The Life You Can Save: How To Do Your Part To End World Poverty

Singer considers whether he is asking too much of people by requiring them to stop spending money on luxury goods and services in order to help the poor. His standard of ethical action far exceeds typical cultural standards, as well as those of most other philosophers. It is therefore useful and necessary for him to ask such a question, and he takes stock of various views that are not so demanding.

The first of these is the “fair share” view, which states that people are obligated to do just so much as is their fair share. Since responsibility for the ills of poverty is so widely diffused around the billion or so affluent people in the world, a person’s fair share would be far less than Singer demands. Singer notes that it might only take $80 billion in proper dispensation of global aid to raise nearly everyone above the global poverty line. He also notes that in 2017, Americans alone spent roughly $72 billion on alcohol. The upshot is that people could be doing much more than their fair share without giving up too much.

Singer goes on to discuss the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. “Perhaps the most important,” he writes, “was the goal of halving the number of people living in extreme poverty, as compared to a baseline of 1990. That goal was reached in 2010, five years ahead of schedule” (188). Such data reinforces the effectiveness and value of aid, which may help people feel good about contributing more than their fair share. Singer writes that so long as most others are not doing their fair share, those that are willing should do even more. He also believes that a progressive sliding scale of giving would help alleviate the concerns of “fair share” theorists. The rich should give more in terms of percentage of wealth. In the Appendix Singer develops this into a sliding scale system based on several levels of affluence. To put a nail in the head of “fair share” theory, Singer asks, “[I]s the fact that other people are not doing their fair share a sufficient reason for allowing a child to die when you could easily rescue that child?” (191). He says that people make a “fetish” of fairness when they turn it into a principle by which we should judge right action. People should not hesitate to be more responsible than is fair.

Singer discusses three specific philosophers whom he describes as having “moderately demanding views” that require more than one’s fair share but aren’t as stringent as his own moral ideal (146). They do not require giving to the point of sacrificing something of equal value, but they are not trivial either. These are Richard Miller, Garrett Cullity, and Brad Hooker, each with a unique theory.

Singer does not think there is anything inherently wrong with luxury or pleasure. All things equal, he writes, the more pleasure the better: “The problem is that other things are not equal” (196). In Singer’s view the plight of those at the bottom is so serious and grave that it constitutes a continuous global emergency, and until that global emergency is totally rectified, there is injustice in luxury spending. He goes on to say that some kinds of philanthropy, like endowments to the arts or to universities are also “morally dubious” (196). Since no one would find it acceptable to save an expensive painting from a burning building if a child also needed saving, it is likewise wrong to focus aid on less serious pursuits.

The final chapter presents a less stringent, more pragmatic approach to global aid. Some people may see the extremely high moral standards that Singer sets and strive to meet them. Even if they fall short, they’ve done well. Others may become despondent at the possibility of the standard and give up hope. For such people, Singer develops a realistic approach to giving, in which the person can be morally praised for significant contributions even if they fall below a difficult ideal standard: “[R]oughly 5% of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, with less for those below that level, and significantly more for the very rich” (198).

Singer holds himself to a higher standard but only advocates for the 5% standard. Human nature is complicated, he writes, and it is necessary to attune rational moral ideals to it. Singer writes that people should not be too quick to judge the rich and powerful for their decadence. Some of them, like Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates, have done immense good with the wealth they have given away and the foundations they created. Singer recommends “reigniting” a public interest in aid, which seems to have faded with modern secularization. Singer then dissects various numbers regarding how much it would cost to alleviate different problems. In every case extreme poverty could be nearly eradicated without too much burden to anyone.

Singer discusses the reasons people have to feel motivated to do the good work of effective altruism. Doing so can reestablish feelings of self-worth, which “is securely grounded on what you’re doing for others, not on the shifting sands of what others think of you” (208). He cites studies that show that people who donate to charity and/or donate blood to organizations like The Red Cross report greater levels of happiness. He also shows research reporting that giving donations stimulates the same “reward center” of the brain that eating sweet treats or receiving money does. He concludes with the following rhetorical question: “You can look at it from this point of view: what greater motivation can there be than doing whatever one possibly can to reduce pain and suffering?” (212).

After Chapter 10, in the 10th anniversary edition of The Life You Can Save, Singer provides a very short list of ways that one person can contribute immediately via The Life You Can Save organization. This is followed by an afterword written by the executive director of this organization as well as an appendix in which Singer presents “The Giving Scale.” This is a scale based on the realistic approach that Singer outlined in Chapter 10. It includes a sliding scale of donation rates for eight different income brackets.