March 9, 2009 | Read Time: 1 minute
Aid experts are debating a new book that argues that Americans and others have an ethical obligation to give money to fight global poverty.
The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, by Peter Singer, a professor of bioethics at Princeton University, compares the moral imperative to give to saving the life of a child drowning in a pond. “The fact that we would get wet, or ruin a good pair of shoes, doesn’t really count when it comes to saving a child’s life,” he writes on his Web site.
Mr. Singer has started an online pledge that people can sign to dedicate a portion of their income to charity.
In The Wall Street Journal, William Easterly, an economics professor at New York University, questions Mr. Singer’s thesis. While the author makes a compelling argument, he ignores the bureaucracy and inefficiency in many international aid efforts, Mr. Easterly says.
Holden Karnofsky, the founder of GiveWell, a charity that examines nonprofit work, disagrees somewhat with both professors.
On the GiveWell blog, Mr. Karnofsky writes that some charitable programs abroad have problems, but some are successful. And he says that while giving more to charity is important, Mr. Singer doesn’t go far enough.
“It’s just that ‘doing more’ has to mean more than ‘giving more.’ Picking your charity — and doing your part in holding it accountable — is at least as important as giving generously,” he says.
(Mr. Karnofsky points out that Mr. Singer praises GiveWell in The Life You Save and is donating a portion of its proceeds to the charity.)
Read Mr. Singer’s recent essay about his new book in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
What do you think of Mr. Singer’s argument?
