The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty by Peter Singer

The Barnes & Noble Review

Five hundred years ago, slavery was the most natural thing in the world. So was the torture of criminal suspects, convicts, and heretics. So was the virtual ownership -- and regular physical chastisement -- of women by their fathers or husbands. Most of us (I hope) now abhor these things, but anyone time-traveling back to that era who informed a slaveowner, torturer, or wife beater that his behavior was shameful would have been met with incomprehension, perhaps even indignation.

If someone traveled back from the 26th century to 2009, what would he or she upbraid us for? In what respects would our behavior seem shameful to him or her, as slavery and torture seem abhorrent to us? If you don't know already, you will after reading Peter Singer's The Life You Can Save. Much of this valuable little book is devoted to detailing how much suffering there is among the world's poor, how easily it could be remedied by the world's nonpoor, and how little the latter can be bothered. Our 26th-century visitor would give us an earful.

Singer, a philosophy professor at Princeton, is probably as much of a celebrity as a philosophy professor can be in unphilosophical 21st-century America. His 1975 book, Animal Liberation, launched the animal rights movement, and several of his subsequent books on applied ethics have been bestsellers. Singer is, like Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, a radical utilitarian, a useful busybody who challenges metaphysical and theological rationalizations of human pain. In particular, he is notorious for contending that human life, although precious, is not sacred; hence the legitimacy, in most circumstances, of abortion and, in extreme circumstances, infanticide. What matters is to minimize unnecessary suffering.

Preventing unnecessary suffering among the global poor is hardly controversial, of course; just the opposite. And yet, compared with abortion or infanticide, Americans are not very excited about foreign humanitarian aid. We are also not very well informed about it. Ninety-five percent of Americans think the United States is more generous with aid than other rich countries, when the opposite is true by a large margin. Most Americans think that between 15 and 20 percent of federal spending goes for such aid; the correct figure is less than 1 percent. Most Americans think their country does too much to help the global poor and should only dedicate 5 to 10 percent of government spending to this purpose -- which, as I've just noted, is 5 to10 ten times more than we actually do spend on it. Measured against national income, the percentages are even lower. For every $100 dollars of America's national income, our government spends 18 cents on foreign humanitarian assistance; individuals spend another 7 cents.

But why should Americans give more? Does foreign aid do any good? Much of it, Singer acknowledges, does not. A good deal is simply stolen by corrupt foreign elites or squandered on poorly conceived mega-projects. And many economists object that aid does not help poor people nearly as much as economic growth.

Nevertheless, Singer makes a convincing case that money wisely spent can save many lives. Smallpox killed several hundred million people in the 20th century, but thanks to the World Health Organization, an agency of the UN, it will not kill anyone in the 21st. Measles, river blindness, malaria, and diarrhea, all easily treated and prevented, still strike millions every year, but there has been progress. Some of the most affecting pages in The Life You Can Save describe the low-tech, low-cost programs that have restored sight to a million people blinded by cataracts and have rescued many thousands of women and children from lives blighted by cleft palates or obstetric fistulas. All this through simple surgical procedures costing between $50 and $400 each. So little money, apparently, can do so much good.

Singer has heartening stories to tell about some of the exemplary people who've made a difference. A few are famous, like Paul Farmer, the Harvard doctor who moved to rural Haiti and was the subject of a New Yorker profile. Most are not: They are obstetricians and ophthalmologists who visited poor countries and could not forget what they saw; or they are hedge fund employees or real estate developers or Silicon Valley entrepreneurs on whom it dawned one day that there must be more to life. He also "outs" a few of the super-rich who spend unconscionable amounts on luxury consumption -- "hyper-consumption" would be more accurate. With admirable restraint, Singer refrains from calling for the expropriation and disemboweling of such people, a fate they undoubtedly deserve.

Instead, he asks what the rest of us can do, and why we don't. We don't because inertia is easier than initiative. However generous we are, if it takes some effort to give and no effort not to give, we probably won't give. This is the insight underlying a well-received recent book, Nudge, by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler. They suggest (and Singer agrees) that, when possible, giving be made the default option: that is, one would have to opt out rather than opt in. This system works extremely well for organ donation; and if 1 percent, or even less, were deducted from most people's paychecks (unless they opted out) and donated to a nonprofit organization of the employee's choice, it could begin to make a dent on global poverty.

For those willing to do more than this bare minimum, Singer has worked out a detailed chart specifying how much everyone at every income level should give each year in order to make possible a minimally decent life for all our fellow humans. To simplify: His proposal comes to 5 percent of gross income for the nonpoor but nonaffluent (i.e., most of us), 10 percent for the affluent, 15 percent for the rich, and 20 to 25 percent for the super-rich. Is this unrealistic? Maybe. But if we don't do it, our 26th-century descendants will be heartily ashamed of us. --George Scialabba

George Scialabba is an essayist and critic working at Harvard University. He was the very first recipient of the National Book Critics Circle award for excellence in reviewing.

From the Publisher

This is the right time to ask yourself: “What should I be doing to help?”

For the first time in history, it is now within our reach to eradicate world poverty and the suffering it brings. Yet around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for bottled water. And though the number of deaths attributable to poverty worldwide has fallen dramatically in the past half-century, nearly ten million children still die unnecessarily each year. The people of the developed world face a profound choice: If we are not to turn our backs on a fifth of the world’s population, we must become part of the solution.

In The Life You Can Save, philosopher Peter Singer, named one of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World” by Time magazine, uses ethical arguments, provocative thought experiments, illuminating examples, and case studies of charitable giving to show that our current response to world poverty is not only insufficient but ethically indefensible.

Singer contends that we need to change our views of what is involved in living an ethical life. To help us play our part in bringing about that change, he offers a seven-point plan that mixes personal philanthropy (figuring how much to give and how best to give it), local activism (spreading the word in your community), and political awareness (contacting your representatives to ensure that your nation’s foreign aid is really directed to the world’s poorest people).

In The Life You Can Save, Singer makes the irrefutable argument that giving will make a huge difference in the lives of others, withoutdiminishing the quality of our own. This book is an urgent call to action and a hopeful primer on the power of compassion, when mixed with rigorous investigation and careful reasoning, to lift others out of despair.

Publishers Weekly

Part plea, part manifesto, part handbook, this short and surprisingly compelling book sets out to answer two difficult questions: why people in affluent countries should donate money to fight global poverty and how much each should give. Singer (Animal Liberation) dismantles the justifications people make for not giving and highlights the successes of such efforts as microfinance in Bangladesh, GiveWell's charitable giving and the 50% League, where members donate more than half their wealth. Singer alternately cajoles and scolds: he pillories Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, who has given less than his former partner, Bill Gates, and lives far more extravagantly: "His toys include a large collection of vintage military aircraft and a 413-foot oceangoing yacht called Octopus that cost him over $200 million and has a permanent crew of sixty." Singer contrasts Allen's immoderation with the work of Paul Farmer (a cofounder of the international social justice organization Partners in Health) and the cost of basic health services in Haiti ($3,500 per life saved), or malaria nets ($623-$2,367 per life saved). Singer doesn't ask readers to choose between asceticism and self-indulgence; his solution can be found in the middle, and it is reasonable and rewarding for all. (Mar.)

Kirkus Reviews

Controversial philosopher Singer (Bioethics/Princeton Univ.; The President of Good and Evil: The Ethics of George W. Bush, 2004, etc.) lays out the haves' moral obligation to the have-nots. The author's goal is to reduce, if not eliminate, extreme poverty in the world. He presents life-and-death situations that pose moral dilemmas, then leads the reader through arguments stemming logically from these dilemmas to arrive at the conclusion that it is morally wrong not to give aid to those suffering from lack of food, shelter and medical care. Subsequent chapters counter the arguments commonly made against giving aid, e.g., that philanthropy undermines real political change, and that giving food or money makes people dependent. Next Singer investigates the psychological factors that work against giving to the distant poor: parochialism, a sense of futility, diffusion of responsibility. He seeks to make readers think seriously about their obligations to the world's poor and to increase their charitable donations. To that end he considers what can be done to create a culture of giving. He examines the positive effects of specific actions by corporations, organizations and individuals, noting that a corporate nudge in the right direction can increase employees' philanthropy and that speaking openly about giving encourages others to do the same. To help prospective donators, Singer introduces GiveWell, which investigates the work of charities and ranks them by their effectiveness. Returning to his introductory question-what is one's moral obligation to others?-he answers that to save the lives of those in extreme poverty, people should give until it hurts. However, acknowledging that a morerealistic approach is needed, he proposes that for most Americans, five percent of their income is a reasonable starting point, with a sliding scale for the rich and super-rich. Persuasive arguments and disturbing statistics, laced with stories of some generous and selfish people. Author tour to Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Read an Excerpt