I’ve been reading some of Peter Singer’s stuff lately. Always good for a think and a ponder, and always good for a restless night upon my comfortable bed in my structurally sound home with a full tummy and a few mosquitoes as the only real worry in my world.
If we are obliged to do no more than our fair share of eliminating global poverty, the burden will not be great. But is that really all we ought to do? Since we all agree that fairness is a good thing, and none of us like doing more because others don’t pull their weight, the fair-share view is attractive. In the end, however, I think we should reject it. Let’s return to the drowning child in the shallow pond. Imagine it is not 1 small child who has fallen in, but 50 children. We are among 50 adults, unrelated to the children, picnicking on the lawn around the pond. We can easily wade into the pond and rescue the children, and the fact that we would find it cold and unpleasant sloshing around in the knee-deep muddy water is no justification for failing to do so. The “fair share” theorists would say that if we each rescue one child, all the children will be saved, and so none of us have an obligation to save more than one. But what if half the picnickers prefer staying clean and dry to rescuing any children at all? Is it acceptable if the rest of us stop after we have rescued just one child, knowing that we have done our fair share, but that half the children will drown? We might justifiably be furious with those who are not doing their fair share, but our anger with them is not a reason for letting the children die. In terms of praise and blame, we are clearly right to condemn, in the strongest terms, those who do nothing. In contrast, we may withhold such condemnation from those who stop when they have done their fair share. Even so, they have let children drown when they could easily have saved them, and that is wrong.
Peter Singer wrote this as part of his article, What Should a Billionaire give – and what should you?
For some reason – and I cannot explain precisely this reason – I agree that my fair share is not enough. So why then do I persist in spending more than a fair share of time wondering what on earth my fair share is? I don’t know the answer, but maybe it has something to do with being sure that I am still not doing enough – and maybe (let’s be honest) that I never will.
5 responses so far ↓
1 Rachel // Feb 10, 2009 at 6:24 pm
A thought-provoking piece. I have recently realised that whatever I do in regards to my fair share, not only am I unlikely to ever get down to what my fair share should be, it will never negate everyone else in my street who I see incorrectly putting junk in their recycle bin, or watering lawns during the drought, or thoughtlessly consuming highly processed foods, or everything else that most people do without thinking.
So I’m in the process of expanding my view of what I personally can do to help ’save the world’, and moving more into activism. Not the sort of chaining myself to trees activism (doesn’t sit well as a mother of four), but the gentler sort of activism where I TALK to people about the choices I make and why. Start or sign petitions, write letters to politicians, organise screenings of important movies, educate my friends and family, offer practical assistance to those who want to do more but don’t know where to start, join committees and clubs and (gently) push the environmental line.
Through these things and more, I hope to create some sort of (admittedly mild) ripple effect, hopefully in the end achieving more than my fair share, and certainly a greater impact than I could ever manage by merely trying to cut down my own personal consumption.
Thanks for the thought-provoking blog!
2 admin // Feb 11, 2009 at 8:05 am
Hi Rachel
Thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts. I am very interested in your notion of a “ripple effect” – feel free to share more about your thinking (and actions!) on this one – either by comments or through submitting your own posts.
Bryan
3 Peter Singer // Feb 12, 2009 at 10:29 am
Good to see this getting discussed – I have a new book coming out that gets a little further into this issue. Take a look at the website, and spread the word, as Rachel suggests
4 Que // Feb 12, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Rachel – the ripple effect – especially as a parent – is not to be underestimated; the peer-pressure of the school pick-up gang is subtle, and very powerful – as I’m sure you have started to discover. I too would love to hear more. Among my first steps as the children started school this week was to announce to anyone who would listen that their clothes were from the clothing pool (recycling!) I like to think this turned something that might otherwise (or in other schools) be a matter for embarassment into something to be proud of.
Bryan – it occurs to me that the fair share concept as described in mathsy terms above is quite a narrow one. Something about “from each according to his ability might more productively apply. A friend donated his entire architecture office’s productive capacity one day a week to build an orphan’s school in malawi. I’m not sure he was necessarily a calculator of carbon, or a donor of money prior to finding something he could do, wanted to do, and made a real difference (perhaps even exceeding “his fair share” doing.) Someone else I had dinner with doesn’t believe in donating, but inserted, against all precedent, clauses into a tender guideline for a top 10 Aussie listed company, some sustainability criteria (including fair trade and labour rights) in assessing the tenders. A few words in a clause, that’s all, but an enormous effect as it flows through the global supply chain of the manufacturers he is buying this technology from on behalf of one of the country’s largest clients.
Do what you can – and as far as possible make it what you love and are good at. There’s no shortage of ways to tackle the problems of the world. The wish to do so is half the battle.
5 Pam DiLorenzo // Feb 12, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Surely, Peter Singer is asking us not to take the idea of a fair share to mean literally everybody giving/doing an equal part. That’s not how life on Earth works. When I give a hundred dollars and say to myself, if Everybody did this, it would add up to X billions, I mean just that – IF. Then I might re think and give $150 or . . . but at some point I stop, and that is OKAY.
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