How to Live · ages 9–12
Do you have to help?
A child is drowning in a shallow pond. You are walking past in new shoes. Do you have to wade in?
A shallow pond, a drowning child, new shoes. You wade in, obviously, and ruin the shoes. Peter Singer asked what that obvious answer commits you to.
He said it commits you to two things: that distance does not change what you owe someone, and that the number of other people who could help does not either. If those are true, then a child dying of a preventable disease a thousand kilometres away is in the same position as the child in the pond — and the money you spend on things you do not need is the shoes. He knew exactly how uncomfortable this is, and that is the point of the example.
Most people resist it somewhere, usually here: there is no bottom to the duty. You could give everything and still there would be more to give, and a rule that demands everything is a rule nobody can live by. That is a serious objection. But notice what it does not do — it does not get you back to doing nothing. It just moves the question to how much, and why that much.
There is a second puzzle hiding here. Almost everyone agrees it is wrong to push someone into the pond. Far fewer agree that it is wrong to walk past. If the outcome is the same, the difference must be in you rather than in what happened — and it is worth finding out whether that difference can really carry the weight we put on it.
Try it
Write three situations: one where you would certainly help, one where you probably would not, and one you are unsure about. Then work out what is different between them.
What do you think?
Do you think there is a right answer to this question?
Talk about it
- Is there a difference between hurting someone and letting them be hurt?
- How much are you obliged to give up to help a stranger?
- Does it matter how many people could help instead of you?
Yes, but… — the arguments people actually make
I didn't cause the problem, so it isn't mine to fix.
Then the drowning child is nobody's. Ask instead whether causing harm is the only way to be responsible for it, or whether being able to help is enough.
Someone else will help.
This is a real effect, and it has a name — the more people standing around, the less likely any of them acts. Which makes it an argument for being the one who moves first.
Singer says I should give away almost everything. That can't be right.
Even if he goes too far, that does not return you to doing nothing. The interesting question is the size of the duty, not whether there is one.
What other philosophers think
- Peter SingerArgued that if you would ruin your shoes to save a drowning child, you are already committed to helping people far away who are dying for want of what you spend on other things.
- Immanuel KantHeld that helping others is a duty, not a favour — though he was careful that it is a duty to help, not a duty to be endlessly used.
- AristotleTreated generosity as a virtue between two failures: giving nothing, and giving so carelessly that you ruin yourself and can give no more.
- Hannah ArendtWrote about the opposite failure — good people who did nothing because everyone else was doing nothing.
If you want to go further
- Famine, Affluence, and Morality — Peter Singer1972 essay, six pages, and it changed how a lot of people think about giving.
- The Metaphysics of Morals — Immanuel Kant1797. Where helping others becomes a duty rather than a kindness.
- The Human Condition — Hannah Arendt1958. On action, and what it costs a society when nobody acts.
Most of these were written for adults, which is why it is worth reading them with someone older.