I finished reading the essay “ Famine, Affluence, and Morality” by Peter Singer (1972). In it, Singer makes a compelling argument that we have a moral responsibility to help those in great need, whenever doing so would not have negative consequences of similar moral weight.
Please do read the essay. I cannot do it justice in this blog post.
At face value, the above seems sensible enough, but the implications are significant. Can you really justify buying yourself a new sweater, not because you are cold, but because it simply looks good on you, when the same money could save dozens of lives in the third world? For only $3 UNICEF can administer vaccines for five major diseases and give vitamin A tablets to children to strengthen their immune system. How then can we justify spending the same $3 on chocolate? Do we not have a moral imperative to forego the luxury of a few chocolate bars, a coffee, or a new sweater, and instead use those funds to bring relief to some of the millions of people in the world who are under distress?
The sad truth is that the vast majority of us actually spend more on luxury than on aid – a lot more. I myself spend 9% of my income in luxuries (restaurant meals, books, movies, travel, etc) and less than 1% of my income on aid for the most needy. Are my luxuries 9 times more important than vaccines and food for the world’s most poorest?
A family that earns $40,000 a year and sponsors a child through World Vision for $35 a month is considered “generous”. But this family is only spending 1% of their income on the most needy. There is something deeply wrong in society when one of the most affluent families in the world (the typical family in the developed world) is considered “generous” when they give 1% of their wealth to save lives from famine and dicease, and the family who does not give even that 1% is considered normal. An affluent individual who gives 5% of his income to UNICEF is considered very generous, even while the same individual spends several times more than that on luxury.
I strongly suggest that you read Peter Singer’s essay. It is well worth the time.
And what am I going to do about this? Well, at a minimum, I cannot morally justify spending more on luxury than on aid. So starting from this day on, I will bring the two expenses in line. I wil reduce my luxury expenses by a fair chunk, and I will increase my aid expenses by a really big chunk, so that they reach parity. I have chosen UNICEF as the avenue of aid.
Singer would argue that this is still not the type of budget that our moral imperative demands. Even the weaker imperative – “that we should prevent bad occurrences unless, to do so, we had to sacrifice something morally significant” – would demand more (my luxuries are not morally significant). He would be right. But I see my budget change as a step in the right direction. I don’t think that it is very much to ask of anyone that they make their luxury and their aid expenses match. A luxury is, by definition, not needed. So it should be within anyone’s means to at least spend no more on luxury than they spend on vaccines, food and vitamin A tablets for the world’s most needy.
