Is Not Donating To Charities Immoral?

Peter Singer’s essay “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” is perhaps the most influential philosophy essay ever written. For it contributed to the creation of the Effective Altruism movement that raised BILLIONS to save human and animal lives.

But in another sense it is also deeply unpopular. Few people, after all, want to think of themselves as unethical/immoral for not donating to charities.

While most of us agree that it would be morally good to donate to charities, few think it is an obligation. Failing to donate is not impermissible. But Peter Singer tried to counter this common intuition with the following thought experiment (restated for the public):

On your way to work, you pass a small pond. Children sometimes play in the pond, which is only about knee-deep. The weather’s cool, though, and it’s early, so you are surprised to see a child splashing about in the pond.

As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who is flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. You look for the parents or babysitter, but there is no one else around. The child is unable to keep her head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don’t wade in and pull her out, she seems likely to drown.

Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for her, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?

Most people would probably say: “Yes, in that case one should jump into the pond to save the child.” If you don’t, Singer’s argument won’t really apply to you. But if you think you should save the child, even at financial cost to you, Singer asks:

Now think about your own situation. By donating a relatively small amount of money, you could save a child’s life. Maybe it would take more than the amount needed to buy a pair of shoes, but we all spend money on things we don’t really need, whether on drinks, meals out, clothing, movies, concerts, vacations, new cars, or house renovations. Is it possible that by choosing to spend your money on such things rather than contributing to an effective charity, you are leaving a child to die, a child you could have saved?

I always found Singer’s argument quite compelling. Why should we value children’s lives less just because they are on the other side of the planet, as opposed to right in front of us? Psychologically, of course, we can understand our limited range of empathy. What would be the evolutionary benefit of unlimited compassion? But even if we don’t feel the same emotional pull to help those we can’t see, that doesn’t appear to be a good argument for thinking that their suffering doesn’t matter. The same goes for animals in factory farms, who suffer greatly but are largely hidden from sight, thus making it much harder to psychologically feel the pull to do something about it.

Now that still leaves room for who should donate and how much. Given the housing crisis today and the debt many students take on to study, it’s hard to teach Singer’s thought experiment to convince students to donate. But that’s not really who the target is anyway. Singer’s essay was about people in affluence. People in secure jobs with a high income and struggling to decide what to spend it on — other than luxury goods perhaps — should donate a portion of their income. The more one has, the greater one’s moral responsibility becomes.

Recently, I criticized tenured academics on Substack for monetizing their public writing on the grounds that they “need” that money. Personal circumstances may make that true, of course, but I think for most tenured academics, our needs pale greatly in comparison to animals in factory farms and the global poor who need that money much more. Moral philosophers, in particular, I think should set a good example by donating to good causes. And the same goes for the richest people in the world.

That doesn’t mean only the affluent among us should consider donating, however. I think it’s probably a good trait worth cultivating even in children, to consider giving some pocket money away to those in greater need. We evolved to be nice and it actually feels great helping others! Even students could occasionaly consider replacing perhaps an Uber Eats meal with something cheaper and donating the $10 difference.

The false equivalence between not donating at all and donating everything except the bare minimum one needs for a good life is not one we should take very seriously.

It’s used far too often as an excuse not to donate at all. And I think it would be immoral not to try and contribute to creating a better world by sometimes making financial sacrifices. It doesn’t require all that much from each of us to create a better world.

Consider, for instance, donating $20 to either of these charities:

• The Life You Can Save

• The Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund

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