Recently, we’ve been discussing Peter Singer’s One World book. Last time we noted that most people think the U.S. devotes more of its budget to foreign aid than it actually does. And even when you include private giving, the U.S. is still last in giving among developed nations. Today, I want to focus on that idea of personalized giving.
I found the conclusion of One World to be extremely powerful, and I’d like to walk through it here. Singer paraphrases a dilemma presented by Peter Unger in Living High and Letting Die:
Bob is close to retirement. He has invested most of his savings in a very rare and valuable old car, a Bugatti, which he has not been able to insure. The Bugatti is his pride and joy. In addition to the pleasure he gets from driving and caring for his car, Bob knows that its rising market value means that he will always be able to sell it and live comfortably after retirement. One day when Bob is out for a drive, he parks the Bugatti near the end of a disused railway siding and goes for a walk up the track. Looking further down the track he sees the small figure of a child playing in a tunnel and very likely to be killed by the runaway train. He can’t stop the train and the child is too far away to warn of the danger, but he can throw a switch that will divert the train down the siding where his Bugatti is parked. Then nobody will be killed – but since the barrier at the end of the siding is in disrepair, the train will destroy his Bugatti. Thinking of his joy in owning the car, and the financial security is represents, Bob decides not to throw the switch. The child is killed. But for many years to come Bob enjoys owning his Bugatti and the financial security it represents.
First, you might notice the similarity to the Trolley Problem we’e discussed here before. Of course, this one seems a bit easier on the surface. Most of will initially react to this scenario by thinking Bob made a morally reprehensible decision. It seems easy for us to say that Bob should have saved the child, and that we would have done the same in his situation. But let’s think this through a little more:
The U.S. Committee for UNICEF says that a donation of $17 will provide immunization “to protect a child for life against the six leading child-killing and maiming diseases: measles, polio, diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, and tuberculosis,” while a donation of $25 will provide “over 400 packets of oral rehyrdration salts to help save the lives of children suffering from diarrheal dehydration.”
That’s a start, but Peter Unger draws it ouf even further, and estimates that a single child’s life can be saved for about $200.
Let me make this as clear as possible – for about every $200 that an organization like UNICEF receives in donations, they can save the life of one child and take steps toward pulling them out of poverty. Are you getting the picture yet?
He [Bob] must have thought how extraordinarily unlucky he was, to be place in a situation in which he must choose between the life of an innocent child and the sacrifice of most of his savings. But he was not unlucky at all. We are all in that situation.
Isn’t it wrong not to donate to an organization that could do this? In a sense, we’re all Bobs who are choosing not to pull the lever if we’re not donating our money to organizations working to save lives. Of course, the question then quickly becomes – just how much do we give? Do we keep giving until we’r ein poverty? Where do we draw the line? This is where a lot of people step out – this is difficult question to answer and when the problem isn’t right in front of you – it’s hard to be motivated to act. But Signer offers a proposal here that I find interesting:
A donation of about $100 per adult per year for the next fifteen years could achieve the Millenium Summit goals [of halving world poverty]… For someone earning $27,500 per annum, the average salary in the developed world, this is less than 0.4 percent of their annual income, or less than 1 cent in every $2 they earn.
A more useful symbolic figure would be 1 percent, and this might indeed be closer to what it would take to eliminate, rather than halve, global poverty.
Those who do not meet this standard should be seen as failing to meet their share of a global responsibility, and therefore as doing something that is seriously morally wrong.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this suggestion by Singer!
Firstly, Bob should have saved the kid, because the car he saved was a Bugatti. If he had invested in a real car, like a Corvette or Ford GT, that a true car lover would own, he made the correct choice.
I don’t feel that I have a ‘global responsibility’. I only have a responsibility to my own needs. I disagree with his statement that “We are all in that situation.” That is not a fact. I owe no responsibility, even with any surplus I might have, to anyone in any state of distress.
Singer’s idea that failing to meet such a responsibility is morally wrong only puts a heavier weight on the question of how far someone should be giving. It gives a reason to shame people for percieved stinginess, creates guilt, and sets a precedence for legal garnishment of money for the dispositioned. It might be ‘nice’ if I donated but Singer is quietly insisting that we take an option to give and make it compulsory by saying I’m evil if I don’t donate.
He also ignores that this UNICEF fix doesn’t do what he promises it does. All it does is assist this figurative child to not be a victim of common ailments. It does not guarantee that the hypothetical child will continue on to live the life Singer might imagine for him. It is just as likely to condemn the future adult to a life of poverty in a world of increasing scarcity, wherein he gives whatever the extant moral authority compels him to give, since someone gave selflessly for his own life.
Hmm, a few thoughts after reading your response:
1) I would say he is correct that we are all in that situation. What you seem to be disagreeing with is not whether we’re in that situation, but whether or not it carries with it any real moral choice or weight.
2) According to how you feel about your own responsibility, you would feel no responsibility to save the child about to be hit by the train, or to take another example, to save a drowning child if you’re the only person around. I definitely disagree with that. I think we are social creatures and for society to exist (which is a benefit to me) there has to be a base level of mutual respect and good will toward others, which includes helping others when possible.
3) I should be clear, I would not support legal requirements on individual giving. For me, that is an area where law and morality do not overlap. For example, I believe everyone should tip their servers well, and I think their is a moral failing if someone leaves no tip, however, I would not support a law requiring everyone to tip.
4) Yes, the problem is complex, and UNICEF isn’t perfect, but see my response to Brian. I don’t take that as a reason for not trying.
Another FB friend posted something the other day that essentially claimed that the 100 richest people in the world earned enough income in 2012 to end extreme poverty.
It brings to mind the saying “Give a man a fish…. teach a man to fish….”
These claims, along with the claims by the author in your post (I haven’t read the book and my statement is based on the clips you posted) are extreme oversimplifications of the problem.
Teaching a man to fish does him no good if there are no fish to be caught. But, the broad concept is important. The long term problem of extreme poverty will not be eliminated by simply transferring wealth to the poor. They need a means to produce something. Even if it is just subsistence agricultural production. Until they can support themselves through some productive activity, they will be in poverty.
As evidenced by the persistence of poverty, this is a very difficult problem to solve. Even within the US, there is persistent (relative) poverty. Giving residents in these regions job skills does not good if there are no jobs. Employers won’t move into the region if the residents don’t have job skills. Classic chicken and egg problem…. The academic field of economic development has failed to produce a good solution to this problem.
In most cases, the best way for a person to escape poverty in an impoverished region is for them to move out of that region. It is difficult for many to even see this opportunity. Many do not want to hear this. Everyone believes that the region they grew up in is ‘God’s country’.
That being said, I fully support transfers of wealth to provide basic human needs such as clean water and medicine. On that score I am as guilty as the guy who saved his Bugatti.
I definitely agree that problem is complex, and I think you’ve done a good job of explaining that here. I do know that there are programs working on solutions like the subsistence agricultural production that you mentioned, and many of the clean water projects have a similar aim of creating long-term solutions. One of the things the author discussed that I didn’t include here was that over the years, we’ve done a pretty good job of learning more about what works and what doesn’t, meaning we’re getting better at using the aid in efficient ways that create more sustainable solutions. Of course, I’m also pretty sure there’s still quite a lot of room for improvement.
For me, what it comes down to is something like this: yes, the problem is complex, and yes, it’s probably true that every dollar being donated is not being used to the absolute best of its ability. But the only way we can eventually get there is by making the effort, and continually trying and revising what we do.
As a tangent, I wonder what the reaction would be if someone suggested subsistence agriculture as a solution to poverty in the U.S.?
This connection with the Other is essential dynamic for ethics. Peter makes brilliant points and is one of the few philosophers talking about ethics today. However, I’d be careful with advocating for UNICEF, as much of the money is waisted on the ‘Bobs’ of the world. The director of UNICEF makes over a $1 million a year and gets a new luxury car every year. Ethically, as Levinas states in “Outside the Subject,” I think that pushing the State(s) to create a Federated Earth that totally rebalances power-money from the super-rich to ‘the rest of us’ is essential. For me, Occupy Wall Street represents this rupture, a demand for ethics. Peter is on the right track, but his advocacy for these organisations misses the point.
I definitely understand the concerns with UNICEF. To play a bit of devil’s advocate on that, my concern is that if we just completely scrutinize every organization that will lead to complete inaction. His salary is excessive, but it does also take money to attract people to full time jobs, and nonprofits can pay up to industry averages. For such a large organization, that’s probably in the range.