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Peter Singer

Peter A. Singer

The Life You Can Save: How to Do Your Part to End World Poverty Paperback – September 14, 2010

by Peter Singer (Author)

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For the first time in history, eradicating world poverty is within our reach. Yet around the world, a billion people struggle to live each day on less than many of us pay for bottled water. In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer uses ethical arguments, illuminating examples, and case studies of charitable giving to show that our current response to world poverty is not only insufficient but morally indefensible. The Life You Can Save teaches us to be a part of the solution, helping others as we help ourselves.

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240 pages
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Random House Trade Paperbacks
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September 14, 2010
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5.11 x 0.5 x 8 inches
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0812981561
ISBN-13

978-0812981568
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Advance praise for The Life You Can Save

“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 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.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“If you think you can’t afford to give money to the needy, I urge you to read this book. If you think you’re already giving enough, and to the right places, still I urge you to read this book. In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer makes a strong case–logical and factual, but also emotional–for why each of us should be doing more for the world’s impoverished. This book will challenge you to be a better person.”
–Holden Karnofsky, co-founder, GiveWell

“In The Life You Can Save, Peter Singer challenges each of us to ask: Am I willing to make poverty history? Skillfully weaving together parable, philosophy, and hard statistics, he tackles the most familiar moral, ethical, and ideological obstacles to building a global culture of philanthropy, and sets the bar for how we as citizens might do our part to empower the world’s poor.”
–Raymond C. Offenheiser, president, Oxfam America

About the Author

Peter Singer is Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than thirty books, including Animal Liberation, widely considered to be the founding statement of the animal rights movement, Practical Ethics,and One World: Ethics and Globalization.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1
Saving a Child

On your way to work, you pass a small pond. On hot days, children sometimes play in the pond, which is only about knee-deep. The weather’s cool today, though, and the hour is early, so you are surprised to see a child splashing about in the pond. As you get closer, you see that it is a very young child, just a toddler, who is flailing about, unable to stay upright or walk out of the pond. You look for the parents or babysitter, but there is no one else around. The child is unable to keep his head above the water for more than a few seconds at a time. If you don’t wade in and pull him out, he seems likely to drown. Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin the new shoes you bought only a few days ago, and get your suit wet and muddy. By the time you hand the child over to someone responsible for him, and change your clothes, you’ll be late for work. What should you do?

I teach a course called Practical Ethics. When we start talking about global poverty, I ask my students what they think you should do in this situation. Predictably, they respond that you should save the child. “What about your shoes? And being late for work?” I ask them. They brush that aside. How could anyone consider a pair of shoes, or missing an hour or two at work, a good reason for not saving a child’s life?

In 2007, something resembling this hypothetical situation actually occurred near Manchester, England. Jordon Lyon, a ten-year-old boy, leaped into a pond after his stepsister Bethany slipped in. He struggled to support her but went under himself. Anglers managed to pull Bethany out, but by then Jordon could no longer be seen. They raised the alarm, and two auxiliary policemen soon arrived; they refused to enter the pond to find Jordon. He was later pulled out, but attempts at resuscitation failed. At the inquest on Jordon’s death, the policemen’s inaction was defended on the grounds that they had not been trained to deal with such situations. The mother responded: “If you’re walking down the street and you see a child drowning you automatically go in that water . . . You don’t have to be trained to jump in after a drowning child.”1

I think it’s safe to assume that most people would agree with the mother’s statement. But consider that, according to UNICEF, nearly 10 million children under five years old die each year from causes related to poverty. Here is just one case, described by a man in Ghana to a researcher from the World Bank:

Take the death of this small boy this morning, for example. The boy died of measles. We all know he could have been cured at the hospital. But the parents had no money and so the boy died a slow and painful death, not of measles but out of poverty.2

Think about something like that happening 27,000 times every day. Some children die because they don’t have enough to eat. More die, like that small boy in Ghana, from measles, malaria, diarrhea, and pneumonia, conditions that either don’t exist in developed nations, or, if they do, are almost never fatal. The children are vulnerable to these diseases because they have no safe drinking water, or no sanitation, and because when they do fall ill, their parents can’t afford any medical treatment. UNICEF, Oxfam, and many other organizations are working to reduce poverty and provide clean water and basic health care, and these efforts are reducing the toll. If the relief organizations had more money, they could do more, and more lives would be saved.

Now think about your own situation. By donating a relatively small amount of money, you could save a child’s life. Maybe it takes more than the amount needed to buy a pair of shoes—but we all spend money on things we don’t really need, whether on drinks, meals out, clothing, movies, concerts, vacations, new cars, or house renovation. Is it possible that by choosing to spend your money on such things rather than contributing to an aid agency, you are leaving a child to die, a child you could have saved?

Poverty Today

A few years ago, the World Bank asked researchers to listen to what the poor are saying. They were able to document the experiences of 60,000 women and men in seventy-three countries. Over and over, in different languages and on different continents, poor people said that poverty meant these things:

•You are short of food for all or part of the year, often eating only one meal per day, sometimes having to choose between stilling your child’s hunger or your own, and sometimes being able to do neither.

•You can’t save money. If a family member falls ill and you need money to see a doctor, or if the crop fails and you have nothing to eat, you have to borrow from a local moneylender and he will charge you so much interest at the debt continues to mount and you may never be free of it.

•You can’t afford to send your children to school, or if they do start school, you have to take them out again if the harvest is poor.

•You live in an unstable house, made with mud or thatch that you need to rebuild every two or three years, or after severe weather.

•You have no nearby source of safe drinking water. You have to carry your water a long way, and even then, it can make you ill unless you boil it.

But extreme poverty is not only a condition of unsatisfied material needs. It is often accompanied by a degrading state of powerlessness. Even in countries that are democracies and are relatively well governed, respondents to the World Bank survey described a range of situations in which they had to accept humiliation without protest. If someone takes what little you have, and you complain to the police, they may not listen to you. Nor will the law necessarily protect you from rape or sexual harassment. You have a pervading sense of shame and failure because you cannot provide for your children. Your poverty traps you, and you lose hope of ever escaping from a life of hard work for which, at the end, you will have nothing to show beyond bare survival.3

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as not having enough income to meet the most basic human needs for adequate food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health care, and education. Many people are familiar with the statistic that one billion people are living on less than one dollar per day. That was the World Bank’s poverty line until 2008, when better data on international price comparisons enabled it to make a more accurate calculation of the amount people need to meet their basic needs. On the basis of this calculation, the World Bank set the poverty line at $1.25 per day. The number of people whose income puts them under this line is not 1 billion but 1.4 billion. That there are more people living in extreme poverty than we thought is, of course, bad news, but the news is not all bad. On the same basis, in 1981 there were 1.9 billion people living in extreme poverty. That was about four in every ten people on the planet, whereas now fewer than one in four are extremely poor.

South Asia is still the region with the largest number of people living in extreme poverty, a total of 600 million, including 455 million in India. Economic growth has, however, reduced the proportion of South Asians living in extreme poverty from 60 percent in 1981 to 42 percent in 2005. There are another 380 million extremely poor people in sub-Saharan Africa, where half the population is extremely poor—and that is the same percentage as in 1981. The most dramatic reduction in poverty has been in East Asia, although there are still more than 200 million extremely poor Chinese, and smaller numbers elsewhere in the region. The remaining extremely poor people are distributed around the world, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pacific, the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.4

In response to the “$1.25 a day” figure, the thought may cross your mind that in many developing countries, it is possible to live much more cheaply than in the industrialized nations. Perhaps you have even done it yourself, backpacking around the world, living on less than you would have believed possible. So you may imagine that this level of poverty is less extreme than it would be if you had to live on that amount of money in the United States, or any industrialized nation. If such thoughts did occur to you, you should banish them now, because the World Bank has already made the adjustment in purchasing power: Its figures refer to the number of people existing on a daily total consumption of goods and services—whether earned or home-grown—comparable to the amount of goods and services that can be bought in the United States for $1.25.

In wealthy societies, most poverty is relative. People feel poor because many of the good things they see advertised on television are beyond their budget—but they do have a television. In the United States, 97 percent of those classified by the Census Bureau as poor own a color TV. Three quarters of them own a car. Three quarters of them have air conditioning. Three quarters of them have a VCR or DVD player. All have access to health care.5 I am not quoting these figures in order to deny that the poor in the United States face genuine difficulties. Nevertheless, for most, these difficulties are of a different order than those of the world’s poorest people. The 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty are poor by an absolute standard tied to the most basic human needs. They are likely to be hungry for at least part of each year. Even if they can get enough food to fill their stomachs, they will probably be malnourished because their diet lacks essential nutrients. In children, malnutrition stunts growth and can cause permanent brain damage. The poor may not be able to afford to send their children to school. Even minimal health care services are usually beyond their means.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (September 14, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0812981561
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0812981568
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.11 x 0.5 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,019,399 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #375 in Philanthropy & Charity (Books)
- #681 in Poverty
- #3,774 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality

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Peter Singer
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Peter Singer is sometimes called "the world’s most influential living philosopher" although he thinks that if that is true, it doesn't say much for all the other living philosophers around today. He has also been called the father (or grandfather?) of the modern animal rights movement, even though he doesn't base his philosophical views on rights, either for humans or for animals.
In 2005 Time magazine named Singer one of the 100 most influential people in the world, and the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute ranked him 3rd among Global Thought Leaders for 2013. (He has since slipped to 36th in 2018.) He is known especially for his work on the ethics of our treatment of animals, for his controversial critique of the sanctity of life doctrine in bioethics, and for his writings on the obligations of the affluent to aid those living in extreme poverty.
Singer first became well-known internationally after the publication of Animal Liberation in 1975. In 2011 Time included Animal Liberation on its “All-TIME” list of the 100 best nonfiction books published in English since the magazine began, in 1923. Singer has written, co-authored, edited or co-edited more than 50 books, including Practical Ethics; The Expanding Circle; How Are We to Live?, Rethinking Life and Death, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), The Point of View of the Universe (with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek), The Most Good You Can Do, Ethics in the Real World and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction. His works have appeared in more than 30 languages.
Singer’s book The Life You Can Save, first published in 2009, led him to found a non-profit organization of the same name. In 2019, Singer got back the rights to the book and granted them to the organization, enabling it to make the eBook and audiobook versions available free from its website, www.thelifeyoucansave.org.
Peter Singer was born in Melbourne, Australia, in 1946, and educated at the University of Melbourne and the University of Oxford. After teaching in England, the United States and Australia, he has, since 1999, been Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics in the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Since 2005 he has combined that position with the position of Laureate Professor at the University of Melbourne, in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies. He is married, with three daughters and four grandchildren. His recreations include hiking and surfing. In 2012 he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia, the nation’s highest civic honour.
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Andrew Schonbek

Do Something!!!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 15, 2009

Verified Purchase

We've all seen movies in which somebody is trapped in a life-threatening situation.

They cry out, "Help me - do something".

And somebody comes to the rescue.

Except, as Peter Singer argues in The Life You Can Save, if they are the poorest of the poor, crying out in destitution and need. Here, all too often their cry is not heard or is ignored, and nobody comes to the rescue.

Singer's point is that we need to do something.

The book starts off on a jarring note with a simple illustration that the author uses in the classes he teaches in Practical Ethics. Here is the situation: A child is in danger, and will likely lose his life if nothing is done. A passer by happens upon the scene. Saving the life of the child will involve minor inconvenience (being late for work) and a small financial cost (a dry cleaning bill and a new pair of shoes). What should the passer by do?

Invariably the students are indignant that the question is even asked as it seems obvious that the life of a child is precious, and that herculean effort, let alone minor inconvenience, ought to be expended to save that life.

Why then, Singer asks, do we not feel the same way about the thousands of children dying every day as a result of extreme poverty, given that the cost of saving any one of those lives is typically inconsequential.

The exploration of this moral inconsistency makes up the substance of this very good book.

In it the author examines common objections to giving, the economics and efficiency of aid, and ultimately develops a proposal for a new standard of giving. As he shows, if implemented, the well off of the world could continue to enjoy an exceedingly high standard of living, while significantly impacting, if not eliminating world poverty.

This is a convicting and a very challenging book. My youngest daughter, bound for a term of study abroad in Ghana, refuses to discuss it with me, stating only that it made her very angry.

Agree, or disagree, the author has made points that are hard to ignore.

5 people found this helpful

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Ryan Crafts

Save another's life . . . change your own.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 2, 2013

Verified Purchase

My undergraduate education was in philosophy with an emphasis in ethical theory. As such, I have been aware of Singer's argument on this topic for quite some time. Nonetheless, it was not until I read and re-read this book that I dramatically changed my own lifestyle to better live up to the demands of the argument's conclusion.

Singer's argument that we should give to the world's poorest people is the same as he has articulated it for many years and this book adds little or nothing on that front. However this book also tackles the questions of why we fail to give and what can be done to encourage people to give. Regarding these issues, this book is perhaps the best available on the subject, especially for mainstream readers. Singer's adept treatment of these questions sets him up well to conclude by asking the reader to pledge to give a minimum portion of their income to world's poorest people.

After reading this book I decided to accept Singer's challenge (look for my name on the website). Indeed, I felt compelled to give at a rate higher than he outlines for my income level. I asked my business partners to read the book. I'm now circulating that copy among other professional contacts. I purchased a second book to circulate among friends and family. I'm working with my payroll service on a plan to help my co-workers to give. It's a modest start, but I'm still proud of it and excited to do more.

It seems that even a cursory review of the facts on the ground and Singer's logic will force one to conclude that the argument is sound. Despite this, I was content to simply be a selfish lout for a long time. This book was a key element in my choice to change my own life in order to help the world's worst off. I highly recommend it to everyone and especially those who are looking for the nudge to get themselves out of complacency.

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

J. F. Lusa

Worthy cause, sloppy logic, wrong solution

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 10, 2012

Verified Purchase

It's Peter Singer, so there's an intense emotional appeal, and guilt in this case, but the logic just isn't there. His main example for motivating us to save the poor of the world is based on a straw man (Ok, a straw toddler). Sure, we'd help the toddler who fell in a creek. Does that require us to save millions of starving toddlers? No, because the premise (one toddler) doesn't match the conclusion (millions of 'em). Assuming we are working towards what to do about millions of starving toddlers [which is a real problem and which needs our help] Singer should present an appropriate premise, like if there were millions of toddlers falling into creeks. In that case, we should be looking at making the creeks safer, making sure toddlers aren't wandering off on their own. In short, we should be changing policy, not throwing $$$ at the symptoms.

Then there's the idea of sending 10 percent of U.S. income to foreign charities. Singer doesn't seem to understand how economies work. Ten percent of income shifted overseas is about 10% of U.S. jobs that vanish overnight, and if it's discretionary income we are talking about, the impact is bound to be worst on the U.S. working poor in the service industry. Singer decries the U.S. policy of sending U.S. made mosquito nets to Africa when they can be had for less from China. He fails to think of the impact on the low-wage U.S. workers who won't have a job if the $$$ for those nets are spent overseas. Instead of sending $$$ overseas, we might send U.S. made stuff there instead. Singer doesn't think of these things. How is it that he's a professor at Princeton?

I gave the book 3 stars because (a) I assume the *facts* presented are accurate, and (b) we should be doing something about poverty on this planet. Just not the way Singer says we should.

10 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Johnny Blue

Life Changing

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on February 17, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is a wonderful book: simple, short and very much to the point. It has two aims.

The first aim is to demonstrate the importance of making the right decision when donating to charitable causes. Charities vary hugely in their effectiveness. Most charitable interventions have not been evaluated and most of those that have show pretty modest gains. But rigorous evaluation of charities is a new science and there are many out there that have demonstrated exceptional value. All these work on humanitarian causes in relieving poverty and preventing diseases in developing countries. Singer shows how these can be found.

The second aim is what other reviewers have referred to as “bold, strong, provocative and infuriating”. It is the moral argument for individuals giving more to effective humanitarian causes. Singer makes a very strong case and takes apart the common reasons given as to why supporting humanitarian causes is ineffective. If we all gave a little more we could eliminate the extreme poverty that blights 20% of the world’s population and kills 18,000 children every day.

A summary of The Life You Can Save is available through Peter Singer’s 18 minute TED talk at www.ted.com. I would also recommend Caroline Fiennes’ “It Ain’t What You Give It’s The Way That You Give It”. Though covering much the same territory, Fiennes’ book avoids the moralising, is more orientated towards UK charities and provides a road map for effective giving that can be applied to any cause.

5 people found this helpful

Alexander Sokol

Interesting, slightly infuriating

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 6, 2011

Verified Purchase

Singer's book is an unusual melange of ethical philosophizing, aid statistics and personal stories. He begins the book with some arguments for correct ehthical standards, pointing out that most people fall far short of these standards. Afterwards, he discusses aid efficiency, both as regards how functional aid in practice turns out to be, as well as the problem of distinguishing between efficient and inefficient aid. Finally, he lays out practical standards for giving.

His ethical arguments, and particular his discussion of the psychology of giving, are interesting. However, they also turn out to be the most annoying part of the book, as Singer implicitly accuses the reader who does not live up to his standards of being immoral - Singer lays out a short set of ethical standards, considers some objections to the standards which are generally dismissed, and between the lines seem to conclude that his standards are somehow universal and irrefutable. While he correctly points out that complete moral relativism leads to problems, his moral absolutism is also problematic. Moreover, he does not consider arguments such as personal happiness being very much relative to one's society, leading to his absolute comparisons being somewhat rigid. Finally, he several times uses the example of it being immoral not to save a child drowning in a pond, arguing that letting starving children in Africa die is just as immoral. It would indeed seem very heartless for a member of an affluent society to leave alone a child drowning on the side of the road. However, if instead it were the case that a billion children were drowning on the side of the road, it would appear somewhat more understandable that at some point, the otherwise upstanding citizen would quit rescuing children.

Singer must be commended for speaking his mind openly and raising difficult questions. However, his arguments appear somewhat simplistic in some respects. His call for people to give more is reasonable, and the 5% he is asking is not much, but his ethical arguments appear weak.

All in all, a book with a few flaws, but nonetheless unique enough to merit reading.

7 people found this helpful

Charlie B

Very Constructive and Well Written

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 6, 2018

Verified Purchase

This is very well written and clearly argued book which provokes much thought as to how we best provide foreign aid and how as individual members of societies in the developed world can best contribute to the alleviation of world poverty. A rewarding intellectual exercise which also plays positively on our emotions.

LDC

Great book. Please read it. You can help other people and your conscience at the same time

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 18, 2017

Verified Purchase

Great book. Please read it, and please set up your direct debit to Oxfam, or UNICEF, or fixing fistula's or cataract's, or any other preferred charity when you get to the end.

Cant give 5% of your take home pay. No problem, give 4%, or 3%, or straight GBP20/month or whatever you think you can afford. Its the right thing to do, and you will feel better for it too...

Gary G

Very readable, engaging and inspirational.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 4, 2016

Verified Purchase

Fantastic book. Deeply thought provoking and ultimately a won argument. The basic premise is that if we can help another human being then to not do so is wrong. Our obligations in relation to this premise are then laid out and the reasons we don't fulfil them but also how we can are explored. Very readable, engaging and massively inspirational.

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