Peter Singer and the Ethics of Poverty

In the Brazilian film Central Station, Dora is a retired schoolteacher who sits at the station writing letters for illiterate people, earning her living this way. Suddenly, an opportunity arises for her to make a thousand dollars. All she has to do is persuade a homeless nine-year-old boy to go with her to an address she has been given. (She had been told that wealthy foreigners would adopt the boy.) She took the boy, got the money, used part of it to buy a television set, and began enjoying her new life. But her neighbor disturbed her peace, telling her that the boy was too old and had not been adopted, and that he was going to be killed for his organs. Perhaps Dora knew this too, but after her neighbor stated the matter bluntly, her sleep became deeply troubled. In the morning, she decided to bring the boy back.

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Peter Singer and the Ethics of Poverty

Introduction: Peter Singer is a professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney and the author of numerous works on the philosophy of Hegel and Marx. He is renowned for expressing Hegel's complex ideas in the simplest possible form in the books he has written. In this article, by paying close attention to categories such as moral conscience and monetary value, he attempts to outline a simple theory for alleviating poverty. His method is the familiar method of Walter Benjamin in essay-writing: presenting examples, quotations, and instances; a kind of storytelling ritual. Addressing the category of "poverty" in this way will itself be worth scrutinizing and studying.

In the Brazilian film Central Station, Dora is a retired schoolteacher who sits at the station writing letters for illiterate people, earning her living this way. Suddenly, an opportunity arises for her to make a thousand dollars. All she has to do is persuade a homeless nine-year-old boy to go with her to an address she has been given. (She had been told that wealthy foreigners would adopt the boy.) She took the boy, got the money, used part of it to buy a television set, and began enjoying her new life. But her neighbor disturbed her peace, telling her that the boy was too old and had not been adopted, and that he was going to be killed for his organs. Perhaps Dora knew this too, but after her neighbor stated the matter bluntly, her sleep became deeply troubled. In the morning, she decided to bring the boy back.

Suppose Dora had told her neighbor that the world is a cruel place, everyone has excellent, new televisions, and if selling the boy is the only way I can buy a television, why shouldn't I do it? He's just a worthless little boy, nothing more. By doing this, she would have seemed a monster to the audience. By accepting the risk, she decided to save the boy to exonerate herself.

At the end of the film, in the cinemas of the world's wealthy countries, the very people who would have quickly condemned Dora if she had not saved the boy went back to their apartments—apartments far more affluent than Dora's home. In fact, an average family in the United States spends almost a third of its income on things that are more non-essential than a new television set was for Dora: going to fine restaurants, buying new clothes and discarding out-of-fashion ones, holiday trips to the seaside; a large portion of our income is spent on things that are not necessary at all. If given to a charitable organization, that same money could save the lives of children in need.

Here the question arises: what moral distinction is there between a Brazilian who sells a homeless child to an organ trafficker and an American who replaces their television with a new model (while knowing that if they gave the money to a charitable organization, it would save the lives of children in need)?

Of course, there are differences between these two situations that may lead to different moral judgments about them. Most importantly, the ability to consign a child who is right before your eyes to death is the height of callousness; whereas ignoring a needy child whom you will never see is much easier. But for a utilitarian philosopher like me—who judges the rightness or wrongness of actions based on their consequences—if the result of that American's failure to donate his money means more children dying on the streets of Brazil, then in this respect, the wrongness of his action is exactly equal to the wrongness of selling the child to organ traffickers.

Of course, one does not need to accept my utilitarian ethics to understand this point. At the very least, there is a serious inconsistency between this swift condemnation of Dora for handing the child over to organ traffickers and, at the same time, indifference toward the behavior of the American customers, which is a moral problem.

Here I will raise one of the examples of the American philosopher Peter Unger, author of the book Living High and Letting Die: Bob is nearing retirement. He has invested most of his savings in a very rare and expensive car, a Bugatti, which he is unable to insure. The Bugatti is his pride and joy. Besides enjoying driving and maintaining his car, he knows that the increase in its market price means he can sell it whenever he wants and live a comfortable life after retirement. One day, when Bob was out for a drive, he parked the Bugatti near a railway siding and went for a walk up the road. As he was walking, he saw a runaway, unmanned train approaching fast. Looking down, he saw the small figure of a child on the track. He could not stop the train, and the distance was too great to warn the boy; but he could throw a switch and divert the train onto the siding where his Bugatti was parked. In that case, no one would be killed, but the Bugatti would be destroyed. Thinking of the joy he derived from the Bugatti and the financial security it provided, Bob decided not to throw the switch. The child was killed.

Most of us react immediately to Bob's behavior, judging that it is deeply wrong. Unger agrees with us. But he reminds us that we, too, have many opportunities to save children's lives. How much must we donate to charities to save the life of a child suffering from a simple, treatable disease? (I do not think that saving children's lives is more valuable than saving adults, but since no one claims that children are responsible for their own poverty, we focus on children for ease of discussion.) Unger contacted some experts and used their information to roughly estimate the costs of fundraising, administrative expenses, and delivering aid to the places of greatest need. By his calculations, a donation of $200 can save a sick two-year-old child.

Now you also have the information needed to save a child's life. If you do not do this, what judgment will you make about yourself? Think again about Bob and his Bugatti. Unlike Dora, Bob was not forced to look into the eyes of the child who was being sacrificed for his material comfort. Moreover, unlike Dora, he did not deceive the child or make arrangements to entrap him. In every respect, Bob's situation resembles that of all those who are able, but unwilling, to help needy people abroad.

If you still think that Bob made a grave mistake by not switching the track to save the child's life, then it is strange that you still do not accept that not sending money to one of the charitable organizations is also deeply wrong. Unless you say that there are strong moral differences between these two situations that I have overlooked.

Is there serious doubt that aid reaches those in need? None of those involved have raised such a doubt. A fundamental difference between Bob and those who can afford to donate to international charities but do not is that Bob could only save the child on the train tracks, whereas there are hundreds of millions of other children whose lives could be saved by giving $200 to overseas charities. The problem is that most people do not do this. Does this mean that if you do not do it either, it is acceptable?

Suppose there are more owners of expensive, high-class cars (Carol, Dave, Emma, Fred, and so on, up to Ziggy) and all of them are exactly in Bob's situation near the railway line at the switch, and all of them sacrifice the child to save their beloved car. Does this situation justify Bob's action, who did the same thing? The answer to this question rests on the ethics of following the crowd (a type of ethics many Germans adopted when the Nazis were committing crimes). We do not absolve them because others did not act better.

It seems we have no solid basis for drawing a clear moral line between Bob's situation and all the readers of this article who do not give their surplus $200 to charities. Just as Bob let the runaway train run over the unaware child, these readers seem no different from him. With this conclusion, I am sure many readers will pick up the phone and donate $200. Perhaps you will do so before reading the rest of the article. You, who consider yourself morally distinct from those who placed their expensive cars above a child's life, how do you reconcile with yourself and your spouse going to your favorite restaurant for dinner? Pause for a moment. The money you spend at the restaurant could save the lives of children on the other side of the world! It is true you are not going to blow the entire $200 tonight, but if you just save one month's worth of eating out, you can easily accumulate this money. Compared to saving a child's life, what is a month of eating out worth? But here is the problem. Since there are so many needy children in the world, there is always another needy child whose life our $200 could save. Are you obliged to continue doing this until no one remains in need? Where should you stop?

The point that emerges here is very serious: only when sacrifices become truly significant do people become convinced that Bob made no mistake in not switching the train's path. Of course, most people are mistaken; we cannot decide moral issues based on public opinion. But consider for yourself how much sacrifice you expect Bob to make, and then see how much money you would need to set aside for your sacrifice to be roughly equivalent. It will often be very high, much more than $200. For most middle-class Americans, this figure easily reaches over $200,000.

Is it not futile to ask people for this amount? Does it not risk most people shrugging their shoulders and saying that, in this case, ethics is for saints, not for us? Many objections may arise from this perspective. Someone might say: "If every citizen living in wealthy countries paid their share, I would not need to make a huge sacrifice. So why should I give more than my share?" A related objection is that the government should expand its foreign aid, because it can spread the cost among all taxpayers.

اما این پرسش را که چه اندازه باید کمک کنیم، موضوعی است که باید در دنیای واقعی درباره‌ آن تصمیم بگیریم. (دنیایی که متاسفانه می‌دانیم در آن اغلب مردم کمکی نمی‌کنند و در آینده‌ای نزدیک هم میزان قابل توجهی به سازمان‌های خیریه بین‌المللی کمک نخواهد شد.) اگر ما بدانیم که دیگران سهم منصفانه‌ خودشان را نمی‌پردازند و ما اگر بیش از سهم‌مان بپردازیم می‌توانیم از مرگ آن‌ها جلوگیری کنیم، آیا باز هم باید به سهم خود اکتفا کنیم؟ از انصاف بسیار به دور است.

دلایل برای محدود کردن میزان پولی که به باید به دیگران بدهیم، قانع‌کننده نیست. در جهان کنونی راه گریزی وجود ندارد، جز این که بپذیریم هر کدام از ما باید درآمد مازاد بر نیازهای ضروری‌اش را به کسانی بدهد که آن‌چنان نیازمندند که خطر مرگ تهدیدشان می‌کند. درست است: شما لازم نیست که ماشین جدیدی بخرید، دکور خانه را عوض کنید یا کت و شلوار جدید گران‌قیمتی بخرید، 1.000 دلار یک کت‌وشلوار می‌تواند جان 5 کودک را نجات دهد.

اگر ما برای زندگی یک کودک بیش از رفتن به یک رستوران مجلل ارزش قائلیم، بار دیگری که برای شام به بیرون می‌رویم، باید بدانیم که ما می‌توانستیم با پول‌مان کار بهتری انجام بدهیم. با این حساب، زندگی شرافت‌مندانه‌ اخلاقی بسیار دشوار می‌شود، مهم نیست، واقعیت همین است.

زمانی که باب خودش را در این معضل دشوار در مقابل اهرم خط راه آهن دید، شاید گمان می‌کرد که او آدم بسیار بدشانسی است که در چنین موقعیتی قرار گرفته است که یا باید جان یک کودک بی‌گناه را نجات دهد یا عمده‌ پس‌اندازش را فدا کند. اما او ابدا انسان بدشانسی نبود، همه‌ی ما در چنین موقعیتی قرار داریم.

پیتر سینگر

مترجم : ابراهیم اسکافی

منبع : روزنامه شرق