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

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In this relatively short book, Professor Singer makes an extremely compelling case for why it is morally obligatory for capable individuals to aid beings that suffer. Those that are familiar with his previous work will recognize his basic arguments on poverty, which he has been expanding upon for over three decades. For those who are unfamiliar with Peter Singer, the argument he expands upon in this book is quoted as follows...

1.) "Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad."
2.) "If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so."
3.) "By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Conclusion - "Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong."

This argument is valid, and I think sound, so if one is to reject the conclusion, one MUST reject one (or more) of the premises. If they accept the premises, then they MUST accept the conclusion.

Professor Singer's logic is solid throughout. His writing is both lucid and entertaining, making this work accessible, absorbing and crucially important to philosophers and philosophical novices alike. This is simply a must read for everyone.

In high school philosophy, we read Singer's brief article that has been called the "Singer Solution to Poverty," (actually entitled "Famine, Affluence, and Morality"). I first read it in 2001 but he authored it in 1971. It changed the way I think of poverty.

"The Life You Can Save" is an extrapolation of the above-mentioned argument, and a response to the critics who dismissed his 1971 argument as unfair, unrealistic or simply unnecessary.

His credentials: Singer has been lecturing, writing and researching world poverty for more than 30 years, and, as with his 30-year study and defense of animal rights, Singer is able to convince most any reasonable critic that his positions have unassailable merit.

You can simplify this book's thesis by saying that if you fail to share the part of your income that is beyond what you need for a comfortable life, then that failure to share is a moral wrongdoing. In other words, if you can meet all of your shelter, food, education, transportation and other practical needs with $200 weekly, then any additional dollars you make above $200 should be given to responsible charities like Oxfam or to low-interest micro-lending institutions like Yunus's Grameen Bank.

So, whom do you share your money with? With what Singer calls the "extreme poor"-- those with little access to food or clean water, health care, education, protection from guerrilla warfare, etc. (Check out sites like Give Well and Charity Navigator to help determine which groups make the most of your money.) This is in contrast to Europe's and North America's "relative poor" who are hard-off, but still usually have shelter and clean water/food.

One way I like to describe his thesis is as a `redefinition of luxury.' We may think mostly of sports cars, jewelry, iPods, plasma TVs and the like as the only luxuries, but as Singer points out, if you're drinking bottled water while you read this even though you have access to clean tap water then you are spending money on at least one thing you don't need.

That said, no one, not Singer or anyone else, would argue that money solves all problems. What does help is a cultural mind-shift. If we consume fewer luxuries, we are better off, and if we share our extra wealth with organizations that feed, shelter and medicate the poor, then we are also better off, globally. In this case, money can help get things going, but it's not a panacea; our actions will change the world, not just our cash.

Of course, you can spend locally as well. I prefer to donate time and labor to causes like homelessness and such, because your money gets stretched much farther in Haiti or Cameroon through Oxfam than it does in the U.S. I also think it's worth considering that U.S. shelters do get some gov't assistance from HUD and other sources, whereas a village in Belize probably doesn't get any grants at all.

It's important to understand that this isn't a guilt-focused book. If I teach my children that they ought to refrain from littering, I am not trying to guilt-trip them into environmental stewardship. It's an examination of the consequences of our actions and non-actions.

If, eventually, we agree to accept a lesser degree of entertainment and comfort in order to "make poverty history," then nearly everyone will enjoy a greater quality of life.

Examples: Think of the multibillion-dollar monument New York wants to build to memorialize 9/11 victims, or war monuments or on parades and athletic events. Or the billions we spend sending rockets and satellites to outer space. Or the $5 billion spent on the 2008 election cycle. Is it possible that money for monuments, fountains, statues, public art sculptures, trips to Mars, the Moon, elections, luxurious political and celebrity parties, etc. could better be spent taking care of our world's poor?

A final thought: you don't need to buy this $14 book either. Better to rent it from your library and give the $14 to an impoverished person. Or if you do buy it, share it with at least 10 other people before donating it to a library that doesn't have it.

This book is a great introduction to the philosophical issues surrounding global poverty and charitable giving. It is a simple fact that when you choose to buy something for yourself, you're choosing not to use that money to help the world's sick and starving. Singer takes this uncomfortable fact and examines it from many different perspectives. I highly recommend you read this book, think seriously about the issues it raises, and talk about these issues (as tactfully as possible) to as many friends and family members as you can. You will, in the most literal sense possible, save lives.

The argument in this book is breathtakingly simple, and yet it will stop you in your tracks. If books are measured in the long-standing impact they have on your actual day-to-day life (and in my opinion, they should be) then this was one of the best books ever written. Because of Peter Singer's manifesto, I'm motivated to help the poorest among us every time my paycheque comes in. It's not a burden or a guilt-trip. In fact, it brings me a joy that spending on myself can never match. Buy it and watch your life change.

Don't shy away from this book because it seems too "philosophical." Certainly, it does offer an argument--possibly a very strong argument for our obligation to the poor. However, in reading Mr. Singer's book it seems to me that it is much less about the argument as it is about his desire to prompt us to action. I think, with the utmost respect, that if he could offer a completely fallacious argument that would influence everyone (or most everyone) to give more to alleviate poverty he would do it. (Would that be unethical? Even if it was it would be much less so than letting little children die from dehydration. Given his utilitarianism I don't think he could care less, but I digress...)

However, his argument, in my opinion, is not fallacious and so he has no need to present such an argument. Again, I offer this because I think that his MAIN goal is to spurn us to action NOT to present a knock-down argument as good as that may be. That said it seems to me that the most important question in the book is "Why don't we give more?"

Much of this seems to be due to the fact that we simply are not educated about "why we should give", "who needs it" and "how they should receive it." These are three questions he sets out to answer. I doubt that many of us would reject the idea that would should help those in need. However, what seems to be the biggest problem is that we cannot answer the second and third question above. Singer does an excellent job of not only providing answers to these questions, but also teaching us how to engage with these issues. For instance, he devotes more than one chapter on what charities do the best job of helping those in need. Arguably, this is one of the main deterrents to giving because many of us don't trust charities and think that most of our money is going to waste. I found that in reading Singer's book my worries subsided and I could approach giving with confidence.

This is simply one of the ways in which Singer tears away our various hesitations to giving. If you have some of your own I encourage you to read this book. It's short, cheap and will hopefully encourage you to also give with confidence.

(Side note: for additional philosophical discussions of the moral issues surrounding poverty see the works of Thomas Pogge and Peter Unger.)

The author presents a solid ethical argument for significantly increased charitable giving to combat poverty among the poorest of the poor. One can quibble with some of the simplifications in his key argument, but saving a life or relieving serious suffering through relatively modest sacrifice on one's part is hard to argue with. One of the critics of aid he addresses, William Easterly, responds to his presentation in an article in the Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2009. He makes the key qualification which is the question of efficacy. Singer addresses this but ends up rather glossing over it, especially if we take seriously the idea of scaling up aid at the level he advocates. Since there is an almost total lack of transparency and evaluation of results from even the most reputable international aid agencies, how could we justify a huge increase in their resources in the near term?

This doesn't mean that individuals shouldn't take seriously their personal responsibility, and even Easterly acknowledges there are many projects (if not agencies) whose effectiveness is demonstrable. But on a macro level Singer doesn't address how vast new amounts of aid would be used effectively.

Another caveat. There is more variability in individuals' capacity to give than accommodated by Singer's 5%+ plan, but he does acknowledge that his proposal is a guide. Bill Clinton's point about allowing for people to build up a nest egg before major giving makes sense, especially if you emphasize constraining consumption in order to make that happen sooner than later. One way Singer cites to accomplish that is a policy to match one's giving (or in this case saving for later giving) with "discretionary" expenses defined as those going beyond the basic lifestyle permitted by one's income. ( "Basic" expenses for a very wealthy person could be much higher than for a less wealthy person.)

Also, Singer doesn't make clear that income should include all income - investment and earned, taxable and non-taxable, as from retirement accounts. If accumulated wealth isn't taken into account, then earned income would be "taxed" unfairly relative to unearned income or non-income producing assets that nevertheless represent means of the potential donor.

Perhaps the most valuable part of the book is the survey of research showing why people do or do not give more - the importance of perceptions about giving, the role of our emotions and "connectedness" to the recipient, and social or reference group attitudes. The findings help peel away rationalizations, inhibitions and just plain misunderstanding that impede clear thinking about philanthropic commitment. That alone is a considerable service Singer performs for us and alone worth the read.

Singer's goal in this book is undoubtedly worthy: helping the poor is a great thing to do, and as usual he musters arguments ranging from the philosophical to the economic to urge people to reconsider how they live and where they put their money. As I read it, tho', I found it hard to get past his decision to pit "Americans" (as a whole, all of us, who should give) against those who live in extreme poverty (who are the putative recipients, altho' that wavers a bit as the book goes on). Singer explains that even poor people in America aren't really poor, since some of them own cars (ignoring the fact that lack of public transport makes this an absolute necessity for the working poor in many cities, Detroit being an obvious example), and I was stunned by his off-hand assertions that "All Americans have access to health care" (check out Frontline's 'Sick Across America' for a different viewpoint) and that all Americans can safely drink out of the tap (check out Frontline, again, on the Potomac & endocrine disruptors). He condemns Americans for being the most generous nation in terms of individual contributions to charity, pointing out that much of it stays in America rather than reaching those in extreme poverty in other countries, and criticizes the fact that Americans gave more to Katrina victims than to victims of the tsunami, despite the fact that the Katrina folks "had the federal government to help them." This antagonistic approach was offputting to me, and, frankly, a little weird. Does he really think we have universal health care? Is he that blind to the health conditions of America's poor? How is it wrong to give to someone in your own community who is hungry, or whose kids are hungry-- even if they own a car--rather than to Singer's chosen target group? It was an odd focus for the book, and since he doesn't reveal until the end that the "Americans" he's actually talking about are the six-figure salary folks, I just kept asking mental questions about whether he had ever left Princeton long enough to talk to some of the American poor. Yes, they make more than $1.25 a day. But if he's right that alleviating poverty is a good, than why is it better to do it for some people than others?

Moreover, Singer roundly condemns Western governments for a lot of choices, including some that are a little questionable. True, for example, Western governments benefit off mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo... but that does not mean they alone are responsible for the depths of poverty there. Money is pouring into the DRC as well as Western govts. from the mining, but it's all ending up in the hands of the govt. and corrupt administrators. See Tim Butcher's wonderful Blood River for a far better informed and more nuanced understanding of the problem than Singer offers: as Butcher says, putting more money into the DRC won't lift any African (not in the govt.) out of poverty unless the system within the country changes. Singer doesn't deal with any aspect of this, however: that so many people in extreme poverty are there partly because of choices made by their govts, countrymen, and, in the case of young girls suffering from fistulas, families. He doesn't explain how giving up your retirement to pour money into such countries will actually help fix these problems. And in his many analyses of why Americans give at home rather than abroad, he never once touches on the fact that many people understand that giving locally lets them see where the money goes, rather than helping buy a satellite dish for another govt official in Kinshasa.

Finally, I was mystified by his impression that Social Security appears from thin air; he seems to be one of those folks who believes that you get the actual money back that you paid in, rather than it being a rolling system where today's workers are supporting today's retirees. (He'll be getting a pension from Princeton, so he's set.) He thus cheerfully asserts that saving for retirement rather than giving it away today to help people in other countries is wrong, without asking who will then pay for the retirement (the retiree's children? the system? if the retirees' children, then won't they be giving money to an American that they should be spending on the extreme poor overseas?) and gives an example of one of his ideals, a man who gave away his cash and lives off SSecurity (and now qualifies for Medicaid etc.) Should people be giving money to overseas aid and then letting the system support them? Again, that's not a question that seems to interest Singer.

From the reviews here, you can see how many people found this book a compelling wake-up call. I think I might have been more open if he had been less antagonistic, and if he had considered that American poverty is poverty too, rather than condemning the entire population in a big lump group. As it was, I wish he'd mixed his philosophy with a little more nuance and, when it comes to things like health care, actual information. I had to keep reminding myself when I read this that he is, by all accounts, a brilliant man. Those in poverty need an advocate-- but, I think, a better reasoned book than this one.

The finale of the now classic movie "Schindler's List" features Liam Neeson portraying the much renowned industrialist Oskar Schnindler, credited with saving some 1,200 Jews from certain death during the Holocaust. In this scene, Schindler points at his car and says "this car, why did I keep the car? Ten people right there." He then grabs a pin from his coat, stares at it almost in horror, and says "Two people... this is gold... two more people." Breaking down, he pleads "I could have done more." One of the shocking aspects of this amazing scene is the valuing of material things in terms of human lives. It prompts a deeper question about how we value life, which evokes an even more disturbing question: how much would someone pay to save your life? Or even, what am I worth? It should come as no surprise that in our heavily monetized culture some government agencies have indeed made estimates on what you're worth. In chapter six of "the Life You Can Save," the philosopher Peter Singer quotes the 2008 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency value of "a generic American life" as $7.22 million. The Department of Transportation estimated $5.8 million. One of the main themes running through Singer's book is that it actually doesn't cost the affluent much to save the the lives of people living in the world's poorest areas. The preface's first page dives right into this idea. Singer says outright that if you have a bottle of water or soda on a table beside you as you read his book, then you already have money to spend on things that you don't need. As his argument develops, it becomes clear that, given his premises, those things we buy that we don't need do translate into human lives that could be saved by the simple act of giving to a charity that works with the poorest of the poor. After discussing the countless people who die each year from preventable diseases and conditions, he states: "we can reasonably believe that the cost of saving a life through one of these charities is somewhere between $200 and $2,000." Though Singer never explicitly connects the two, that can of soda from the preface, especially considering the average annual spending on soft drinks, begins to acquire a potentially sinister aura.

The implications of Singer's claims will shock many. Some will doubtlessly deny their cogency. At root level the book claims that spending money on things we don't need instead of supporting life saving charities is outright wrong. Even downright immoral. Of course, who would argue with this? Well, some people do, so chapter 3 gets dedicated to answering many common objections to charitable donating. Not only that, Singer provides figures that the U.S., in terms of Gross National Income (GNI), falls next to last (just above Greece) in overall giving (only 18 cents of every $100 earned in 2006). He then addresses the obvious follow-up question in chapter 4, aptly titled "Why Don't We Give More?" Human nature itself receives scrutiny, and Singer identifies human, all too human traits that may keep us from helping those that we don't know, including "the identifiable victim" (we don't tend to feel empathy for faceless statistics), futility (i.e., "the problems are just too big"), and the infamous "I'm not responsible" or "it's not my job" objection. He reacts to each one of these, and other objections, in turn. Other chapters build on his argument and skepticism about the effectiveness of aid, the tension between our duties to our family and to others, and just how much is too much? He cites Bill Clinton's objection that Singer, in a 2006 New York Times essay, asks too much when suggesting that people give 10% of their incomes to charity. Singer responds "is it really asking too much of people earning at least $383,000 to live on a pretax income of $352,100 instead?" Nonetheless, the final chapter revises Singer's initial 10% recommendation into a sliding scale with a new goal at least 5%, though he would like the rich to contribute far more. He claims that if all Americans did this we could potentially end global poverty. In an almost outright plea, he argues: "If you have an extra $450 and are thinking about whether to spend it on yourself or to use it to help others, it won't be easy to find anything that you need nearly as much as a fourteen-year old girl with a fistula needs an operation." Singer thoroughly describes the condition and social damage that an obstetric fistula causes. It's not pretty, but thankfully it's treatable. Singer invites us to make our own judgments and choices.

Not everyone will agree with Singer's argument in "The Life You Can Save." Nonetheless, he makes a pretty good case that many of us in affluent socities, particularly in the United States, simply don't give enough to causes that fight world poverty, such as Oxfam, UNICEF or Population Services International (which also deals with overpopulation issues). By implication, we allow deaths to occur that don't need to occur. Those who agree with him, will find plenty of guidance on where to donate. Websites such as GiveWell.org, or CharityNavigator.org provide some direction for those lost in the maze of potential charities. Singer also set up a website as a book tie-in, TheLifeYouCanSave.com, in which people can make a pledge to give more, or to continue their giving habits and to tell people you know about the book and its arguments. "The Life You Can Save" represents Singer's plea to those who can do something to actually do something. This short and often disturbing book makes a sound case that we can do something.

This book has a lot of misdirected energy. For the majority of the book, the author makes the philosophical argument that as citizens of wealthy nations, we have the ethical responsibility to live ascetically and give all of our disposable income to charity. He then proceeds to explain our resistance to that idea as a function of "human nature", but comes off sounding like his knowledge of human nature is derived from the analysis of clinical studies more than from interactions with actual humans. He sounds petty and self-righteous at times, listing (to a weird degree of detail) the luxury items that certain uber-wealthy individuals have purchased, the cost of which could have saved countless lives. He derides parents who send their children to expensive private schools, but teaches at Princeton and tells *his* students (when they ask if it's morally wrong for their parents to be paying $44,000 a year to send them there) that the cost is justified because their Princeton education will open doors to lucrative jobs that will then allow them to donate more money to charity. He ultimately acknowledges that expecting people to give away all of their disposable income, while ethically obligatory, is unrealistic (even he doesn't do it), and closes by asking people to give a reasonable percentage of their income... so why not devote the book to that instead of alienating readers with a theoretical argument that even he can't abide? Beyond those issues, his approach for ending poverty - through generous donations of individuals to charities - address the symptoms of poverty, not the systemic causes.

If this book encourages people to give, or give more, that's great. And it seems, from all the positive reviews, that it's having that effect. But I think the pages of this book could have been more effectively utilized by starting with the reasonable request, showing how sufficient that reasonable request is (which he does at the end), and then going into more detail about how to make our donations go as far as possible.

This is a life-changing book. Singer lays out his arguments clearly and logically, and explores the common counterpoints in depth, without simpy brushing them off.

The Kindle edition of this book, however, suffers from the fact that it appears to have been created directly from the hardcopy file without even a light proofreading. There are typographical errors on almost every page; most of them are simple hyphenation issues, where words that broke across two lines in the hardcopy version do not break across lines in the Kindle version, but are still hyphenated or broken with spaces.