Opinion: ‘Batkid’ Story Is Nice, but There Are Better Ways to Give

The recent outpouring of donations to help a 5-year-old leukemia sufferer live out a superhero fantasy exemplifies how emotions overrule effectiveness in people’s charity decisions, a prominent ethicist and author writes in a Washington Post opinion piece.

Princeton University professor Peter Singer cites the “Batkid” phenomenon in which 20,000 people last month helped the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the city of San Francisco fulfill the boy’s dream. The foundation estimates the average cost of fulfilling an ill child’s wish is $7,500, money that could save the lives or sight of multiple children if given to charities fighting malaria and blindness in developing countries, he says.

If the Batkid story “doesn’t warm your heart, you must be numb to basic human emotions,” Mr. Singer writes. “Yet we can still ask if these basic emotions are the best guide to what we ought to do. … It’s obvious, isn’t it, that saving a child’s life is better than fulfilling a child’s wish to be Batkid?”

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article about Peter Singer and a review of his book on the ethics of giving, The Life You Can Save.