World Hunger and PovertYThe devastation caused by the lndr.docx

World Hunger and PovertY
The devastation caused by the lndran
()cean tsunami disaster in December 2004
prompteo
massive relief elTorts by many natrons
n"i'Jing g"n"to" Oonations from many individuals'
In 2005, pans ofAlabama, Louisiana'"ani
f'Ait'i'iippi *"t" A"vastated by Hurricane Katrina'
leaving many people without tood' *0"'' "r""tti"itv'
u"1, ll]"1^Ylli ]"*ntlv'
in Octobcr
2012, Hurricane Sandy devastated fo tiun'
oi ttt"
-Cutibboan'
as well as the mid-Atlantic'
and northeastern Uni,"o stut"', "uuii
3 tuny A"utt"' d"'ttoying
home^s and businesses' and
arain leaving survivo$ without b^i" i"""tJit"t etcording
to a 2008 report by the World

Bank. 1.4 bitlion of the wodd's poi"iuttn livos
in extreryLp9y94y"-*rhich it defines as
not having enough income t 'n""'
i"";t rnou basic neud(aFese disasters and the World
Bank's statistics call attention to the fr'ct
that disease' famine' poverty'.and displacement
are
widespread evils that especially attlict ti"-""onotni"ufly
aisadvantaged and may afflict those
who live in relativety *"ultny "ountri,
,. Moral reflection on hunger' poverty'
and other such
;"'t"s';;;;i; ;" i"ilowing iuestions about the obligations of
those more affluent count'es
and their cltlzens:
. Are economically advantaged p:ople morally required
to participate in a sclreme ol
redistribulion so lhat
".lrn"
orini 'li"urtt'
go"' to p"opt" *tto are severely economically
disadvantaged?
. Itso, whatbest explains this obligation?

Onc way in which we can think abcut these
questions is by focusing on the widely recog-
nized duty of benelicence or ctrarrtll"Jiiln
is rougt'ty thc duty to help ihose in dire
need'
1. TFIE DUTY OF BENEFI(IENCE
Lct us assume thcre is a duty of berrelicence'
and let us assume furthcr tha: th" o"tl':-i
ia"lr""""l""tt fbr those who arc in a position to help others
Thcrc are three questrons
we can raise about this duty. r'lr.t, ,ft*J it ,ft" guestion
of scoPe-to whom is this duty
owed?Assuming {or the sake ofsir plicily that
wi are concernedjust with members o[the
current worltl population *tto ut" 'l n""i oi help' does this
obligation extend to distant
strangers? The second question is ut'out-t-tte
ity'i /jo/ltijnt-for those who can afford to do
318
2 Thcor) Mccts Practicc 643
so, how mucb are they morally required
to sacrifica? The third qucstion is about

Jlr€xBtlr-
how strong is one's obligation t" ;il;;;; ; need when
doing so conflicts with other
moral duties (such as educaong to";i """ "ftifAry'{t).a1f
wittr various nonmoral roasons'
for- acti on 'including the pursult t' t"r' t-o""ti* hobbies.or
various artistic e'ndgav-ors?
one can imagiie'a.v"'y tt'ong auif oi b')nbficence
according to which the economically
advantaged havc an uutigution to uii ;i"* "^ni"g"O
i"oi"iOuaG worldwide' which requires
not only that they ru.'iti"" o g'"ut u;ou; oi *tt'ut
tb"y now have inan effort to help those
in neerl. but also that this oUtigatrol toi"tf i' u' *'ong
as any conJlic(ing duty they might
have. On the other huno' on" "un "utit"y
i' t'"g*t '
t"t;l tog^t-t}lll:1'O"t "
tuch weaker
duty of beneficence ulong on" o' to'" ol tlie Lhree dimcnsions
just described'
1
i

2. THEORY UEEIqIBAClicll
)I
d
d
1S
ld
re
SE
ES
of
llv
og-
t.
rsa
.rons
duty
,f the
rhrce main theoreticar approaches tolh;, il:fi ] ['J:',h::l:l?l,f
#[1il:J"T?:"iffin this chapter's selections: conseq
moral theory. Let us consider them
in or( cr'
Consequenti alism
A purely consequentialist moral theory of

Ihe sort described in chapter 1' section
2A' is
iliH*'i:'":'"i*:tffi x":strlil;*l;m6p*LH:ff IiT'::::l
^ul"i
ii*.v consequences' *:1*
i r",i:1, $T:i:;:Tilf fffi?,""Til"*iifi
lll,i"".:lijj;il''J;i.lilt"l'l#fiY;,,;'";;;,iiv reads ro.ramine'
Neo-Marthusians'
il$?^n";:l"irll?#ilfs$::,";f
"**6r*ff
i"lffi "l1i1T"ffi
:.;i
population growth will r"ua to rnuJ".'
po""''if unA iuti* This analysis of laminc and
f.T':il;:"-fi [:,-;:ll;$l ]:T"i'Ji''":l;ru:;*l ::ii:fi iif; #litrijftri l:
li''ff ',*1'i"'-"Hmll';;::XfiTlfi'ffi"i,'g:i:'l"l.*'whonowhave
[i;xTil"r:-#*{:lxjll*lhtlrx:"r*tp;{Ji;'^.' ir
;;0"0.il;;;;;,, ror him, the scoPe' :T[:lillil;'ffXl"il"Jii;;;;; in such.
aid.
:ll::'1, J:,:l:' i fi HTll+.;;lf JI;:: ::f **:.,:f '":'"tml"; l;,".",t:
""!:,"i:l;:::i,'J"il?it"lill"i;;';;;'.Ti"ipGii"'"
i"
"eedliom
abroadrv consequen-

,i"ri,, p",,pJ",i'"-.{.'t'* "'1;;;'; ;l*:m:y::t*:$: :Tff,"r'fi ,[:].*Hi:
il:",?;,illH"iF:ltili"r1j1*{l*i,',ffi " jJJJ#**f Y','**l'n:l:
now enioY an alfluent lifb and u
stant
to do
319
CHAPTER 14 ' WORLD HUNCER AND POVERTY
significance have a rnoral obligation to help thcse
in need.As.singer points out' the scope'
content, and strength of the duty to help would r:quire
a radical revision in how most people
currently think about their obligations to others ln need
Another broadly consequential;t approach o moral
questions about world hunger and
poverty allows for the idea that rrghts in general and property
rights in particular have intrin-
il"
""i ""i
i*, instrumental uuiu" (ftt'" idea that rights trav.e.9nlf.
instrumental value is
p"-rtr"p, itt"'t"., common view of ights tteld by
consequentialists) But'
as Amartya Sen

points out in one of our setectrons, recignizing r hi intrinsic
value of a right does not rule out
:;;r;il;; ;" consequences of adheri"ng to tl e right Sen's iclea is
that in thinking about
"", "Uiig"fi""t
a heli those in need' wJneed to cinsider both the intrinsic value
of
hold-
ing somc property right as wcll as the overall value
of the consequences of adhering to that
right. On this basis' Sen makes a case tbr the nroral
justifica(ion of redistribution of wealth
in preventing tamine.
Ethics oJl'rina Focie DutY
According to an ethics of prima facie duty, thinliing
about world hunger and poverty requres
that we consider r,.rou. "o.p".ing
frirnu fu","
juties. Suppose,we grant that those living
in affluence have u duty to tt"tp ull-"uiate thc c
/ils of poverty and starvation (Arguably' we
might have this duty e',en ii tnose to whom it is owed
have no moral right against those who

are in a position to help.) From th; theoretical perspectivc'
we have. all sorts of prima t'acie
duties-ncgative duties not to rnlure, lie' and b
eak promises' as well as such positiv€ duties
as self-improvement and bcneticence' When t!'
o or more of these prima facie duties conflict
in some circumstan"", *" ttuu" to J""iOe which of them is
overriding
and tbus which ofthem
is one's all-things-considereO ouiy in that cilcu lstance
This in turn requires that we think in
detail about our crrcumstances aridcarefully
reigh the relevant strengths of our prima facie
obligations.
Kontian Moral TheotY
Kant de1'ended the claim that we have a duty
of beneficence-a duty to help at least some
of those in need on at least 'orn"
o""u'ion'
'E
"cause
it is up to thosc who are in a position
to help to decide when and fto* to-tufntf ttti' duty-its

fulnltment involves a good deal of
latitude_Kant clair"a tnut ou. Jury oib"n" i""n""
is a wide duty. (By contrast, duties to
",ft"ra
i" *u i"ni", h*m and duties fo ourselv(rs to not commit suicide
are among the nanow
duties-iuties that do not inuottJin" tinO of futitua"
for choice that is characteristio of our
wide obligations )' Wttut o ttt" u^i'-in-fant;s theory
for the wideduty of beneficence? In her
article, Onora o'Neiff
"*pruint
tituitt'" tfotanity io'tutution of Kant's fundamental
moral
prin"ipt"-ttt"
"ut"gorical
imperative-requir ls that wenot treat others as mere
means to our
l*"
"'"0, ""0
,ttu, ie positively treat others a; ends in themselves' It is this
second'
posrtrve
Dart of the categoricut itp"'utiut tttut' u"lord'ng to O'Neill'

is the basis for our wide duty of
t"n"Ii""n"e, which she explains and defends
NOTE
l. For more on the distinction bctween wide arld narrow duty in
Kantian
moral theory, see chapter
1. section 2C
-e
No ger
vival 01
Inevital
througt
empha:
Spacesl
cipal ar
we rep
past wi
forconl
oufs to
ing poll
Unf,
used to
these is
a partic
error be
(Hardir
becaust
From Ga

320
Ha RrrN . Lil(hoir Erhics
G,rnnrrt HenotN

Lifeboat Et}ics
According to Hardin, in thinking about hunger and poverty as
moral issues, it is useful to
:hilk
ol them in. term.s of the merlphol of a lifeboat.
'Each
,i"t nutioi i, to oe thought of aloccupying a lifeboat full of
comparativ:ty rich people, *h"r"u.
"^"h
poo, natlon is thought
,"-f :: l lil:b"il conraining mostty reta ivety poor peopte. eut in
,n"J" ,"_r, rhe quesrion
l:":Pj,:!1iqi:.l.do
rich passengers in one boar have ro their poorer counterparts in
rhetess tortunate boats? Hardin rejects esscntially Christian and
Marxist appr.oaches that wouldrequire rich nations to herp poor
ones. because he thinks that their irtrmatety unrearistic
approachcs to solving problems of huniler ancl
poverty_problems of overpopulation_will
lead to what he calls ,,the tragedy of th r commons.,, i"li"g

"n
lr."",L y consequentialisr
penpec.tive, Hardin argues that given thc Jikery disastrous ov-
era consequences ofrich criun-tries aiding poor countries, the
moral imrlicarion is-that the aflueni oug'f,t not to t,elp people
rn counrles where overpopulation cannot realistically be
brought undei control.
Recommended Readfug: consequenti.rlism, chap. i. sec. Zal
No generation has viewed the problem of the sur_
vival of the human species as seriously as we have.
Inevitably, we have entered thjs world of conc,:rn
through the door ofmetaphor. Environmentalists hi.ve
emphasized the image of the earth as a spaceship_
Spaceship Ear.th. Kennerh Boulding ( 1966) is the or n_
cipal archirect ol this metaphor. It is time, he savs. tjrat
we leplace the wasteful ..cowboy economv..of the
past with the frugal "spaceship economy..requir:d
Ibrcontinued survival in the limited world we now see
ours to be. The metaphor is notably useful in iustilv-
ing pollution control measures.
Unfortunately, the image of a spaceship is al;o
used to promote measures that are suicidal. One :f
thesc is a generous irnrnigration policy, which is only
a particular instance of a class of policies rhat are n
enor because they lead to the tragedy ofthe commors
(Hardin 1968). These suicidal policies are attractir e
because they mesh with what we unthinkingly tal e
to be the ideals of "the best people." What is miss_
ing in the idealistic view is an insistence that rishts
and responsibilities musl go together. Th" ..g"naro-ur,.
attitude of all too many people results in assenins

inalienable rights while ignoring or denying marchi
rng responsibilities.
For the metaphor of a spaceship to be correct
the aggregate of people on board would have to be
under unitary sovereign control (Ophuls 1974). A
true ship always has a caplain. It is conceivable that
a ship could be run by a committee. But it could
not possibly survive if its course were determined
by bickering tribes rhat claimed righrs without
responsibilities.
What about Spaceship Earth? It certainlv has no
captain, and no executivc committee. rThe Unitea
Nations is a toothless tiger, because theiignatories of
its charter wanted it that way. The spaceihip metaphor
is used only tojustify spaceship demarlils on common
F.om Carrett Hardin, ,.Living on a Lifeboat,,' Sc ience 24
(l:/4). Re{lnted by pennjssion.
321
(A16 CHAPTER I4 ' WORLD HUNCERAND PO/ERTY
resources without acknowledging correspondilg
spaceship responsibilities.
An understandable fear of decisive action leads
peopletoembrace"incrementalism"-movingtoward
reform in tiny stages. As we shall see, this strate ly
is counterproductive in the area discussed here il it
means accepting rights before responsibilities. Wht re

human survival is at stake, the acceptancc of respon ii-
bilities is a precondition to the acceptance of rights if
the two cannot be introduced simultaneously.
LIFEBOAT ETHICS
Before taking up certain substantive issues let us lo lk
at an alternative metaphor, that ofa lifeboat. In dev'rl-
oping somc relevant examples the following numeri-
cal values are assumed. Approximately two{hilds
of the world is desperately poor, and only one-th rd
is comparatively rich. The people in poor countr es
have an average per capita GNP (Gross Natiotral
Product) of about $200 per year; the rich, of ab('ut
$3.000. (For the United States it is nearly $5'0001'er
year.) Metaphorically, each rich nation amounts tr) a
lifeboat full of comparatively rich people. The pt'or
of the world are in other, much more crowded li c-
boats. Continuously, so to speak, the poor lall out
of their lifeboats and swim lbr a while in the waLcr
outside, hoping to be admitted to a rich lifeboat, or
in some other way to benefit from the "goodies" on
board. What should thc passengers on a rich lifebr)at
do? This is the central ploblem of "the ethics oi a
lifeboat."
First we must acknowledge that each lifeboal is

effectively limited in capacity. The land of evory
nation has a limited carrying capacity. The exlct
limit is a matter for argument, but the energy crur ch
is convincing more people every day that we hi'vc
already exceeded the carrying capacity of the la rd.
We havc been living on "capital"- stored petrole rm
and coal-and soon we must live on income alonc
Let us look at only one lifeboat-ou$. The ethiral
oroblem is the same for alt, and is as follows. H:re
we sit. say 50 people in a lileboal. To bc generous, lct
us assume our boat has a capacity of l0 more' mak-
ing 60. (This, however, is to violate the engineering
principle of the "salbty factor." A new plant disease
or a bad change in the weather may decimate our
population if we don't preserve some excess capac-
ity as a safoty factor)
The 50 ofus in the lifeboat see 100 others swim-
ming in the water outside, asking for admission to the
boat, or lor handouts, How shall we respond to their
calls? There are sevcral possibilities
One. We may be tempted to lry to live by thc
Christian ideal of being "our brother's keeper," or
by the Marxian ideal (Marx 1875) of "from each
according to his abilities, to each according to his
needs." Since the needs of all are the same, we take
all the needy into our boat, making a total'qf 150 in
a boat with a capacity of 60. The boat is swampcd,
and everyone drowns. Complete justice, complet€

catastrophe.
frro. Sinca the boat has an unussd cxcess capaclty
of 10, we admitjust l0 more to it. This has the disad-
vantage of getting rid of the safety factor, for which
action we will sooner or later pay dearly Moreovcr,
wric& 10 do we let in? "First come, first served"?The
best 10? The neediest 10? How do we discininate?
And what do we say to the 90 who are excluded?
Iiree. Admit no more to the boat and preserve the
small safety factor'. Survival of the people in the life-
boat is then possible (though we shall have to be on
our guard against boarding parties).
The last solution is abhorent to many people. It is
unjust, they say. Let us grant that it rs.
"I fcel guilty about my good luck"' say some. The
reply to this is simplet Get out andyieldyour place lo
orrel,r. Such a selfless action might satisfy the con-
science ofthose who are addicted to guilt but it would
not change tbe ethics of the lif'eboat. The needy per-
son to whom a guilt-addict yields his place will not
himself feet guilty about his sudden good luck (lf
he did he would not climb aboard ) The net rcsult
of conscience-stricken people relinquishing their

unjustly held positions is the elimination of their
kind of conscience from the lifeboat. The lifeboat'
as it were, purifies itself of guilt The ethics of
lifeboat persist, unchanged by such momentary
aberrations.
I
I
mak-
enng
;easc
: oul'
apac-
wim-
to the
, therr
'y fte
,I," Or
each
to his
e takc
150 in
mped,
nplete
.pacitY

disad-
which
teoverj
"? The
inate?
:d?
rve the
he lifc-
rbeon
)le. It is
ne. The
2lace to
he con-
t would
)dy Per-
will not
uck. (If
)t result
rg their
of their
lifeboat,
)s of the
mentary
This then is the basic metaphor within whicl wc
must work out our solutions. Let us enrich the in ase
step by slcp with subsrantive additions from the rcal
world.
HAnr)rN . Lileboat Ethics 647
Each American would have more than eight people
to share with. How could the lifeboat possibly keep

afloat?
All this involves extrapolation of current trends
into thc l'uture, and is consequently suspcct. Trends
may changc. Cranted: but the change will not neces_
sarily be favorable. If-as seems likely-the rate of
population increase falls faster in the ethnic group
presently inside the lifeboat than it does amons those
now outside, the future will lurn out to be euen-*orse
than mathcmatics predicts, and sbaring will be even
more suicidal.
RUIN IN THE COMMONS
The fundamcntal enor of the sharing ethics is lhat it
leads to the tragedy ofthe commons. Under a system
of private propefly the man (or group of men) who
own property recognize their responsibility to care
for it, for if they don't they will eventually suffer. A
farmer, for instance, if he is intellig€nt, will allow
no morc cattle in a pasture than its canying capacity
justifies. Ifhe oyerloads the pasture, weeds take ovel
erosion sets in, ahd the owner loses in the lons run.
But if a pasture is run as a commons open-to all,
the right of each to use it is not matched by an oper_
ational responsibility to takc care of it. It is no use
asking independent herdsmen in a commons to act
responsibly, for they dare not. The considerate hcrds-
man who reliains from overloading rne commons
suffers more than a selfish one who says his needs
are greater. (As Leo Durocher says, ,,Nice guys finish
last.") Christian-Marxian idealism is countemroduc_
tive. That it sounds nice is no excuse. With distri_
bution systems, as with individual morality, good
intentions are no substitute lbr good performance,

A social system is stable only if it is insensitive
to errors. To the Christian-Marxian idealist a selfish
person is a sort ol "error." Prosperity in the system
of the commons cannot survive enors- lf everyone
would only restrain himself, all would be well; but
it takes only one less than everyone to ruin a sys-
tem of voluntary restraint. In a crowded world of less
REPRODUCTION
The harsh characteristics of lifeboat ethics are heir:ht-
ened by reproducrion, parricularly by reproduc.ive
differences. The people inside the lifeboats of the
wealthy nations are doubling in numbers every g7
years; those oubide are doubling every 35 years, on
the average. And the relative difterence in prosperity
is becoming grcater
Let us, for a while, think primarily of the U.S. lif.e_
boat. As of 1973 the United States had a popuiat on
of 210 million people, who were increasing by 0.liZo
per year, that js, doubling in number every g7 yea.s.
Although the citizens of rich nations are out_
numbefed two to one by the poor, let us imagine an
equal number o1'poor people outside our lifeboat-_a
mere 210 million poor people reproducing at a quite
different rate. If we imagine these to be the con-
bined populations ofColombia, Venezuela, Ecuad rr,
Morocco, Thailand, Pakistan, and the pbilippin,:s,
the average rate of increase ofthe people ,,outside,. is
3.3Ea Wr year. The doubling time of this populati,)n
is 2l years.
Suppose that all these countries, and the Unit,)d

States, agreed to live by the Marxian ideal,,,to ea,:h
according to his necds," the ideal ofmost Christians rs
well. Needs, ofcourse, are determined by population
size, which is aflected by reproduction. Every nation
regards its rate ofreproduction as a sovereign right, lf
our lileboat were big enough in the beginning it mig rt
be possibf e to livefor a while by Christian-Marxii n
id,eals. Might.
Initially, in thc model given, thc ratio of non-
Americans to Americans would be one to one, But
consider what the ratio would be 87 years later. By
this time Americans would have doubled to a populir_
tion of420 million. The other group (doubling evely
2l years) would now have swollen to 3,540 milliorr.
323
648 CIIAPTEII I4 ' WORLD LII.INCER AND POVERTY
than perfect human beings-and we will never know
any other-mutual ruin is inevitable in the commons.
This is the core of the tragedy of the commons. . .
WORLD FOOD BANKS
In the international arcna we have recently heard a
proposal to create a ncw colnmons, namely an inlcr-
national depository of food reserves to wbich nations
will contribute according to their abilities, and fiom
which nations may draw according to their needs.
Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug has lent the Prestigc

of his name to this proPosal.
A world food bank appeals powerfully to our
humanitarian impulses. We remember John Donne's
celebrated line, 'Any man's death diminishes me."
But before we rush out to sec ibr whom the bell tolls
let us recognize where the greatest political push for
international granaries comes from, lest we be disil-
lusioned later. Our experience with Public Law 480
clearly reveals the answer. This was the law that moved
billions of dollals worth of U.S. grain to food-short,
populationJong countries during the past two decades
When PL.480 lirst came into being, a headline in the
business magazine Forbes (Paddock 1970) revealed
the power behind it: "Feeding the World's Hungry
Millions: How it will mean billions for U.S business."
And indeed it did. In the years [960 to 1970 a
total of $7.9 billion was spent on the "Food for
Peace" program, as PL.480 was called. During the
years of 1948 to 1970 an additional $499 billion
were exlracted liom American taxpayers lo pay for
other economic aid programs, some of which went
for food and fbod-ploducing machincry. (This figure
does not includc military aid.) That PL. 480 was a
give-away program was concealed Recipient coun-

tries went through the motions of paying for PL. 480
food-with IOU's. In December 1973 the charade
was brought to an end as far as India was concerned
when the United States "forgave" India's $3.2 bil-
lion debt (Anonymous 1974). Public announcement
of the cancellation of the debt was delayed for two
months: one wonders whY. . . .
What happens if some organizations budget for
cmergencies and others do not? If each organization
is solely responsible for its own well-being, poorly
managed ones will suffer. But they should be able to
learn from experience. They have a chance to mend
their ways and learn to budget for infrequent but cer-
tain emergencigs. The weather, for instance, always
varies and periodic crop failures are certain. A wise
and competent government saves out of the produc-
tion ofthe good years in anticipation ofbad years that
are sure to come. This is not a new idea The Bible
tells us that Joseph taught this policy to Pharaoh in
Egypt more than 2,000 years ago. Yet it is literally
true that the vast majority of the governments of the
world today have no such policy. They lack either the
wisdom or the competence, or both. Far more diffi-
cult than the transfer of wealth from one country to
another is the transfer of wisdom between sovereign

powers or between generatlons.
"But it isn't thcir tault! How can we blame the
poor people who are caught in an emergency? Why
must we punish them?" The concepts of blame and
punishment are inelevant. The question is, what are
the operational consequences ofestablishing a world
food bank? lf it is opcn to cvcry country every time a
need develops, slovenly rulers will not be motivated
to take Joseph's a{vice. Why should they? Others
will bail them out whenever they are in trouble.
Somecountrieswill makedeposits in the world food
bank and others will withdraw from it: there will be
almost no overlap. Calling such a depository-transler
unit a "bank" is stretching the metaphor of bdnt
beyond its clastic Iimits. The proposers, of coursc,
never call attention to the metaphorical nature of the
word they use.
THE RATCHET EFFECT
An "international food bank" is really, then, not a
true bank but a disguised one-way transfer devica
for moving wealth liom rich countl ies to poor. In the
absence of such a bank, in a world inhabited by indi-
vidually responsible sovereign nations, the populati0n

'.324
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whe
warl
bles
t for
ation
cofly
)le to
rend
t car-
ways
wise
oduc-
's that
Bible
roh ln
erally
of the
1er thc
: diffi-
rtry to
ereign
ne the

? why
ne and
hat are
r world
' time a
)tivated
Others
le.
rld fbod
will be
tlansfer
f bank
course,
-e of thc
/ "O^vcrp_oputation": _ ___* ,,Emergency
safety factor exhausted /
TIGURE I4.I
ol' each nation would repeatedly go through a cy'le
of (he sorl shown in Figure 14 l. P2 is greater than
P,. either in absolute numbers or becausc a deterio.a-
tion of the food suppty has removed the safety fac or
and produced a dangerously low ratio of resourt es
to population. P2 may be said to tepresent a state ol
overpopulation, which becomes obvious upon lho

appearance of an "accident," c.g ' a ctop
failure lf
the "emergency" is not met by outside help' the p('p-
ulation drops back to the "normal" level-the "car-
rying capacity" of the environmcnt-or even bek 'w'
ln the absence ol population control by a sovereirln,
sooner or later the population grows to P2 again i nd
the cyclc repeats. Thc long-term population cu ve
(Hardin 1966) is an iregularly fluctuating one, eqrril-
ibrating more or less about the carrying capacity
A demographic cycle of this sort obviously
involves great suffering in the restrictive phase, cut
such a cycle is normal to any independent coul.'try
with inadequate population control. The third cent rry
theologian Tertullian (Hardin 1969) expressed '! hat
must have been the recognition of many wise n)en
when he wrote: "TIle scourges of pestilence, famrne,
wars, and earthquakes have come to be regarded irs a
blessing to overcrowded nations, since they serv() to
prune away the luxuriant growth of the human ra(e "
Only under a strong and farsighted sovereigr)-

which theoretically could be the people themsel"es'
democratically organized -<an a population cqt'ili-
brate at some set point below the carryrng capa( lty'
thus avoiding the pains normally caused by perit'dic
and unavoidable disasters For this happy state t(' be
achieved it is necessary that those in power be abl: to
contemplate with equanimity the "waste" of surltlus
It^ nr)r N ' Lifcboat Ethics
food in times ofbountiful harvests. It is essential that
those in power tesist the temptation to convert extra
tbod into extra babies. On the public relations level
it is necessary that the phrase "surplus food" be
replaccd by "safelY factor."
But wise sovereigns secm not to exlst ln tne poor
world today. The most anguishing problems are crc-
ated by poor countries that are governed by rulers
insufficiently wise and powcrlul. If such countries
can draw on a world food bank in times of "emer-
gency," the population cycle of Figure 14 1 will be

ieplaced by the population escalator of Figrre 14'2'
The input of lbod from a tbod bank acts as the pawl
ofa ratchet, preventing the population from retracrng
its steDs to a lower level. Reproduction pushes th€
population upward, inputs lrom the world bank pre-
vent its moving downward. Population size cscalates,
as does the absolute magnitude of "accidents" and
"emergencies." The process is brought to an end only
by lhe total collapse ofthe whole system. producing a
catastrophe of scarcely imaginable proportions'
Such ale the implications of the well-mcant
sharing o[ food in a world of irresponsiblc tepro-
duction.,..
To be generous with one's own possessions is one
thing; to be generous with posterity's is quite another'
This, I think, is the point that must be gotten across
to those who would, from a commendable love of
distributive iustice, institute a ruinous system of the
commons. . . ..
If the argument of this essay rs correct, so long as

there is no true world govcrnment to control rcproduc-
tion everywhere it is impossible to survive in dignity
if we are to be guided by Spaceship ethics Without
P2
P,
)n, not a
:r device
or. In the
I by indi
rpulation
325
CHAPTER 14 . WORLD HUNGER AND POVI RTY
P3 ------> "Pmg1 '66qY
l
I
--l
--------t- L,merqencY +, I
(lnput from
world food bank)
FIGURE 14.2
a world government that is sovereign in reproductivr:

matters mankind lives, in fact, on a number of sov'
creign lifeboats. For the foreseeable future survival
demands that we govern our actions by the ethics of.r
lifeboat. Posterity will be ill served if we do not.
REFERENCES
Anonymous. 1914. WaLl Sffeet Journal 19 Feb.
Boulding, K. 1966. The economics of the comin-I
spaccshipearth. InH. lafieLl, ed. Etlvitonment.rl Quatily i I
a Crowittg Econom;, Johns Hopkins Ptess' Baltimore
(And so on . , .)
t
Pa
-
r- "Emergcncy"
-+-^1i
I tlnput from
P"
1
Pl
(lnput from
world food bank)
world food bank)
Hardin, G. 1966. Chap.9 in Biology: lts Principles 1ttd

Inlrlications,2nd ed. Frccman. San Francisco
-.
1968. Thc tragedy of the commons. Science
162:1243-1248.
-.
1969. Page 18 in Population, EvoLution, and
Bi h Conrrol,2nd ed. Frceman, San Francisco.
Marx, K. 1875. Critique of the Golha program, PaEe
388 in R. C. Tucker, ed.'l'he Marx-Engels Reade, Notton,
N.Y, 1972.
Ophuls, w. 1974. The scarciiy society. Harper's 248
(148't): 41 -52.
Paddock, W C. 1970. How green is the gteen revolu'
tion? B ioscience 2O- 89'7 -9O2.
I
1.
READING QUESTIONS
l. What arc the problems with the metaphor ol Earth as a
space$hip according to Hardin?
2. Explain Hardin's lifeboat metaphot and the hree possible
responses that we might take toward the
ethical problems it suggests.

3, why does Hardin reiect lhe first response tc the ethical
lifeboat Problem? How does he respond to
those who claim that the third possibility is rnjust?
4. why does Hatdin think that an internalional food bank is an
implausible solution to the problem of
world hunger and poverty? what is the.'ratchet effect" and how
does it 6gure into his objections
and proposed solution to the problem?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
L Consider whether Hardin's lifeboat metaph )t represents a
plausible underslanding of the way the
nations of the world can or do operate. Are there any ways in
whicb the metaphor could or should
be modiRed?
326
S'NcI'rr ' Thc LiliYou Can Savc
ls Hardin correct to as$ume that the implcm( ntation of
something like an internetional
food bank
would result in a vicious cycle of oveipopulation accompanied
by emergency scenajios?
Consider
some ways that a world food bank coukj )perate more

successfully in order to
p'event such
disasters.
651
Persn SlNcen
I he Lile Iou -an Jave
ts and
iience
4, And
. PaEe
{orton,
|s 248
revolu-
ln this excerpt from his 2009 book, ?fte Lift You Can Save,
Singer presents a basic
argument
ior ttre claim that in not donating to human aid organizations,
those in a
financial position
io ao .o t" acting immorally-an argumcnt he originally advanced
in. his influential 1972
articte,

,.famine,;.itluence, and Morality." In the following selection,
Singer presents recent
"*firi"uf
o*u uiout poverty and affluence' and he also resPonds to various
obiections
to his
basic argument that he has encountered ovt)r the years'
Recimmended Reaiing: consequentiali ;m, chap l' sec 2A'
I, SAVING A CHILD
On your way to work, you pass a small pond On hot
davs. children sometimes play in the pond, which is only
about knce-deep. The weather's cool today, though. ard
the hour is early, so you are surprised to see a chi d
sDlashing about in lhe pond. As you get closer' yt u
sce that lt is a verv voung child, just a loddler' who s
flailins about, unable to stay upright or walk out of tlLe
pond. You lool for the parcnts or bahysitter. but thcre rs
no one else around. The child is unable to keep his her Ll
above the water for more than a few seconds at a tiltlg'
lfyou don'twadein andpullhim out, heseems likely o

drown- Wading in is easy and safe, but you will ruin tlre
new shoes you bought only a few days ago' and get yo rr
suit wet and muddy. By thc time you hand the child
From peter Singer, Ths Life
yu Can Save (New Yorkl Ranc om House, 2009). Reprinted with
pemission of tho
author
over to someon€ responsible for him, and chaDge 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 poveny. 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 con-
sider 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 tbis hypotheti-
cal situation actually occuned 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'
327
652 CHAPTEII I4 ' WORLD HUNGERAND POVERTY
Anglers managed to pull Bethany out, but by then
Jordon could no longer be seen. They raised the
alarm. and two police community support officers
soon arrived; they refused to enter the pond to find
Jordon. He was later pulled out, but attempts at rcsus-
citation iailed. At the inquest on Jordon's death, the
olhcers' inaction was defended on the grounds that
they had not been traincd to deal with such situ-
ations. 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
bc trained to.iump in after a drowning child "l
I think it's sal€ to assume that most people would
asree with lhe mother's statement But consider
tliat, according to UNICEF, nearly 10 million chil-

dren under five years old die each year lrom causes
rclated to poverty. Here is just one case, described
by a man in Ghana to a researcher fl om the World
Bank:
Take the death ofthis small boy this morning, for exam-
ple. 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' nol
of meastes but out of PovertY'z
Think about something like that happening
27,000 times every day. Some cbildren die because
they don't have enough to eat More die, like that
sm;ll boy in Ghana, from measles, malaria, and
diafrhea, conditions that either don't exist in
developed nations, or' if they do, are almost never
fatal. The children are vulnerable to these dis-
eases because they have no safe drinking water'
or no sanitation, and because when they do fall ill'
their Darents can't affbrd any medical treatmenl'
UN[CEF, Oxfam. and many other organizalions
are working to reduce poverty and provide clean

water and basic health care, and thcse efforts are
retlucing the toll lf the relief organizations had
more money, they could do more' and more lives
would be saved.
Now think about your own situation Bydonating
a relatively small amount of moncy, you could save
a cbild'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 or
drinks, meals out, clothing, movles' concerts, vaca-
tions, new cars, or house renovation ls it possi-
ble 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 havc
saved?
PovertyTodaY
A few years ago, the World Bank asked researchers
to listen to what the poor are saying. They wore able
to document the experiences of 60,000 women and
men in seventy-three countdes Over and over, in

different languages and on different continents, poor
people said that poverty meant these things:
. You are shon of food for all or part of the year,
often cating only one meal per day' sometlmps
having to choose between stilling your child's
hunger or your own, and sometimes being able
to do neither.
. You can't save money. tf a family member falls
ill and you need money to see a doctor, or if
the crop fails and you have nothrng to eat' you
have to borrow from a local moneylender and
he will charge you so much interest as 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 scbool, you have to take thern
out again if the harvesl is Poor'
. You iive in an unstable house, made with mud
or thatch that you need to rebuild every two or
thrce years, or aiter 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 poveny is not only a condiiion of unsat'
isfied material nceds. It is oflen accompanied by a
degrading state of powerlessness Even in countries
thalt are dimocracies and are relatively well governed'
respondents to thc World Bank survey described a
range of situations in whicb they had to accept humil'
iation without protest. If someone takes what little
yor
not
yot
vad
pro
Yolr
wol
sno
hav
nee
itati
fam
Ing
Bar
inte
mor

ton
latit
per
ther
Tha
thar
is n'
't .9
abor
no4
b", ,
mill
gro
'Asir
198
mill
whe
ts tn
redu
ther,
Chit
regll
'distr
the ,
Afri'
.r Ir
may
tnes
328

l
I
vaca-
lossl-
such
vou have, and you complain to the police, they
ma /
not listen to you Nor will the law necessarily prote( t
you from rape or sexual harassment You have a per-
vading sense ofshame and failure because you cann( t
provide lor your childrcn Your poveny traps you' an I
vou lose hopc ol cvel cscaping frorn a life of harl
work for which, at the end, you will have nothing to
show beYond bare sulvival
l
Tbe World Bank defines extremc poverty as n('t
having enough income to meet the most basic
human
needs for adequate food' water, shelter' clothing' sart-
itation, healtlr care, and education Many people
are

familiar with the statistic that 1 billion people are
li"-
ins on less than one dollarper day Thatwasthewor d
Ba'nk's poverty line until 2008, when better data
('n
international price comparisons enabled it to make
a
more accurate calculation of the amount people ne(:o
to meet their basic needs On thebasisof this calc-t-
lation, the World Bank set the poverty line at $l il5
oer dav, The number of people whose income
pl ts
ir'"rn ,nd". this line is not 1 billion but 1 4 billicn'
That there are more people living in extreme
povet ly
than we thought is, ofcourse, bad news' but the
nevs
is not all bad. On the same basis, in 1981 there w(re
1.9 billion people living in extrcmc poverty' That
was
about four in cvery ten people on the planet' whercas

now lewer (han one in four are extremely
poor'
South Asia is still the region with the largest nu
n-
ber ofpeople living in extreme poverty' a total of
600
rnillion, including 455 million in India Econonttc
gro*tftiut, tto*"u"r, reduced thc proportion of Sorl|"h
isians living in extreme poverty from 60 percent tn
fSgf ,o +Z lercent in 2005' There are another
380
million extremcly poor people in sub-Saharan Afri:a'
where halfthe populadon isextremely poor-and t rat
is the same percentage as in 198I The most drami'trc
reduction in poverty has been in East Asia' althotLgh
there are still more than 200 million extremely
p )or
ihin"r",
"nd
smaller numbers elsewhere in the
rcgion. The remaining extremely poor people are
aiit.iUoteO around the world, in Latin America tnd

the Caribbean, the Paciflc, the Middle East' N('rth
Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia
a
In resoonse to the "$ 1 25 a day" ngure' the tho!
ght
tuu .roi, your mind thal in many developing cr un-
tries. it is possible to live much more cheaply lhan
STNGER ' Thc LlfcYou Can Savc 653
in the industrialized nations Perhaps you have evcn
done it yourself, backpacking around the world' liv-
inn on les, than you would have believed possible
SJyou may imagine that this level of poverty is less
"*tieme
than it would be if you had to live on that
amount of money in lhe United States, or any indus'
trialized nation. Ifsuch thoughts did occur to you'
you
should banish them now' because theWorld Bank
has
already made the adjustment in purchasing power:
lts figures refer to the number of people existing on

a rlaiiy total consumption of goods and services-
whether earned or home-grown-comparable to the
amount of goods and services that can be bought
ln
the United Statcs for S 1.25'
In wealthy societies, most Poverty is rolatrve
Peoole feel poor becausc many of the good things
thev sce advenised on (elevision are beyond lhcir
Uuin"t-Uu, lhey do have a television ln the Uniled
Staties, 9? 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 alr-
conditioning. Three quarters of them have a VCR
or
ovO orut"i. All have access to health care
s I am
not quoti;g these figurcs in order to deny that lhe
poor in the Unjtcd States face genuine difficulties
fr*".th"l"rr, for most, thes€ difficulties arc of a dif-
lerent order than rhose of the world's poorest

pcople'
The 1.4 billion people living in extreme Poverty
are
poor by an absolute standard tied to the most baslc
'hurnanneeds.
They are likely to be hungry for at least
part of each year. Even if they can get enough food
io fill their stomachs, they will probably be malnour-
irn"a t"""ur" their diet lacks essential nutricnts ln
children, malnutrition stunb growth and can
cause
oerrnanent brain damagc' The poor may not be
able
lo affbrd to send their children to school Even rnini-
mal health cate setvices are usually beyond their
means.
This kind of poverty kills Life expectancy rn rlcn
nadons averages seventy-eight years; in the
poorest
nations, those officially classified as "least devol-
op",l," it i. b"lo* fifty.6 In rich countries' fewer than

one in a hundred children die before the age of
five;
in the poorest countries, one in five does And
to the
UNICbF figure of nearly 10 million young children
dying every year from avoidable' poverty-related
/, you
have
rchers
e able
rn and
rer, in
i, pool
l year,
3times
:hild's
g able
:r falls
r, or if
it, you
er and
re debt
be free
;chool,

e th€m
th mud
two or
rinking
rg way,
)ss you
f unsat-
:d by a
)untries
,verncd,
:ribed a
i humil-
Lat little
329
651 CHAPTER I+ ' WORLD IIUNGEIT AND POVERTY
causes, we must add at least another 8 nlillion older
children and adults.?
AflluenceToday
Roughly matching the l 4 billion pcople living in
extreme poverty, there are about a billion ]iving at
a level of affluence never previously known except
in the courts of kings and nobles. As king of France,
Louis XIV the "Sun King," could alford to build the

most magnificent palace Europe had ever seen, but
he could not keep it cool in summer as effectively
as most middle-class people in industrialized nations
can keep their homos cool today. His gardeners, for
all their skill, wcrc unable to produce the variety of
fiesh fruits and vegetables that we can buy all year-
round. If he developed a toothache or tbll ill' the best
his dentists and doctors could do lbr him would makc
us shudder,
But we're not iust better off than a Frcnch king
who lived centuries ago. We are also much better off
than our own greatgrandparents. For a start, we can
exDect to live about thirty years longer A century
ago, one child in ten died in infancy Now, in most
rich nations, that figur€ is less than one in two hun-
dred.8 Another tolling indicator of how wealthy we
are today is the modest number of houls we must
work in order to meet our basic dietary needs Today
Americans spentl, on average, only 6 percent of
their income on buying food. If they work a forty-
hour week. it takes them barely two hours to eam
enough to feed themselves for the week. That leaves
lar more to spend on consumer goods, entertalnment,

and vacations.
And then we have the supenich, people who
spend their money on palatial homes, ridiculously
large and luxurious boats, and private planes Before
the 2008 stock market crash trimmed the numbcrs,
there were more than 1,100 billionaires in the world,
with a combined net wonh of $4 4 trillion
9 To catcr
to such peoplo, Lufthansa Technik unveiled its plans
for a private configuration of Boeing's new 787
Dreamliner In commercial service, this plane will
seat up to 330 passengers. The private version will
carry 35, at a price of $150 million. Cost aside, there's
nr)thing like owning a really big airplane carryrng a
srnall nurnber of people to maximize youl personal
contribution to global wanning. Apparently, there
are already several billionaires who fly around in
pr ivate commercial-sized airliners, from 747s down.
Llrry Page and Sergey Blin, the Google cofounders,
r( po edly bought a Boeing 767 and spent millions
li ting it oul for their private use.r0 But for conspicu-
o rs waste of money and resources it is hard lo beat
Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian-Amerlcan telecommu-
n cations enlrepreneur who paid a reported $20 mil-

lirn tbr eleven days in space. Comedian Lewis Black
srtid on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show that Ansari did
it because it was "the only way she could achieve her
life's goal offlying over every single starvlng person
on earth and yelling 'Hey, look what I'm spending
nrY money on !"'
While I was working on this book, a special adver-
tising supplementlell outofmy Sunday edition ofTfre
It ew York Times: a sixty-eight'page glossy magazine
filled with advertising for watches by Rolex, Patek
Philippe, Breitling, and other luxury brands. The
a Js didn't carry price tags, but a puff piece about the
r,:vival ofthe mechanical watch gave guidance about
tlre lower end of the range. After admitting that inex-
pensive quartz watches are extremely accurate and
frnctional, the article opined that there is "something
engaging about a mechanical movement." Right, but
l^ow rnuch will it cost you to have lhis engaging some-
tlring on your wrist? "You might think that getting

i rto mechanical watches is an expensive proposition'
t-ut there are plenty ol' choices in the $500-$5000
rrnge." Admittedly, "these opening-price-point mod'
els are pretty simple: basic moYement, basic time
r isplay, simple decoration and so on." From which
/e can gather that most of the walches advertised
: re priced upward of $5,000, or more than one hun-
r red times what anyone needs to pay for a reliable,
i ccurate quartz watch. That there is a market lbr such
t,roducts-and one worth advertising at such expense
tJ the wide readership of The New York Times--ts
r nother rndicarion oI lhe affluence of our society
ll
If you're shaking your head at the excesses o[
the superrich, though, don't shake too hard. Think
rrgain about some of the ways Americans with aver-
irge incomes spend their money. In most places in the
United
glasses
a penn.
$1.50 c

concetl
lnto prr
still bul
3r billi
many o
fee at h
dollars,
said yes
or glass
Dr Tim
erment-
14 perct
food tht
of date.
aged or
Accordi
in the l.l
Deborat
owns m(
not worl
ure may
and won
which w
Most
hesitate r
do it at cr
sands of
things w,
they werr
our oblig
2. IST
Bob is
savingl

which l
pnde ar
ing anc
market
yrng a
rsonal
there
rnd in
down-
lnders,
illions
rsprcu-
io beat
)mmu-
l0 mil-
iBlack
;ari did
;ve hel
person
ending
Ladver-
r of The
rgaz lne
, Patek
ls. The
)out the

e about
at inex-
ate and
nething
ght, but
g some-
getting
,ositlon,
,-$5000
nt mod-
;ic time
n which
vertised
rne hun-
reliable,
for such
expense
lmes-rs
:iety.rr
esses of
C. Tbink
ith aver-
)es in the
United States, you can get your recommended r:isht
glasses of warer a day out ol the tap for less tian
a penny, while a bottle of water will sct you rack
$1.50 or more .12 And in spite of the environm,:ntal
concerns raised by thc waste of energy that loes
into producing and fansporting it, Americans are
still buying bottled water, to the tund of more than
3l billion liters in 2006.13 Think, too, of rhe way
many of us get our caffeine fix: you can make coi-
tbc at home for pennies rather than spending t rree
dollars or more on a lattc. Or have you ever casuaily

said yes to a waiter's prompt to order a second soda
or glass of wine that you didn't even finish? r& hen
Dr. Timothy Jones, an archaeologist, led a U.S. 11ov_
erment*funded study of food waste, he found that
l4 percent of houschold garbage is perfectly good
food that was in its original packaging and not out
of date. More than half of this food was drypr ck_
aged or canned goods that keep for a long tinc.
According to Jones, $100 biliion of food is war ted
in the United States every year,14 Fashion desipner
Deborah Lindquist claims that the average wol tan
owns more than $600 worth of clothing that she has
not worn in the last year,ls Whatever the actual ls_
ure may be. it is fair to say that almost all of us, r,Jn
and women alike, buy things we don,t need, somr of
which we never even use.
Most of us are absolutely certain that we wouk n't
hcsitate to save a drowning child, and that we world
do it at considerable cost to ourselves. yet while th,ru-
sands of children die each day, we spend moncy on
things w€ take for granted and would hardly notic,: if
they were not there. Is that wrong? Ifso, how far dr)es
our obligation ro th€; poor go?
lrNc!R ' Thc Lileyou Can Savc
comfortably ailcr retirement. One day when Bob is out
for a drive, he parks lhe Bugatti near the end of a rail_
way siding and goes for a waik up the tfack. As he does
so, he sees that a runaway traio, with no one aboard, is
rolling down the railway track. Looking farther down
the track, he secs the small figure ofachild who aDDears
ro be absorbcd in playing on the tracks. Obliuious io rhe
runaway train, the child is in great danger Bob can,t
stop the train, and the child is too fa. away to hear his

warning shout, but Bob can throw a switch that will
dive.t the train down the siding where his Busatti is
parked. If he docs so. nobody will be kilted, bur th; train
will crash through the decaying barrier at the end ofthe
siding and destroy his Bugatti. Thinking of his joy in
owning thc car and the financial security it represents,
Bob decides not to throw the switch.
The Car or the Child?
Philosopher Peter Unger developed this variation
on the story of the drowning child to challenge us to
think furlhcr about how much we belicve wc shoutd
sacrifice in order to save the life of a child. Unser,s
story adds a factor often crucial to our thinkins Jout
real world poveny: uncertainty about the outcome ot
our sacrifice. Bob cannot be certain that the child will
die if he does nothing and saves his car perhaos at
the lasl moment rhe child will hear the train and leao
to safety. ln the same way, most of us
"un
,urnron
doubts about whether the money we give to a charity
is really helping the people it's intended to help.
In my experience, people almost always respond
that Bob acted badly when he did not throw the
switch and destroy his most cherished and valuable
possession, thereby sacrificing his hope of a finan-
cially secure retirement, We can,t take a serious
risk with a child's life, they say, merely to save a
car, no matter how rare and valuable the car may
be. By implication, we should also believe that with
the simple act of saving money for retirement, we

are acting as badly as Bob. For in saving money for
retirement, we are effectively refusing to use that
money to help save lives. This is a difficult imolica-
tion to confront. How can it be wrong to save for a
comfortable retircment? There is, at the verv least.
something puzzling here.
2, IS ITWRONG NOTTO HELP?
Bob is close to retirement. Hc has invested most of ris
savrngs tn a very rare and valuable old car, a Busa ti.
which he has not been able to insure. The Bugatti is ris
pride andjoy. Not only does Bob get pleasurefrom dr v-
ing and caring for his car, he also knows that its risils
market value means that hc will bc able to sell it and U vc
331
656 CHAPTER I4 . WORLD HUNCEIT AND POVERTY
Another example devised by Unger tests the level
of sacrifice we think people should make to alleviate
suffering in cases when a life is not at stake:
You are driving your vintage sedan down a country
lane when you are stopped by a hiker who has seriously
injured his leg. lle asks you to take him to the near-
est hospital. lf you rellse, there is a good chance that
he will lose his leg. On the other hand, if you agree to
take him to hospital, he is likely to bleed onto the seats,

which you havo recently, and expensively, restored in
soft white leather.
Again, most people respond that you should drive
thc hiker to the hospital. This suggests that when
prompted to think in concrete terms, about real indi-
viduals, most of us consider it obligatory to lessen
the serious suffering of innocent others, even at some
cost (even a high cost) to ourselves
16
The Basic Argument
The above examplcs reveal our intuitive belief that
we ought to help others in need; at least when we
can see them and when we arc the only person in
a position to save lhem. But our moral intuitions
are not always reliable, as we can see from varia-
tions in what people in different times and places
find intuitively acceptable or objectionable. The case
lbr helping those in extreme poverty will be stronger
if it does not rest solcly on our intuitions. Here is
a logical argument from plausible premises to the
same conclusion.
First premise: Suffering and death from lack offood'
shelter, and medical care are bad
Second premise: Ii it is in your power to prevent
somelhing bad from happening, without sacrificing

anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.
Third premise: By donating to aid agcncies, you can
prevenl suffering and dealh from lack of food, shelter'
and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly
as important.
Conclusion: 'Ihcrefore, if you do not donate to aid
agencies, you are doing somcthing wrong.
The drowning-child story is an application of this
argument for aid, since ruining your shoes and being
lrLte tbr work aren't nearly as important as the life of
a chitd. Similarly, reupholstering a car is not nearly
a.; big a deal as losing a leg. Even in the case ofBob
and the Bugatti, it would be a big stretch to sug-
gest that the loss of the Bugatti would come close to
r valing the significance of the death of an innocent
netson.
Ask yourself if you can deny the premises of the
afgument. How could suffering and death from lack
cf food. shelter, and medical care not be really, realJy
l-.ad? Think of that small boy in Ghana who died of
nrcasles. How you would feel if you were his rnother
cr fatheq watching helplessly as your son suffers and
grows weaker?You know that children often die from

tlris condition. You also know that it would be cur-
able, if only you could afford to take your child to
a hospital. In those circumstances you would give
up almost anything for some way of ensuring your
child's survival.
Putting yourself in the place ofothers, like the par-
€nts of that boy, or the child himself, is what thinking
ethicatly is all about. It is encapsulated in the Golden
Ilule, "Do unto others as you would haYe them do
r nto you." Though the Golden Rule is best known to
r rost westemers liom the words of Jesus as reported
ty Matthew and Luke, it is remarkably universal,
t eing found in Buddhism, Confucianism' Hinduism,
I.llam, and Jainism, and in Judaism, where it is found
i r Leviticus, and later cmphasized by the srge HillellT
"he Golden Rule requires us to accept that the desires
r,[others ought to count as if they were our own. Ifthe
(Lesires ofthe pa-rents ofthe dying child w€re our own,
,ve would have no doubt that their suffering and the
tleath of their child are about as bad as anything can
lre. So if we think ethically, then those desires must
r ount as i[ lhey were our own' and we cannot deny
rha( lhc sulTering and death are bad.
The second premise is also very difficult to rqect'
lrecause it leaves us some wiggle room when it comes
lo situations in which, to prevent something bad, we

,vould have to risk something nearly as important as
rhc bad thing we are preventing. Consider, for exam'
l)le, a situation in which you can only prevent the
rleaths of other children by neglecting your own chil-
rlren. This standard does not require you to plevent
rhe deaths of the other children.
'1
delib
with(
ably
know
as im
to de(
to fin,
about
Rescu
throwi
ofa cl
the on
ferent
The ar
the dr(
at youl
need, i
toana
means
reasoni

3. C(
GIVII
Charity
found tl
audiencr
seen tt ir
rnterestir
prevalen
by stude
Justice a
a school
reading f
cle that I
ing out a
and asker
Seider, th
researchir
to others,
sections o
332
fe of
early
'Bob
sug-
)se to
ocent
cf the

r lack
really
ied ot
rother
rs ano
e fiom
Je cur-
hild to
d glve
g your
he par-
rinking
Golden
rcm do
lown to
eported
riversal,
nduism,
is found
Hillelli
l desires
rn.Ifthe
cur own,
; and the
hlng can

res must
not deny
to relect,
r itcomes
I bad, we
lortant as
for exam-
.event the
own chil-
lo prevent
"Nearly as important" is a vague term. That s
deliberate, because I'm confident that you can (o
without plenty of things that are clearly and inargrt-
ably not as valuable as saving a child's life. I don't
know whatyoa might think is as important, or near y
as important. as saving a lifc. By lcaving it up lo y( u
to decidc what those things are, I can avoid the ne( d
to find out. I'll trust you to be honest with yourself
about it.
Analogies and stories can be pushed too fir
Rescuing a child drowning in liont of you, at d
throwing a switch on a railroad track to save the li b
of a child you can see in thc distance, where you a e
the only one who can save the child, are both dil-
ferent fiom giving aid to pcople who are far away.
The argument I have .just presented complemenls
the drowning-child case, because instead of pullit'g
at your heartstrings by focusing on a single child n
need, it appeals to your reason and seeks your asse'lt

to an abstract but compelling moral principle That
means that to reject it, you need to find a flaw in tlrc
reasoning... .
3. COMMON OBJECTIONS TO
GIVING
Chadty begins at home, the saying goes, and l"re
found that friends, colleagucs, students, and lectufe
audiences exDress thatresistance in various ways.I' ie
seen it in columns, lefters, and blogs too. Particula ly
interesting, bccause they reflect a line of thought
prevalcnt in affluent America, were comments ma' le
by students taking an elective called Literature artd
Justice at Glcnnview High (that's not its real nam(;),
a school in a wealthy Boston suburb. As part of t re
reading for the course, teacllers gave students an ar:i-
cle that I wrote for 7he New YorkTimes in 1999,lay'
ing out a version of the argument you havejust rel d,
and asked them to write papers in response.lE Sc,rtt
Sejder, then a gladuate student at Harvard Universrty
researching how adolescents think about obligations
to others, interviewed thi(y-eight students in tvo
sections of the course and rcad their papers.lg

S'Ncr:R ' The LifeYou Can Savt
Let's look at some of the objections raised by
these varied sources. Perhaps the most fundamental
objection comes from Kathryn, a Clennview student
who believes we shouldn't judge people who retuse
to grve:
There is no black and white universal code for every-
one. It is better to accept that everyone hos a differcnt
tiew on the issue, and all people are entitled to follow
their own belieJs.
Kathryn leaves it to the individual to determine
his or her moral obligation to the poor. But wbile
circumstances do make a difference, and we should
avoid being too black-and-white in our judgments,
this doesn't mean we should accept that everyone
is entitled to follow his or her own beliefs. That is
morat relativism, a position that many find attractive
only until they are faced with someone who is doing
something really, really wrong. If we see a person
holding a cat's paws on an electric grill that is gradu-
ally heating up, and when we vigorously object he
says, "But it's fun, see how the cat squeals," we don't
just say, "Oh, well, you are entitlod to follow your
own beliefs." and leave him alone. Wc can and do
try to stop people who are cruel to animals, just as
we stop rapists, racists, and terrorists. I'm not saying
that failing to give is like committing these acts of
violence, but if we reject moral relativism in some
situations, then we should re.iect it everywhere.

After reading my essay, Douglas, another
Glennview student, objected that I "should not have
the right to tell people what to do." ln one sense, he's
conect about that. I've no right to tell you or any-
ooe else what to do with your money' in the sense
that that would imply that yot have lo do as I say.
I've no authority over Douglas or over you. On the
other hand, I do have the right of free speech, which
I'm exercising right now by offering you some argu-
ments you might consider before you decide what to
do with your money. I hope that you will want to lis-
ten to a variety of views before making up your mind
about such an imponant issue. If I'm wrong about
that, though, you are free to shut the book now, and
there's nothing I can do about it.
It's possible, of course, to think that morality is
not relative, and that we should talk about it, but that
658 CHAP'TER 14 ' WORLD HUNCER AND POVERTY
the light view is that we aren't under any obligation
to give anything at all. Lucy, another Glennview High
student wrote as follows:

IJ someone wants lo buy a new car, they slrould. If some"
ohe wants to rcdecorate their house, they slxould' 1nd if
rhey need a suit. |cl it. 'they wor| for lhetr moncy 1nd
they have the tilht to spen.l it on then$elves....
Lucy said that pcople have a right to spend the
money they earn on themselves. Even if we agree
with that, having a riSrt to do something doesn't set-
tle the question of what you shoukl do lf you have
a right to do something, I can't justiflably lbrce you
not to do it, but I can still tell you that you would be
a fool to do it, or that it would be a horrible thing to
do, or that you would be wrong to do it. You may
have a right to spcnd your weekend surfing, but it can
still be true that you ought to visit your sick mother'
Similarly, we might say that the ch have a right to
spcnd their money on lavish parties, Patek Philippe
watches, privatejets, luxury yachts, and space travel'
or, for tbat matter, to flush wads of it down the toilet'
Or that those ofus with more modest means shouldn't
be forced to forgo any of the less-expenslve pleasures

that otfer us some reliel from all the time we spend
working. But we could still think that to choose to do
these things rather than use lhe money to savc human
lives is wrong, shows a deplorable lack of empathy,
and means tbat you are not a good person -
Libertarians |esist the idea that we have a duty
te help others. Canadian philosopher Jan Narveson
articulates that Point of view:
We are ce ainly resPonsible for evils we itlfict otr oth'
e$, ro ttl.^fier whetc, and we o1'9e those people cotn'
pensation ..Neverlheless, I have seen no Plausible
ateumcnt that we owe somclhinS asafid erofgeneral
dity, to those to whorn we have done nothing wrong'ztl
There is, at first glance, something attractive about
the political philosophy that says: "You leave me
alone. and I'll leave you alone, and we'll get along
just fine." It appeals to tlre frontier mentality, to an'ideal
of life in the wide-open spaces wherc cach of
us can carve out our own territory and live undis-
turbcd by the neighbors. At first glance, it seems
perfectly reasonable. Yet there is a callous side to a

philosophy that denies that we have any responsibili-
lier to those who, through no faull oltheir own, are in
ner d. Taking libertarianism seriously would require
us o abolish all state-supported welfare schemcs for
those who can't get a job or are ill or disabled, and
all itate-funded health care for the aged and lbr those
who are too poor to pay for their own health insur-
anr e. Few people really support such extremc views'
M(,st think that we do have obligations to those we
car, help with relatively little sacrifice--certainly to
thc se living in our own country, and I would argue
tlrat we can't justifiably draw the boundary there. But
if I have not persuaded you of that. there is another
lin : of argument to consider: lf we have, in fact, been
at cast in part a cause of the poveny of the world's
po,)rest people-if we are harming the poor-then
evr:n libertarians like Narveson will have to agree
thi t we ought to compensate them. . . . There are many
ways in which it is clear, however, that the rich have
ha|rned the poor. Ale Nodye knows about one of
th( m. He grew up in a village by the sea, in Senegal,
in West Africa. His father and grandfather were fish-
enncn, and he hied to bc one too But after six years

in which he barely caught enough fish to pay fbr the
fuol lbr his boat, he set out by canoe for the Canary
Islands, from where hc hoped to become another of
Europe's many illegal immigrants lnst€ad, he was
arrested and deported. But he says he will try again'
ev )n though the voyage is dangerous and one of his
cousins died on a similar trip. He has no choice, he
sa rs, because "there are no fish in the sea here any-
m,:re." A European Commission report shows that
Nodye is right: The fish stocks from which Nodye's
tarher and grandfather took their catch and fed their
fa nilies have been destroyed by industrial fishing
llc cts thal come from Europe, China, and Russia and
sc I their fish to well-fed Europeans who can aflord
to pay high prices. The industrial fleets drag vast nets
acfoss the seabed, damaging the coral reefs wherc
fish breed. As a result, a major protein source forpoor
pe ople has vanish€d, the boats are idle, and people
w ro used to make a living lishing or building boats

ar: unemployed. The story is repeated in many other
ct astal areas around the world
?r
Or consider how we citizens of rich countries
olrtain our oil and minerats. Teodoro Obiang' the
dictator
country
Exxon lr
cial salar
of 550,0
He ownr
Malibu,
Cape To
and Bent
Iive in ex
ty-nine a
one mou
in twelve
Guinea i.
almostas
Congo er
this, irs t
was surel
not the p€
more that
for each ,
ofAngola
expectanc
d ies befor
Internatio
is currentl

In their
ing coun0
people wh
ference th;
recognlzef
session of
goods thel
profitable
tors, and f
other raw I
ity. But fol
disaster. TI
wealth tha
of tha nati(
nch deposr
than other
resources.
sale of the r
tive for any
and seize p
,ribili-
are in
)quire
es for
l, and
' those
insur-
views.
)se we
inly to

argue
re. But
rnothel'
:t, been
,vorld's
-then) agree
e many
:l have
one of
ienegal,
:re fish-
ix years
r fbr the
CanarY
other of
he was
y again'
re of hts
roice, he
rere any-
ows that
Nodye's
fed ther
rl fishing
ussia and
an afford
, vast nets
:fs where

e for Poor
rd peoPle
ling boats
lany other
countries
biang, the
dictator of tiny Equatorial Cuinea, sells most ol his
country's oil to American corporations, among tlrem
Exxon Mobil, Marathon, and Hess. Although his , rffi-
cial salary is a modest $60,000, this ruler ofa cou rtry
of 550,00O people is richer than Quecn Elizabet)r II.
He owns six private jets and a $35 million house in
Malibu, as well as other houses in Maryland and
Cape Town and a fleet of Lamborghinis, Ferr;rris,
and Bentleys. Most of the people over whom he r rles
live in extreme poverty, with a life expectancy of for-
ty-nine and an infant mortality of eighty-seven per
one tlrousand (this means that more than one child
in twelve dies beforc its first birthday).?2 Equat(,rial
Guinea is an exhome case, but other examples arc
almostasbad.In 2005, the Democratic Republic o the
Congo exported minerals worth $200 million. F om
this, its total tax revenues were $86,000. Somconc
was surely making money from these dealings, but
not the people ofthe Congo.23 In 2006, Angola rr ade
more than $30 billion in oil revenue, about $2,500
for each of its 12 million citizens. Yet the majt rity
ofAngolans have no access to basic health care; life
expectancy is fbrty-one years; and one child in bur
dies before r:eaching the age offive. On Transpar€ncy
International's corruption perccption index, Anllola
is currently ranked l47th among 180 countries.
In their dealings with corrupt dictators in deve op-

ing countries, international corporations are aki r to
people who knowingly buy stolen goods, with the dif-
ference that the international legal and political o.der
recognizes thc colporations not as criminals in l)os-
session of stolen goods but as the legal owners oj the
goods they havc bought. This situation is, of colrsc,
profitable for corporations that do deals with dicta-
tors. and for us, since we use the oil, minerals, and
other raw materials we need to maintain oul pros ler-
ity. But for resource-rich developing countries, it is a
disaster. The problem is not only the loss of immt nse
wealth that, used wisely, could build the prosp( rity
of the nation. Paradoxically, developing nations ,vith
rich denosits of oil or minerals arc often worsc off
than otherwise comparable nations without tl ose
resources. One reason is that the revenue from the
sale ofthe resources provides a huge linancial in,:en-
tive for anyonc tempted to overthrow the governnrent
and seize power. Successful rebels know that if they
srrcrr. . Thc LilnYou Can Savc
succeed, they will be rewarded with immense per-
sonal wealth. They can also reward those who backed
their coup, and they can buy cnough arms to keep
themselves in power no matter how badly they rule.
Unless, of course, some of those to whom they give
the arms are themselves tempted by the prospect of
controlling all that wealth.. .Thus the rcsources that
should benefit developing nations instead become a
curse that brings conuption, coups, and civil wars.2a

If we use goods made from raw materials obtained
by these unethical dealings liom resource-rich but
money-poor nations, we are harming those who live
in these countrics.
One other way in which we in the rich nations are
harming the poor has become increasingly clear over
the past decadc or two. President Yoweri Museveni
of Uganda put it plainly, addressing the developed
world at a 2007 meeting of the African Union:
"You are causing aggression to us by causing global
warming....Alaska will probably become good for
agriculture, Siberia will probably become good for
agriculture, but where does thal leave Afr-ica?"25
Strong language, but the accusation is diflicult
ro deny. Tw()-thirds of lhe greenhouse gases now in
the atmosphere have come liom the United States
and Europe. Without those gases, there would be no
human-induced global warming problem. Africa's
confibution is, by comparison, extremely modest:
less than 3 percent ofthe global emissions from burn-
ing fuel since 1900, somewhat more if land clearing
and methane emissions from livestock production are
included, but still a small fraction of what has been
contributed by the industrialized nations. And while
every nation will have some problems in adjusting
to climate change, the hardship will, as Museveni
suggests, fall disproportionately on the poor in the
regions of the world closer to the equator. Some sci-
entists believe that precipitation will decrease nearer
the equator and increase nearer the poles. In any case,
the rainfall upon which hundreds of millions rely to
grow their food will become less reliable. Moreover,
the poor nations d€pend on agriculture to a fal'grcater

degree than the rich. In the United States, agricuiture
represents only 4 percent of the economy; in Malawi
it is 40 percent, and 90 percent of the population
are subsistence farmers, virtually all of whom are
CHAPTER I4 ' WORLD HUNCERAND POVER'TY
deoendent on rainfall. Nor will drought be the only
problem climate change brings to the poor' Rising
sea levels will inundate fertilc' densely settled delta
resions that are home to tens of millions of people
in Egypt, Bangladesh, India' and Vietnam Small
Pacific Islancl nations that consist of low-lying coral
atolls, like Kiribati and Tuvalu, are in similar danger,
and it seems inevitable that in a few decades they will
be submerged.26
The evidence is overwhelming that the green-
housc gas emissions of the industrialized nations
have harmed, and are continuing to harm, many ol
the world's poorest people-along with many richer
ones, too. If we accept that thoso who harm others
must compensatc them, we cannot deny that the
industrializcd nations owe compensation to many ol

the world's Poorest people. Giving them adequate
aid to mitigatc the consequences of climate change
would be one way of paying that compensation'
In a world that has no more capacity to absorb
greenhouse gases without the consequence of dam-
aging climate change, the philosophy of "You leave
me alonc, and I'll leave you alone" has become
almost imDossible lo live by, lbr it requires ceasing to
As 7o of CNI
l.l
1.0
0.9
0.8
o;7
put any more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Otherwise, we simply are not leaving others alonc'
America is a Senerous natiotr. As Americans' v/e are
alrea.ly Sieing more than out shnre of Joreign aid
thn>ugh our laxes. lt,l't that sullcient?

Asked whether the United States gives more' less'
or about lhe same amounl of aid. as a Pcrcentagc of
its income, us other wcallhy countries. only onc in
twenty Americans gave the correct answer' When
my st;dents suggest that America is generous in this
regard, I show them figures from the website of the
OECD, on the amounts given by all the organiza-
tion's donor members Thcy are astonished to find
that lhe united s(ates has. lbr many yea6, becn at or
near the bottom of the list of industrialized countnes
in tcrms o[ lhc proportion of national income given
as foreign aid. In 2006, the United States fell behind
Portugal and ltaly, leaving Greece as tbe only indus-
lrialized country lo give a smaller percentage of iis
national income in foreign aid The avemge naiion's
clfort in that year came to 46 cents of every $100 of
sross national income, while the unitcd states gavs
inly | 8 cents of every $ 100 it earned'
UN 'l arget 0.7

I
stat(
poor
to d,
their
a gJr
keet
Gon
defle
pove
liom
lnstil
tion,
erty,
pove
are e
and
order
erty .
rcduc
afy c
put y,
prom
systel
is litt
you a
a stra
some
Gir

Ia
food c
a drou
tobel
short
can m
in fror
States,
tive! f<
need t(
money
other n
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
Average countrY effort 0.46
"-J{Cu.s!r-.-"."r"""Js.-"d"{df
$."i"".t"J
IIGURE l4.l Ollicial Aid as a Percentage of Gross Nationr I
Income (2006)27
336

here.
ne.
'e afe
n aid
less,
ge of
ne in
Vhen
n this
)f the
rniza-
r find
lator
ntnes
glven
ehind
ndus-
of its
rtion's
t00 of
; gave
Philanthropic reqtonses undermine real Dol;.tical
change,
Ifthose on the right fear that I am encouraginjl the
state to seize their money and give it to the wodd's
poor', some on the left wory that encouraging thc rich

to donate to aid organizations enables them to salve
their consciences while thcy continue to benefit liom
a global economic system that makcs them rich and
keeps billions poor.28 Philanthropy, philosopher Paul
Gomberg believes, promotes "political quieti ;m,"
deflecting attention from the institutional causcs of
poyerty----essentially, in his view, capitalism- and
from the need to find radical alternatives to t lesc
institutions.29
Although I believc wc ought to give a larger por'-
tion of our income to organizations combating l)ov-
erty, I am open-minded about the best way to corrbat
poverty.3o Some aid agencies, Oxlam tbr exan ple,
are engaged in emergency relief, development aid,
and advocacy work for a fairer global econcmic
order. If, after investigating the causes ofglobal y,ov-
erty and considering what approach is most likely to
reduce it, you really believe that a more revolut on-
ary change is needed, then it would make senss to
put your time, energy, and money into organizat ons
promoting that revolution in the global economic
system. But this is a practical question, and if tlrere
is little chance of achieving the kind of revolu ion
you are seeking, thcn you need to look around fbr
a strategy with better prospects of actually hclJ,ing
some poor people.
Givhg people monel or food breeds dependency.
I agree that we should not be giving mone) or
food directly to the poor, except in emergencies ikc
a drought, ea tbquake, or flood, where food may nced
to be brought in to stop people from starving in the
sholt tcrm. In less tlirc situations, providing lrod
can make people dependent. If the food is shipred

in from a developed nation, for cxample the Un ted
States, it can destroy local markets and reduce incen-
tives for local farmers to produce a surplus to sell. We
need to make it possiblc for people to earn their (,wn
money, or to produce their own food and meet tlreir
other needs in a sustainable manner and by their r wn
Srrcrn ' The LiliYou Can Savc 661
work. Giving them money or fbod won't achieve that.
Finding a form of aid that will really help people is
crucial, and not a simple task, but as we'll see, it can
be donc.lr
Cash is the seed cotn ofcapitalian. GivitTS it away t,iu
reduce future Etuwth.
Gaetano Cipriano contacted me after read-
ing one of my articles becausc he thougbt that
as an entrepreneurial capitalist, he could offer a
helpful perspective. The grandson of immigrants
to America, he owns and runs EI Associates, an
engineering and construction firm based in Cedar
Knolls, New Jersey, that has assets of around $80
million. "Cash is the seed corn of capitalism" is
his phrase. Gaetano told me that he deploys his
capital to the best of his ability to promote profits
and enduring growth, and that giving more of it
away would be "cutting my own tlrroat." But he
does not spend extravagantly. "I do not live in a
splendid house," he told me. "I have no second
home. I drive a 2001 Ford Explorer with 73,000
miles. I belong to a nice squash club, and have four
suits and two pairs of black shoes. When I take
vacations they are short and local, I do not own a

boat or a plane." While he does give to charity, he
does it "at a level which is prudent and balanced
with sustainable growth." If he were to give much
more money away, it would have to come out of
sums that he now rcinvests in his business. That, in
turn, would reduce his future earnings and perhaps
the number of people he is able to employ, or how
well he can pay them. It would also leave him with
less to give if, later in life, he decides that he wants
to give more.
For similar reasons, we can agree that it's a good
thing Warren Bullett did not give away the first mil-
lion dollars he earned. Had he done so, he would not
have had the investment capital he needed to develop
his business, and would never bave been able to give
away the $31 billion that he has now pledged to
give. Ifyou are as skilled as Buffett in investing your
money, I urge you to koep it until late in life, too, and
then give away most of it, as he has donc. But pcople
with lcss-spectacular investment abilities might do
better to give it away sooner . . .
CHAPTER 14 . WORLD HUNCERAND POVERTY
lyhat if you took every penny you ever had and gave
it to tl& poor ofAfrico... ? What h)e ,,eould have is no
econony, no ability to generate new wealtlt or help
anybody,
This objection comcs from Colin McGinn, a profbs-
sor ofphilosophy at the University of Miami.32 Ir isn't
clear whether Mccinn's "you" is you, the individual
reader, or the group an American Southerner might

refer to as "y'all." Ifyou finsert your name], took every
penny you ever had and gave it to the poor of Africa,
our national economy would not notice, Even if every
reader ol'this book did tbat, the economy would barely
hiccup (unless the book's sales exceed my wildest
dreams). If everyone in America did it, the national
economy would be ruined. But, at the moment, there is
no cause for worry about the last possibility: there is no
sign of it happening, and I am not advocating it.
Because so few pcople give significant amounts,
the need for mor€ to be given is great, and the more
each one of us givcs, the more lives we can save. If
everyone gave significantly more than they now give,
however, we would be in a totally different situation.
Thc huge gulf between rich and poor means that if
everyono werg giving, there would bc no necd lor
them to take every penny they ever had and give it all
to Africa. As you'll sce bcfore the end of this book,
quite a modest contribution from everyone who has
enough to live comfortably, eat out occasionally,
and buy bottled water, would suffice to achieve the
goal of lifting most of the world's extremely poor
people above the poverty line of $1.25 per day. If
that modest contribution were given, we would no
longer be in a situation in which 10 million children
were dying from poverty every year. So whether a
small number of people give a lot, or a large number
of people give a little, ending large-scale extreme
poverty wouldn't cripple our national economy. It
leavcs plenty of scope for entrcpreneurial activity
and individual wealth. In the long run, the global
economy would be enhanced, rather than dimin-
ished, by bringing into it the |.4 billion peoplc now
outside it, creating new markets and new opportuni-
tics for trade and investment.

Peoplc do have special rclationships utith their
fanilies, their comntunities, and their counlries.
',-his is the standatd equipment of humanit!, and
ttost people, in all of human history, have seen
t othing wrong with it.tl
Alan Ryan, phiLxophet and w1nlen oJ
New Colkqa, Otford
It is true that most of us care more about our
family and friends than we do about shangers.
That's natural, and thcre is nothing wrong with
it. 1]ut how far should preference for family and
frields go? Brendan, a Glennview High student,
thought that instead of going to aid for the poor,
morrey "can be better spcnt helping your family
and friends who need the money as well." [f fam-
ify ,rnd friends really need the money, in anything
remotely like the way those living in extrcme pov-
erty need it, it would be going too much against the
grain of human naturc to object to giving to them
beft're giving to strangers. Fortunately, most mid-
dle-class people in rich nations don't have to make
this choice. They can take care of their families in
an (ntirely sufficient way on much less than they
are now spending, and thus have money left over
that can be used to help those in extreme poverty.
Adn)ittedly, saying.iusl. where the balance should
be sLruck is difficult. . . .
l-iernan, another Glennview High School student,
madc a poinr similar to Alan Ryan's.
I(";iving what we don't need to the poorl would make the

vorld a bette4 more equal place. But itis like a little kid
b ting a pack oJ c.ttrdy, keeping one piece, antl giving
tl e rest away. ltjust doesn't happen.
t he issue raised by all these remarks is the link
betr,r ecn what we humans are (mostly) like, and what
we (,aght to do. When Brendan O'Grady, a philoso-
phy student at Queen's University in Ontario, posted
a blr'g about this issu€, he got the following response
fron another Canadian philosophy student Thomas
Simrnons:
Ofcourse I do not want people lo die, but ljust feelgen-
erally unattached to them. I have no doubt that ifl were
t( take a ftip to placcs whcre people arc starving then
I night think ditferently, but as it stands now they are
jlst too far removed. ln not making these donations,l
arn implicitly valuing the afffuence of my own life over
rhe b:
I do.,
Whel
his posit
but rath(
just to e
describir
tobeisa
are sayin
commun
to save tl
ies, but it
peffpecri.
ancestors

NOTES
I. BBC
co.ukl2lhit.
2. Deel
Rademach(
Can Anyon
Oxford Uni
3, This i
in ibid., p. i
4. Work
Billion Liv(
Against Por
go.worldbar
on price dat
food prices
tne number
which the p
Martin Rav
Than We Tt
Against Pov
World Bank
Server/tW3P
9/Rendered/t
ror turth{
Sanjay Redd)
Poor," wwrv.
Ravallion,..H
and Pogge," v

5. Robert
Poverty in Ar
#17 13 Q{nq.
338
ut
's.
th
rd
lt,
)r,
1y
n-
ng
he
)m
id-
Lke
ln
ley
:ty.
uld
: the
, kid
,Lng

link
vnat
fso-
sted
)nse
mas
gen-
were
then
y afe
)ns, I
: Over
the basic sustenance of many others. And, well, I sues ;
I do. Am I immoral for doing so? Maybc.r.
When O'Crady queried this, Simmons clari{iet
his position: "I don't intend to make a moral defense
but rather just reveal my personal feelings_that is.
just to explain how I feel." The distinction between
describing how things are and saying how they oughl
to be is also relcvant to what Kiernan and Alan Ryan
are saying. The fact that we tend to favor our families.
communities, and countries may explain our failure
to sav€ the lives of the poor beyond those boundar_
ies, but it does notjustify that failure from an ethical
perspective, no matter how many generations of our
ancestors haye seen nothing wrong with it.
NOTES
l. BBC News, Seprember 21, 2007, hnp://news.bbc.
co.rk/Zhiluk_news/england/manchester/70064 I 2.stm_

2. Deepa Narayan with Raj patel, Kai Schafft, Annc
Rademacher, and Sarah Koch-Schulte. Voices of the poor:
Can Antonc Hcar Us./ publjsherl for the World Bank hv
Oxford University Press (New york.2000), p.36.
3. This is a compilarion of rhings said by the poor, cited
in ibid.. D.28.
4. World Bank Press Releaso, ,,New Data Show 1.4
Billion Live on l,ess Than US$l .25 a Day, But progress
Against Poverty Remains Strong," August 26, 200g, huD://
go.worldbank.org/ ToTEVOV4Eo. The esrimate is ba;cd
on price data from 2005, and docs not reflect increaseli in
food prices in 2008, which arc likely to have increased
the number below the pove.ty line. For the reseaich on
which th€ press release is based, see Shaohua Chen and
Maflin Ravallion, '"The Developing World Is poorer
Than We Thought, But No Lcss SuccesslLrl in the Fieht
Againsr Pove(y." Policy Research Working paper 40i3,
World Bank Development Research Group, August 200g,
www.wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContent
Scrver/lW3P/f B/2008 t08t26too0 I 58349
-20080826
I I 323
9/Rendered/PDF/WPS4703.pdf.
For furtier discussion of World Bank shtistics, see
Sanjay Reddy and Thomas Pogge, .,How Nor to Connt the
Poor," www.columbia.edu,/-sr793/count.pdf, and Martin
Ravallion, "How Nol to Count the poor: A Reply to Reddy
and Pogge." www.columbia.edu/-sr793/wbreply.pdf.
5. Robert Rector and Kirk Anderson, ..Understandine

Poveny in America." He.itage Foundation Backsroundei
fi | 7 I 3 (2004), wwr.hcritage,org/Rcscarch/We llarelhsl:- I 3.
rNGF.R . Thc Lifcyou Can Save 661
cth. Rector and Anderson draw on data available from the
2003 U.S. Census Burcau report on poverty and on various
orner government reports,
6. United Nations, Office of the High Representative
for the L€ast Developed Countries, Landlockedbeveloping
Counrries and the Small lsland Developing States,'anJ
World Bank, World Bank Development Data Group,
"Measuring Progress in Least Devcloped Countries: A
Sratisricat profite' (2006). rahles 2 a;d l, pp. l4_t5.
Available at www.un.org/ohrlV.
7. United Nations Development program, Hutnan
Development Report 2000 (Oxfofd Untversity press,
New York, 2000) p. 30; Human DeveloDmeht llenon
20Ol (Oxtotd University press. New york. 2001) pp.
9-12, p.22; andWotld Bank, World Deeetonment Renin
2000/2001, overview. p. J, , ww. worldbank.o tgpovcttyl
wdrpoverty/report/overview,pdf, for the other fi gures. The
Hunan Development Reports arc available atlltp://hdr.
undp.org.
8. James Rifey, Rising Life E pecrancy: A Clobal
girlory (New Yo.k: Cambridge University press, 2001);
Jeremy Laurance, ',Thirty years: Diffbfence in Lif.c
Expectancy Between the World's Rich and poor peooles.,,
T'he Independent (lJK), September 7, 2007.
9. "Billionaires 2008," Forbes,March 24,ZWg, www.
forbes.con/forhes/2008i/01 24l080.hrm L

10. Joe Sharkey, ..For the Super_Rich, lt's Time to
Upgrade the Old Jumbo," The New york Trnas, October
t't,2uk.
I I . "Watch Your'Iime," SpecialAdvertising Supplement
to The New york Times, Ocrobcr 14, 2007. The passage
quoted is on p. 40.
12. Bill Marsh,'A Battlc Between the Bottle and the
Faucet:' The New yorkl'imes, ]uly 15,2ffi7.
13. Pacific Institute, ..Bortled Warer and Energy: A Facl
Sheet," www.pacinst.org/topics/water_and_sustainability/
botr led_water/bottled water_and_energy.html.
14. Lance Cay, "Food Waste Costing Economy gl00
Billion, Study Finds," Scripps Howard News Service,
August 10, 2005, www.knoxstudio.con/shns/story.
cfm?pk=cARBAcE-08- I 0-05.
15. Deborah Lindquist, ,,How to Look Good Naked.,,
Lifetime Netwofk, Season 2, Epjsode 2, July 29,2009. As
relayed by Courtney Moran.
16. Peter Unger, Liviflg High and Letring Die (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996).
17. For funher discussion see peter Singef Ifie
Expanding Circle (Oxfordt Clarendon press. lggl).
pp. 136, 183. For futher examples, see www.unification.
nerws/theme015.htm.
339

564 CHAPTER I4 ' WORI-D HT]NGERAND POVERTY
18. Peter Singer, ''fhe Singer
Solution
toWorld Poveny,"
The New York Tines Sunday Mogazine, September 5, 1999.
19. Clennview High School is Seider's lictional name
for the school, and the names of the students are also
pseudonyms.
20. Jan Narveson, "'Wo Don't Owe Them a Thing!' A
Tough-minded but Soft-heartedView of Aid to the Faraway
Needy:'The Monist,86:3 (2003), p. 419.
21. Sharon Lafraniere, "Europe Takes Aliica's Fish,
and Boatfoads of Migrants Follow," The New york Titues,
January 14, 2008, and Elizabeth Rosenthal. "Europe's
App€tite for Seafood Propels Illegal T.ade," Ihe New Yotk
'f imes, J anuuy | 5, 20O8,
22. See LeifWenar, "Property Rights and the Resource

Ct$e:' Philosophy & Public Affairs 36:l (2N8), pp.2 32.
A more detailed version is available on wenat's websitel
www.wenar.staff .shef.ac.uk/PRRcwebpage.html.
23. P^rl Collie Tlrc Bouon Billion (New lork: Oxford
University Press, 2007).
24. See teonard Wantchckon, "why Do Resource
Dependent Countries Have Authoritarian Governments?"
Jounvl o.f African Finance and Ecoomic Developmetut 5:2
(2002), pp. 5?-771 an earlier version is available at www.
yale.edu/lcitner/pdf/1999- | I .pdf. See also Nathan Jenser
and Leonard riy'antchekon, "Resource Wealth and Political
Rcgimes in Africal' Compamtive Political Studies, 3'l
(2004), pp. 816-84 | .
25, President Museveni was speaking at the African
Union summit, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February 2007, and
the speech was reported in Andrew Revkin, "Poor Nations
to Bear Brunt a6 WorldWatms:'The NeuryorkTinres, April
l. 2007.

26. Andrew Revkin, op. cit., and "Reports from Four
Fr,)nts in the war on warmirg:'The New york'fines, April
3, 2007; Kathy Marks, "Rising Tide of Global Warming
Tlreatens Pacific Island States," The lndependen, (UK),
O( tober 25, 2006.
27. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
D( velopment (OECD), OECD Journal on Development:
D(vclopment Co-operalion Report 2007, p. 134, www
oe :d.orgldac/dcr The table is reproduced by kind per-
mijsion of OECD. See also Srdtittical Annex of lhe
2A)7 DeveLopnenl Co-opetution Report, vJvrw.o?ad.otg
da aoecd/521911893143. xls, Fig. le.
28. See, lbr example, Anthony Langlois, "Charity and
Ju.tice in the Singer

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