How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty
The Life You Can Save by Peter Singer educates readers on the moral obligation to help those in extreme poverty and offers actionable steps towards effective giving. It challenges the reader to reflect on their values and become part of the solution to reduce global poverty.
When the philosopher Peter Singer teaches his introductory course on ethics, it always starts the same way. He tells his students a story: Imagine you’re walking to work and come upon a small child drowning in a shallow lake. You can easily save the child, but doing so would ruin your new shoes. So, do you dive in?
Of course, every student is quick to answer yes. After all, a life is worth more than even the loveliest loafers. But then, Singer poses a follow-up question: In 2017, 5.4 million children under five died of preventable diseases. Now, how many students bought new shoes with money they could have donated to an effective charity?
This second query is much more uncomfortable. It highlights the disturbing truth that our actions don’t always align with our moral compass.
The key message? We can eliminate extreme poverty, but we haven’t.
All around the world, humans suffer and die because they aren’t able to afford the most basic necessities. According to the World Bank, as of 2018, 736 million people live in extreme poverty, meaning they live on the local equivalent of $1.90 a day. This poverty is the primary driver of premature deaths. In a country like Sierra Leone, with high poverty rates, one in 13 children dies before their fifth birthday. In a wealthy country, like Australia, only one in 263 has the same fate.
Such statistics may seem overwhelming. But, in reality, humanity has made great strides in changing this condition. Since 1993, the rate of extreme poverty around the world has nearly halved. The most dramatic drop came from East Asia, where the poverty rate went from 60 percent in 1990 to just 2.3 percent in 2015.
The wealthiest nations are faring well, too. As of 2018, about half of all people are middle-class or above, meaning they have excess money for consumer goods, vacations, or other unexpected expenses. And of course, the rich are doing the best of all. According to Forbes, there are about 2,000 billionaires around the globe – twice as many as ten years ago.
So, with such ample wealth available on earth, why do we allow millions to die because they can’t afford proper nutrition or basic health care? If we know we can reduce poverty, why haven’t we reduced it to zero? We’ll begin to answer these questions in the next blink.
The Life You Can Save (2019) is a philosophical exploration of the moral implications of poverty. This provocative treatise asks us to consider if we’re truly doing our part to end human suffering.
Yet while thousands of children die each day, we spend money on things we take for granted and would hardly notice if they were not there. Is that wrong?
Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.
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Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll
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Blink 3 von 12 - Eine kurze Geschichte der Menschheit
von Yuval Noah Harari
