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jim’s journal

How to Save a Life

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In 1972, the philosopher Peter Singer proposed a simple thought experiment: Imagine you're on your way to work and you come across a child drowning in a shallow pond. You're tall enough that you can run in and rescue him, but if you do so you'll ruin your new suit. Should you save the child?

Almost everyone says yes: the value of saving a child's life far outweighs the cost of losing your new suit. Indeed, someone who would let a child die to save their clothes seems like a monster.

But aha, Singer says. You - yes, you, the reader - probably spent several hundred dollars on new clothes recently, clothes you didn't really need. (Or if not clothes, perhaps a dinner out, or music, or books you could've gotten from the library.) And instead of spending that money on luxuries, you could have sent it to Partners in Health, and they could have used it to save a child's life in the developing world. (GiveWell estimates that you can save a life for between $150-$750.) How are you not a monster? [...]

-- Aaron Swartz



Read the whole post here:
198 words

💬 5 comments

  1. james ·

    Imagine a child molesting grizzly bear. He is mauling and molesting all day long. To stop him, all you have to do is politely ask.

    Now, in this example, the child molesting grizzly bear is you not giving me $5. Asking politely is giving me $5. Wont you save the children?

  2. jim ·

    I've always thought utilitarian ethics were cold. But they also have lots of logical weight :)

  3. joshua ·

    Damn those people who do what they like with their earnings!

  4. metalpeter ·

    Once I read the entire thing maybe my view will be different. But Chances are if you are wearing a suit and you are driving by then that means you are on your way to work. The only people who wear suits to work do so because they have to. If you are in a job that requires a suit, then most of the time you also need a good suit. Yes the suit is only part of the package but often in these types of jobs how you present your self is a big issue. What if you don't present your self well enough and you lose your Job, well then what about the well being of your family. Isn't the well being of your family more important then some other person you don't even know. What about the fact that this dying person is in some other country. The bigger question is why isn't any one where they are helping them. That brings up the question is if people in the same area of the world can't help this kid then why should I? I assume that they have the choice to do so and choose not to. I'm guessing maybe this kid is important to them. If this is true then who am I to say that these people are wrong and that I should help this person. Not to mention sometimes people don't want help and if they don't want help one shouldn't help them.

    Ethics and Moraltiy aren't so Cut and Dry.

  5. metalpeter ·

    Now that I have read it all I do have a few more things to ad.

    Often times when people go into water to save drowning people they drown them selves. Yes I get that it is a metaphor but what about people who go over to other countries and get caught in between to groups. Also who says these are good kids? Maybe they where thrown in for being bad. If you take the evil man as an example. I'm sure he thinks he is the good guy and the kids are bad. It is up to us to judge and decide who is really the bad guy. But see that isn't so easy. Yes oxfam is a good cause. But Feed the Children has stolen all kinds of money. Some times you give food to a food pantry and the people who voulenter take all the good food. Hey sometimes you give food and it goes to the people but the army takes the food from them, in a civil war who do you give the food to?

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