Peter Singer on the Moral Obligations of Money (Encore from 2019)

Dec 22, 2020

The New Yorker called Princeton and University of Melbourne bio-ethicist, Peter Singer “the world’s most influential living philosopher." Time included him on its annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people.

 

Peter has a question for you: Did you know that for the cost of a new television ($600), you can save a life? Here’s another: would it be worth foregoing a nice bottle of wine ($50) to cure someone’s blindness, thus allowing them to return to work and provide for themselves and their family? Could you come up with $700 to fix a new mother’s fistula, a debilitating condition that otherwise sentences her to incontinence and ostracism?

 

Peter asks these questions because he wants to remind us that sums that are relatively trivial to us in the West can literally save or radically improve the life of someone in the developing world. He argues persuasively that we have the not just the opportunity but the obligation to help these people and doing so is in our own “enlightened self-interest."

 

Peter is the author of The Life You Can Save, which Bill and Melinda Gates called, “an inspiring work that will change the way you think about philanthropy.” The 10th anniversary edition of the book is available for free in both audio and e-book formats on the website TheLifeYouCanSave.org. Go to the site and find ways you can save a life for $600 or cure someone’s cataract-induced blindness for as little as $50. Seriously, go do it. Now. Here’s the link again: TheLifeYouCanSave.org. You’ll feel better about yourself and life after you do it.

 

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