In a book I read recently, Peter Singer presents the following thought experiment…
Imagine you’re walking across the park, past a shallow, ornamental pond, and you notice that a small child has fallen in and seems to be in danger of drowning. You look around — where are the parents? the babysitter? — but there is no one in sight except you and the child. You realize that if you don’t rush into the pond, the child will likely drown.
What do you do?
Of course, you think, “I must rush in and save the child!” There is no danger to you, as you’re familiar with the pond, and it’s less than waist deep. But then you remember that you’re wearing your brand new (and quite expensive) shoes, which will get ruined if you enter the pond.
Is that a reason for not saving a child?
You probably think that question is silly, even offensive. What are shoes compared to the life of a child?
But Singer asserts that most of us, on a regular basis, choose the shoes over the child.
The book is called The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty, and clicking the image or title will take you to the Amazon.com page for the book, where you can learn more and see a video of Peter Singer telling the above story. (I checked it out from the Valparaiso Public Library, so if you want to try before you buy, you can!)
According to Singer, this is one of the ethical dimensions to our shopping. The money we spend on “extras” could be given to groups that are working to bring medical care, safe drinking water, and other life-saving necessities to children around the world. The amount of money you might spend on a nice pair of shoes, or a night out at the movies, or eating dinner in a restaurant, could save the life of a child (or two).
We experienced a bit of this when our church took the H2O Challenge this past Lenten season, giving up lattes, soft drinks, etc., for two weeks and giving the money saved to Living Water International. I wrote about it here.
I’ll write a follow-up post sharing more from the book soon. But for now, I’d love to hear your thoughts…
Rich – I am challenged personally and professionally with this everyday. Our agency is struggling to make ends meet in this economy while seeing an ever increasing number of people seeking help for a place to live, money to pay bills or food for their family – right here in Porter County. So I struggle with whether our family should enjoy a night out together at a movie for our anniversary while I wonder how we can get the agency on solid financial footing to serve other families.
A lady in our former church had one of the most giving and caring spirits of any I have ever been associated with. I often heard her say, “Live simply so that others may simply live.” That thought still affects some of my decisions today. (It should affect more).
i guess we just don’t remember to think in terms that real – when you face the actual choice between shoes and a child’s life. the cases seem so far away, yet they are not.
So true, Rich. I all too often waste my money on amenities when I could be investing it into ministries.
Was that to make me feel guilty about those new shoes I just purchased?
Kidding.
Thanks for the thought provoking post!
Hey, now… I posted this before you bought those shoes!
Funny that I just found this blog. Just yesterday I was wondering how different our purchases would be if we related our money to the lives we could be impacting of saving.
“how much are those shoes… oh 1 month of education in Africa, I don’t know if i can swing that. Could you take that down to 2 weeks of clean water instead?”
I have a sad feeling that too many of us would still be purchasing as much as we are now and simply become even MORE insensitive to the needs of others.
I have this book. It rox my sox
Real stuff, thanks. We have this struggle with church spending, too. I love the video projector, but man, we could keep people alive with that kind of money! Sometimes I wonder if anything that costs money is essential to the church or evangelism.
At any rate, I read a couple of weeks ago that the Pres of World Vision said (comparing hunger with 9/11 and the spending that resulted from it) that the number of children who die every day from hunger is something like crashing an airliner full of children every 15 minutes, 24/7.
My God!