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Singer’s idea that excited me was that each of us should give a lot of money to help the poor abroad. His “Shallow Pond” Thought Experiment shows why. If you saw a girl drowning in a shallow pond, you would feel obligated to rescue her even if it meant ruining your new shoes. But then, Singer said, you can save a starving child’s life abroad by donating the cost of new shoes to charity. And you can save another child’s life by donating instead of buying a new shirt, and another instead of going out to dinner. The logic of her beliefs requires that she send almost all of her money abroad, where it will go the furthest to save the most lives. After all, what could we do with our money that’s more important than saving lives?
That is the most famous argument in modern philosophy. It goes far beyond the ideas that drive most decent people to give to charity: that all human lives are valuable, that extreme poverty is terrible, and that the richest have a responsibility to help. The relentless logic of Singer’s “shallow pond” tends toward extreme sacrifice. Has inspired some give almost all your money and even a kidney.
In 1998, I was not prepared for extreme sacrifice; but at least I thought I could find the charities that save the most lives. I started creating a website (now beyond parody) that would show evidence on the best ways to donate; which would show altruists, you could say, how to be more effective. And then I went to Indonesia.
A friend who worked for the World Wildlife Fund had invited me to a party to mark the millennium, so I saved up my full professor’s salary and flew to Bali. It turned out that my friend’s bungalow was a resting place for young people working on aid projects in Indonesia and Malaysia and escaping to Bali for some rest and relaxation over the New Year.
These young aid workers were with Oxfam, Save the Children and some UN organisations. And everyone was exhausted. A tanned young Dutchman told me that he slept on top of pigs on a remote island and that he had contracted malaria so many times that he stopped testing. Two weary Brits told how they stood up to local thugs who were always caught stealing their equipment. Everyone washed, drank a lot of beers, rested for a few days. When we decided to cook a big dinner together, I took the opportunity to do some research.
“Let’s say you have a million dollars,” I asked when they started eating. “What charity would you give it to?” They looked at me.
“No, really,” I said, “what charity saves the most lives?”
“None of them,” a young Australian woman said with a laugh. Story after story came out of the daily frustrations of her job. Corrupt local officials, clueless charity bosses, the daily routine of cajoling poor people into trying something new without pissing them off. When we got to dessert, these good people, who dedicated their young lives to poverty alleviation, talked about lying in bed helpless some nights, hoping that their projects were doing more good than harm.
