Date with a Genius: Peter Singer

One cool thing about attending/working at a university is the opportunity to listen in on people who are really talented or important or think about hard issues a lot harder and often than I do. Usually I miss these things and find out about them later (The Dalai Lama was here today? You don't say...) Today I managed to get my trash together and went to hear a lecture from Peter Singer, renowned author/human and animal rights activist/utilitarian philosopher. It's a mixed bag with Singer--who is known for arguing that the way we treat animals ("speceism") will one day be regarded as deplorable as racism; and who is an advocate of euthanasia, amongst other controversial topics that make people raise their fists and roll their eyes.


Today's lecture was on Ending World Poverty. Something we can all agree on, no? We'll see. Singer's point is that most of us would consider it unethical to pass a drowning child in a shallow pond because it would ruin our favorite shoes and fancy suit, rather than rescue the kid. Nonetheless, that's exactly what we do, Singer says, when we let 27,000 children die every day in poor countries by keeping our superabundance to ourselves rather than passing up a fancy car, summer home, superfluous shoes in favor of giving money to those who suffer from extreme poverty.

Singer used some stats from Jeffrey Sachs and figures from the UN and such, and came up with $124 billion as the amount of money it would take to raise third-world countries out of extreme poverty. Then he pointed out that the U.S. spends, like, $100 million or something just on bottled water every year (when we have perfectly clean tap water!) Basically, Singer thinks we should all give a certain percentage of our money to third-world nations for relief. And if you're Microsoft's Paul Allen, for example, who has a $200 million yacht, you're especially ripe for reprimand.

Some questions to ponder after spending two hours with Peter Singer and a hundred close friends:

-Should distance play a role in our empathy; i.e, are we obligated to show the same compassion to those far away as those who are near us?

-If you had $5,000 you could give away to charity it would only be a drop in the ocean of the $124 billion needed; does this number make you more or less likely to donate? Does it make you aware of the need, or just daunted by your personal powerlessness against that figure?

-Why are we more likely to give $5,000 to someone we know for whom it can do limited good, instead of to a charitable organization in which it may save several lives? (See questions one and two, I suppose).

-Why is charity the best solution to this problem? Is it sustainable? (The old "teach a man to fish" chestnut). If we did somehow raise the $124 billion next year, would it mean that, as harsh as it sounds, those communities would be overwhelmed by the 27,000 children that now live, and affluent nations would have to come up with even more money the next year? (This is the question I really wanted to ask Singer, but they passed me over for more distinguished guests who had written books on the subject. Go figure.)

-Are all of these questions just distractions to excuse us from saving the drowning child?

-Lastly, If I saw scholar and writer-on-globalization Bruce Robbins, and recognized him, and watched him stand awkwardly in the aisle next to me for ten minutes because all the seats were full, and then watched him leave in frustration, is it ethical to not have offered my seat? Have I prevented the dialogue that would have perhaps ended world poverty? To this we shall never know the answer.