Responding to Global Poverty: Review Essay of Peter Singer, The Life you can Save

Most affluent people are at least partially aware of the great magnitude of world poverty. A great many of the affluent believe that the lives of all people everywhere are of equal fundamental worth when viewed impartially. In some contexts, at least, they will also assert that people ought to prevent serious suffering when they can do so, even at significant cost to themselves. But these same people contribute little or nothing to relief efforts or development initiatives, and do not actively pressure their governments to alter their economic policies toward poorer countries in ways that might benefit them. Why do the affluent do so little, and demand so little of their governments, while remaining confident that they are morally decent people who generally fulfil their duties to others? Are affluent people and the governments that represent them actually fulfilling their duties to the global poor, despite appearances to the contrary? What kinds of changes in the behaviour of affluent people and their governments could bring about substantial improvements in the lives of the global poor? The life you can save is Peter Singer’s first book that focuses exclusively on these questions, and his most comprehensive engagement with critics of his views. This makes its publication a very significant event. Although Singer has been writing widely about these questions for nearly 40 years, this book distils, in his words, what he has “learned about why we give, or don’t give, and what we should do about it” (Singer 2009, x). Singer’s aims in this work are intellectual and practical. He challenges how the affluent think about their duties to the poor, and tries to demonstrate that their ideas very likely stand in need of serious revision (Singer 2009, xiii). He seeks to move the affluent to give more of their income to help the poor (Singer 2009, xiii). Singer reaffirms in this book his view that while the attitudes of affluent people toward world poverty can be explained, they are unjustified. People are imperfectly rational, have Bioethical Inquiry (2009) 6:239–247 DOI 10.1007/s11673-009-9159-0