2.2: What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge)

8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples?
B.M. Wooldridge¹⁸

Suppose one day, on your way in to work or school, you discover a shallow pond, and in this pond, a small child is drowning and fighting to stay alive. You have just recently bought a new pair of shoes, shoes that you have been saving up money for. If you decide to save the small child drowning in the pond, you will get these new shoes muddy, and likely destroy them. You are thus faced with a choice: do you save the child and damage your brand-new shoes, or do you continue on your way, thereby preserving your new shoes, but letting an innocent child drown?

This famous thought experiment, known as the ‘Drowning Child’ example and created by philosopher Peter Singer in his article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,”¹⁹ has raised serious questions about our moral obligations to the world’s poor. It is estimated that, as of 2018, around half of the world’s population (roughly 3 billion people) struggle to meet their basic needs, while ten percent of the world’s population (roughly seven hundred million people) live in extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $1.90 a day.²⁰ An even more alarming statistic is that, as of 2018, “the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.”²¹ So, not only are there millions of people suffering from poverty, but there is a tremendous gap in the wealth of individuals.

Clearly, these rough estimates paint a particularly bleak picture, perhaps bleaker than when Singer first published his article in 1972. The impetus behind Singer’s drowning child example is to draw our attention to the plight of the world’s poor, and to show that if we think it would be morally egregious to ignore the drowning child, it is also morally egregious to ignore the world’s poor and do nothing to help them. Singer bases his argument on two central premises. First, suffering and death from lack of food, shelter, and medical care is bad. Second, if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, then we ought morally to do it.²² In other words, if we can prevent something bad from happening without causing anything else bad to happen, or without making a significant sacrifice, then we ought to do it.

According to Singer, saving the drowning child involves little sacrifice on our part; muddying our new shoes is, in the grand scheme of things, not a tremendous sacrifice. In the same way, it involves little effort on our part to donate some of our money and/or time to help those suffering from poverty. So, in the same way that we should save the drowning child, so too should we help those suffering from poverty. Indeed, according to Singer, we “ought to give as much as possible, that is, at least up to the point at which by giving more one would begin to cause serious suffering for oneself and one’s dependents – perhaps even beyond this point to the point of marginal utility, at which by giving more one would cause oneself and one’s dependents as much suffering as one would prevent.”²³

While I agree with Singer that we ought to help those suffering from poverty, I disagree with his conclusion that we should give as much as possible, even up to the point where we would make ourselves suffer. In what follows, I will argue that we have a moral obligation to give our fair share to poverty relief efforts. Before proceeding to make this argument, however, let me first offer a couple of criticisms of Singer’s argument.

The first problem with Singer’s argument is that he relies on an implausible thought experiment to support his position. It is fairly obvious that anyone who sees a child drowning in a pond, and who can easily save this child at minimal cost to oneself, would save the child. A failure to do so would be morally reprehensible. Yet, this thought experiment does not accurately depict the plight of the world’s poor. It is not just one individual that needs saving. Many individuals, up to the millions, need saving. While it might not involve a great sacrifice to save the drowning child, donating money and time to saving the world’s poor is much more onerous, and places extreme demands on an individual. This is especially so if we follow Singer’s advice and give to the point of marginal utility. A more accurate thought experiment might include an individual walking along a beach, and in the ocean are millions of people who need saving. Would we jump in then and save the millions?

A related problem with Singer’s thought experiment is the disconnect between saving a drowning child and helping someone in poverty who is in another nation. When we jump into a pond and save a child, we can actually experience what our actions produce. We can confirm that a child has been saved. When we donate to an aid agency, however, we do not know where our money goes. And, more importantly, it is unlikely that our donation will actually directly ‘save’ a child. While our donation will certainly make a difference in helping those suffering from poverty, we will not be directly saving anyone, at least not in the same way we would be by rescuing a drowning child from a pond.

Finally, Singer’s claim that we should donate up to the point where by donating more we would make ourselves worse off, is simply impractical and does not appreciate the interests of individuals. As individuals we have interests and desires, things that we want to do with our lives. This might involve, for example, going to university to achieve gainful employment later in life. If we are asked to give to the point where we would make ourselves suffer, as Singer suggests, this mitigates the value of these interests. There is nothing morally problematic about pursuing ends that will make one better off in the future. And while it is unfortunate that millions of people suffer from poverty throughout the world, this should not require us to abandon our interests and commitments to help those who are in need, regardless of how morally noble this cause is.

At this point, we might pause to consider our obligations to those who suffer from poverty, but who are geographically closer to us. It might be argued, for example, that we have a moral obligation to help those suffering from poverty who are in the same location as you. If one resides in a province in Canada (Ontario, for example), one has an obligation to help those suffering from poverty in Ontario. We can narrow this further by arguing that we have an obligation to help those who suffer from poverty who reside in our town or city. This would mitigate the impact of distance. While I might still be far away from someone suffering from poverty in my own town or city, it is much closer than, say, someone suffering from poverty who resides in Africa. However, while this might mitigate the importance of distance, it still does not change the fact that even in a place like Ontario, thousands to millions of people suffer from poverty, and donating to help these individuals could be just as onerous as donating to relief efforts to eradicate poverty in other nations. Rather than placing extreme demands on individuals, we would be better off in only donating our fair share to poverty relief efforts.

A fair share argument stipulates that every individual in a community would be required to give their fair share towards alleviating the problem. Giving one’s fair share can take a couple of different forms. It might involve, for example, donating money to poverty relief efforts. Suppose, for example, that in order to alleviate global poverty, a total of 500 billion dollars is necessary. There are roughly 7 billion people on earth. Based on these numbers, if everyone were to give roughly $75 to global relief efforts, this would reach the 500-billion-dollar requirement. This means that, everyone would be required to give $75 to relief efforts, and no more.

Of course, alleviating world poverty is not as simple as donating money. Other ways of contributing might involve donating one’s time to help those suffering from poverty by, for example, volunteering one’s time at an aid agency. If one does not give any money to poverty relief efforts, but spends some time helping organizations that work to alleviate poverty, then one could conceivably be said to contribute their fair share towards poverty relief efforts. Other actions might include protesting organizations, governments, and/or policies that contribute to the plight of the world’s poor. Indeed, doing so might be even more effective in alleviating poverty, as many of the world’s poor are poor because of unjust actions and/or policies undertaken by multinational corporations, and working to fight against these actions and/or policies can be considered as one contributing their fair share towards poverty relief efforts.

A fair share argument has a couple of advantages compared to Singer’s argument. First, it emphasizes the role of the collective, rather than the individual. That is, a fair share argument emphasizes the role that other individuals have in acting to alleviate global poverty. Rather than placing extreme demands on individuals, a fair share argument recognizes that everyone has a part to play in relieving global poverty, and this requires everyone to chip in and do their fair share. The responsibility is diffused among many different individuals, rather than placing extreme demands on any one individual or groups of individuals.

Consider, for example, a thought experiment I considered earlier. Suppose you are walking along the beach and, in the ocean, you see millions of people who need saving. Based on Singer’s argument, it would seem that the individual would be required to jump in and save as many people as they could. However, under the fair share argument, we would be required to save our fair share of people, in unison with other beach goers. We, the beach goers, could act collectively and save our fair share, while other groups of individuals try to save their fair share. If we want to do more, we can, but this is not obligatory. Rather than making us feel guilty about not doing more, once we recognize that we have done our fair share, we can return to pursuing our interests and projects that make our lives meaningful.

This leads into the second advantage of the fair share view. A fair share argument allows one to devote time and resources to pursuing their own interests. Since one is only required to give their fair share, individuals will have both time and resources to commit to pursuing things that are important to them. Unlike Singer’s argument, which will require us to keep giving until the point where we would be worse off if we gave any more, a fair share approach recognizes the importance of individual’s interests.

In response to this fair share argument, a critic might raise the following point. While it is theoretically sound to argue that everyone should contribute their fair share towards poverty relief efforts, the practicality of this approach is problematic. In some cases, individuals do not have the resources to contribute their fair share, and in others, individuals who do have the resources to contribute simply do not contribute. In cases like these, it might be argued that we should do more than our fair share. This does not mean we need to give until the point of marginal utility, like Singer argues, but it might require us to go above and beyond our fair share.

In response to this critique, I should be clear in reiterating that contributing one’s fair share towards poverty relief efforts encompasses more than just monetary donations. So, if an individual does not have the monetary resources to contribute their fair share, they can make up for this in other ways, like volunteering their time or protesting unjust institutions and policies. In those cases where an individual does have enough, but simply chooses not to donate, this can be offset by the supererogatory (good to do, but not morally required; in other words, going beyond your moral duties) contributions of others. That is, there will almost inevitably be those individuals who contribute more than their fair share, which can go some way towards making up for the failed contributions of others.

Importantly, if we require others to contribute more than their fair share, this defeats the very idea behind the fair share requirement. The fair share argument emphasizes that poverty is a problem best resolved, or mitigated, through the collective actions of others. And this can best be accomplished, I argue, through a fair share requirement, where each individual contributes a portion of their money and/or time to helping those suffering from poverty. If everyone does this, we can more effectively achieve poverty relief. But if we require individuals to go beyond their fair share, then this might motivate individuals to not contribute in the first place. If, for example, we are required to donate our fair share, why would we if we knew beforehand that if we do not contribute our fair share, some other individual or group of individuals would make up for it by doing more than their fair share? Such an approach would destroy the foundation of a fair share agreement. The sooner we recognize that poverty can best be resolved through the collective actions of others, the sooner we can work together towards ending poverty throughout the world.

For Review and Discussion

1. Do we have a stronger obligation to those suffering from poverty who are geographically closer to us, as opposed to those suffering from poverty in another nation? Why or Why not?

2. Is the drowning child example a good thought experiment to use in discussing our moral obligations to the poor? What are some strengths and weaknesses of this thought experiment?

3. What is the difference between absolute poverty and relative poverty? Do we have more of an obligation to help those suffering from absolute poverty? Why or Why not?