poses a thought exercise designed to raise a question of conscience:
“I ask you to imagine that you are walking across some park that you know quite well, and in this park there is a shallow ornamental pond. Let’s assume that you know that it’s shallow, because on summer days you see teenagers playing in it, and it’s only waist-deep.
“But today, it’s not summer, and nobody is playing in it. But there is something going on, some splashing around in the pond. So you look closely, and you see it’s a small child, a toddler, who has fallen into the pond and is apparently in danger of drowning, because it is too deep for a toddler to stand.
“So your first thought is: Well, who’s looking after this child? Where are the parents or the babysitter? There must be somebody. But you look around and, to your dismay, there is nobody. In fact, there is nobody around at all except you and the toddler.
“So your next thought presumably is: Well, this child appears to be drowning. Maybe I should jump into the pond and pull the child out, which I know I can do quite safely, at no risk to my life. Oh, but I did just put on my best pair of shoes, and maybe a nice pair of trousers, or whatever it might be, and they’re going to get ruined if I rush into the muddy pond, and I wouldn’t really have time to take them off.
“So is that a reason why maybe I don’t have to save the child? Is it going to be okay if, because I don’t want to ruin my shoes or my trousers, I just say, “Well, it’s not my child. I didn’t push the child into the pond. I’m in no way responsible for this child being in a dangerous situation, so I could just be on my way?”
“Well, I saw some heads shaking already, and I’m glad to see that. Because most audiences when I do ask that question say, “No, of course that would be totally wrong. It would be horrible to think that somehow your shoes or trousers outweigh a great danger to a child’s life. You forget about that, forget about them, just jump in and pull out the child. Of course I think that is the right answer, and I hope that is what we would all do.
“But the way that this relates to global poverty, of course, is that there are children in many developing countries in danger of dying right now. There are things that we could do to help them for something like the cost of an expensive pair of shoes or shoes and your trousers as well. And yet most people are not doing it. So if you are going to condemn the person who fails to save the child because he doesn’t want to incur the expense of replacing the clothes, then don’t you yourself have to at least donate the cost of a pair of expensive shoes and clothes to those organizations that are helping the global poor?”
Discuss.
To me, the two situations are crucially different in ways that Singer seems to believe is insignificant, or is glossing over to enhance his case. If I rescue the child, I know that my sacrifice has is fact accomplished its objective, and that a specific, actual child has in fact been saved. When I give to “those organizations that are helping the global poor,” I must accept on faith that most of my contribution actually helps a real child, and doesn’t end up paying for the excessive salary of a non-profit’s president, as a bribe to a foreign official, or in a greedy uncle’s pocket. Nor do I know that my contribution has actually helped any real child, as it might be applied to a situation that is futile and hopeless. These are not just rationalizations, and if I don’t allow my guilty conscience (made guiltier by Singer’s advocacy) to counter-balance common sense, the decision to apply my personal philanthropy in areas where I have more trust in the outcome is not unethical.
Ethics Alarms 
I agree that these are two completely different situations. In the first, the drowning child, I have the choice to take specific action and save a life. This is a no-brainer.
Linking this situation to world poverty is ridiculous. First, we all know that the majority of US foreign aid ends up in the hands of warlords and others who are completely free (and willing) to let their children starve. Second, we also know that organizations like the Red Cross, which admittedly does good during disasters, has been audited numerous times for the exhorbitant salaries of their leadership, their property, and the way in which they mete out aid. (Who ever learned that during times of war the Red Cross actually SOLD coffee to soldiers? Great charity…) The plethora of organizations who will turn your mere $30 a month into changing the life of a starving, impoverished child are presented in such a way that one can’t do due diligence on where their money actually goes. (Note: the best of aid-related non-profits, as I have learned, is the Salvation Army. Doctors Without Borders is another.)
But in reality, if I sell all my shoes or pants, or don’t buy any, the only real impact I KNOW I can have on world poverty is to take that money, travel to an impoverished country and then choose the child or children I would feed, obtain medical care for etc. Then, of course, I am faced with the ethical dilemma of “which child will I personally assist?” How do I really choose among the millions?
I can only hope that Singer posed this question purposefully as an unanswerable one, just for fun. The parallel just doesn’t work.
It’s not ridiculous. It raises a real puzzle for me: I’d save the nearby child, but I really don’t pay much attention to the child far away. Or in South LA, for that matter. Is ethics proportional to 1/r-squared, like gravity. It’s a serious question that I don’t know the answer to.
My church collected $4000 and made 17,200 meals. Should be in Africa now. Kids Against Hunger!
Should be. I wouldn’t bet on it, but I admire your faith…and generosity.
Another thing that Prof. Singer does well is open many questions about the subject. Over the past 4 years, I think I’ve made a pretty good case, identifying poverty as a war crime. The first and central point I made was that poverty is deliberately targeted and implemented. Other posts I’v’e written describe the entities that commit this act of financial genocide. I do appreciate comments from those who actually read my posts and open further discussion. One post that opens the question of motive is “Eminent Domination”. That post opens the expansion of the topic in “The Real Weapon of Mass Destruction: POVERTY”. That illustrates the structure of the Wealth Transfer Mechanism. Global application of the process is described in “Reconstruction: The Broad Way To Destruction”. Poverty is pushing the little boy into the pond. Holding a life preserver just out of his reach is cruelty. That is exactly the actions being taken in the corporate financial structure, today.
This is probably the most poignant comment here. Prof. Singer’s story needs to be modified so that the toddler is actually on a leash that yanks him back in the pond anytime someone pulls him out of the pond. When people stop pulling him out of the pond, he drowns and the leash is put on the next child. That would make the story more real and accurate.
Sure it would. Poignant = Silly as Poverty= War Crimes.
I guess to re-clarify, I would say this: A lot has been made to say that a child is hungry and that there is wide-spread poverty, so give a little and give them a meal and they won’t be so hungry, but they’ll still be impoverished.
But how many people have gone out and looked at why the poverty exists and what can be done, systemically, to fix the over-arching problem. George offers one hypothesis, and I’m not sure it’s correct, but at least he seems to be asking the right question. Even below, deeper in the comments, Michael offers a few more hypos and solutions, whether they are viable or not, is not up to me.
But to categorically say that no one benefits from poverty might be a bit ignorant, and once you realize that someone might benefit from it and might be actively employing measures to keep certain people impoverished, you might consider that a particular use of poverty by a regional warlord might be considered some type of war crime.
I could be wrong and I’m about the most historically illiterate person out there, but when Germany forced the Jews into the ghettos, I’m assuming that many Jews starved to death. Would that be considered a war crime?
Well, yeah, I’d say that. It has nothing to do with the topic, though.
I’ve lived through the “society forces criminals to be criminals” and “society forces the poor to be poor” and “the rich make everyone poor” chants for a long long time, and they’re a lot older than me. Your second paragraph is redolent of “The Hunger Project, ” a huge scam that argued that giving money to the poor just acknowledged and accepted the problem, so they opposed it, and used member dues to “think about hunger and how to end it.”
No capitalist wants there to be poor people—poor people cost money; poor people commit crimes when they get desperate, poor people don’t buy goods and services; poor people get angry and clog up parks with stupid, pointless protests. George’s theory that wealth is a zero-sum game has been well-disproved–unlike energy and matter, it CAN be created and destroyed. Poverty exists, in part, because some people, some from no fault of their own, some with a lot of fault, can’t create it or do destroy it, and hungry children are often the result.
We should never stop attempting ways to minimize poverty and make those who suffer from it–not all of whom are victims—able to survive as comfortably as possible without dragging everyone else down. But after centuries, pretending that poverty is some kind of a hidden plot that can be defeated is in the same category as seeking immortality, perfect love and a government without taxes.
Naive, counter-productive, and a waste of time.
I think you missed my point, that poverty might be a tool, not by capitalists in our country, but by warlords in an impoverished African nation.
Could you see some punk with a gun terrorizing a small village, taking food and medicine from the village so that the “American Heroes” come riding in with more food and medicine for the nice villagers that have been kept down.
Then the punk makes the situation dangerous and forces the aid workers to pay for security and pay fees to allow the medicine aid and food aid to get to the villages.
When it finally arrives, the punk goes in and takes a portion of it so it’s not enough to cover the village’s need. Keeps the cycle going. The villages are the bait that lures the aid from the 1st world. When the aid arrives, it’s plundered.
Don’t you think an industrious individual, an entrepreneur without many job opportunities might find a way to generate a supply chain of valuable product that he can harvest and re-sell for a hefty profit? Don’t you think that he might also feel threatened, if his product loses a value in price because someone else is bringing it in for free and his customers dry up?
Poverty can create a resource, for those who are willing to mine it.
Sure—“The Magnificent Seven.” The fact that poverty can be a tool doesn’t make it a tool. I could use my dog to hammer nails, but he’d still be a dog.
That scenario would certainly illustrate the deliberate nature of poverty. I know that John Perkins descibed the methods used by the IMF and World Bank, in Africa. Excellent description.
There is no “good case” to make that poverty is a war crime. It makes for good placards and bumper stickers, though: I think a T-shirt would be a big seller to the Occupy Crowd. When terms like “war crime”—a dubious concept to begin with—are stretched beyond all reason in pursuit of manufactured moral superiority, the legitimate term loses its power and usefulness. Insulting women is rude but it isn’t “rape;” opposing affirmative action may be flawed policy, but it isn’t “racism,” the individual mandate may be unconstitutional but it isn’t “fascism,” and African nations that remain poor because their own culture supports corruption and authoritarian government are sad, infuriating and self-destructive, but are not engaging in “genocide,” until, as is sometimes the case, they engage in real genocide….which involves killing people.
The easiest way to make sure I don’t read an argument is to load it with this kind of moldy proto-revolutionary double-talk.
You’re not following through to the end and acknowledging the historical evidence. He who intends to take your property will eventually take your life, whether by slavery or murder. Everything I’ve written is in accordance with the founding principles of Lawful government. There is nothing revolutionary about it. I do not double-talk. I don’t sttuter when I speak or write.
George: I have a personal interest in war (and by extension war-crimes) and I’m willing to attempt to follow your historical evidence to the end you claim. I did quick searches of your blog for ‘poverty’ and ‘war crimes,’ though, and it looks like either all or none of your articles turned up as a result. Is the search feature broken? If not, do I need to read ALL of it to see the linkage between poverty and war crimes?
This reminds me of an old post when candidate Obama took too much liberty with English and attempted to define everything people dislike as ‘violence’ against some special class.
Unemployment is not violence against labor. Poverty is not a war crime victimizing the weak. Both things–and many more–suck. While giving them exaggerated names may draw attention to worthy causes, such hyperbole can also diminish how thoughtful and sincere people view those causes. I don’t think kind of attention helps much.
I dont donate to charities anymore. Not after seeing how my money was being spent by the people at the United Way. My hard earned money is better spent giving it to some homless person on the street then giving it to some corporation in the name of poverty who are going to take 90 cents out of a doallr to suport the organization.
So, Bill, how much do you give to homeless people?
On the subject of charitable giving … we are living in tough economic times. Many of us who have given generously in the past are not in positions to give as generously right now. But I like to think that most people want to help others and do so when and how they can – financially and/or by volunteering their time and/or talents. I also believe that people should feel free to support those charitable causes that are most meaningful to them without feeling pressure from others to donate to others’ preferred causes. Which leads me to my pet peeve. I once worked for a company where everyone was EXPECTED to give their “fair share”. By this I mean we were told what % of our salary we were expected to donate to United Way yearly. We could, of course, designate a certain organization within United Way to direct our donation to, by way of free choice (sarcasm intended). The non-management and union employees were encouraged to donate their “fair share” and were mandated to attend United Way fundraising “educational” sessions. We management employees were told, in no uncertain terms, that if we did not “volunteer” to donate our “fair share” it would be held against us when it came time for end of year review, bonuses, etc., because it would reflect poorly on our immediate chain of command – it was all tracked and they all needed 100% participation. I found this policy more than offensive. There were other charities nearer and dearer to my heart that I preferred to donate that money to and resented being forced to give it to the United Way in order to, in effect, keep my job. But it’s my understanding that United Way had/has a similar grip on countless major companies throughout the country. Talk about unethical!
I think his analogy is over simplistic. If he wants to make that point that we should do all we can to eradicate hungry children in the third world, we should work on the causes, not the symptoms. If we took the Marines and the Army and we systematically eradicated the corrupt governments of these countries (that are causing the poverty) and replaced them with benevolent, colonial governments we could drastically reduce such hunger. We could enforce mandatory birth control until the local populations match the local food supplies, we could force the ‘correct’ portion of the population to farm the proper crops for the area to maximize the food supply. We could dictate where people could live, how much food they each could get, and how they could live to minimize hunger. It seems that Prof. Singer should approve of such an approach. We would be doing what we could to eradicate third world hunger and in a much more effective manner that is currently being done. Would it be right to reimpose colonialism in the name of reducing world hunger? What is freedom worth? What is self-determination worth? How far should our rights recede ‘for our own good’? These are the real questions we should be asking.