FEED
NEARLY 12 YEARS have passed since I heard a lecture by Peter Singer, then my professor of ethics at Princeton University, that changed the way I think about philanthropy. The moral quandary he posed became the motivation behind my life’s work. “Imagine you are walking by a lake with no one else in sight,” Singer asked. “And there is a child who will drown if you don’t act. Do you jump in and save him, ruining your new clothes in the process? Or do you continue walking?”
Everyone in my class agreed that the value of new clothes was exponentially less than that of a human life, and that the passer-by was therefore morally obligated to jump in the lake and save the child. But our professor then asked if it would make any difference if the child were far away but similarly in danger of death—and still within our means to save at no cost or danger. Everyone agreed the moral obligation still stood. Singer then equated the drowning child with the plight of people living in extreme poverty around the world—and pointed out that we are all passers-by, with the means to save lives at a very small cost to us.