The Life You Can Save

How to end world poverty.

by Peter Singer

Helping the Poor

In the Christian tradition helping the poor is a requirement for salvation. Jesus told the rich man: "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor." To make sure his message wasn't missed, he went on to say that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Read More

Is It Wrong Not to Help? Part 2

The drowning child story is an application of the argument for aid I presented in my last post, since ruining your shoes and being late for work isn't nearly as important as the life of a child. Similarly, re-upholstering a car is not nearly as big a deal as losing a leg. Read More

Is It Wrong Not to Help? Part I

Bob is close to retirement. He has invested most of his savings in a very rare and valuable old car, a Bugatti, which he has not been able to insure. The Bugatti is his pride and joy. In addition to the pleasure he gets from driving and caring for his car, Bob knows that its rising market value means that he will be able to sell it and live comfortably after retirement. Read More

Affluence Today

Roughly matching the one billion people living in extreme poverty, there are about a billion living at a level of affluence never previously known except in the courts of kings and nobles. Read More

Poverty Today

A few years ago World Bank asked researchers to listen to what the poor are saying. They were able to document the experiences of 60,000 women and men in 73 countries. Over and over, in different languages and on different continents, poor people said poverty meant these things: Read More

The End of Poverty

If you saw a child in danger of drowning in a shallow pond, and all you had to do to save the child was wade into the pond, and pull him out, would you do so? When I ask my students that, they all say that they would. What if wading into the pond meant that you would ruin your most expensive pair of shoes? That wouldn't make any difference, they insist. Read More

Named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, Peter Singer is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University.

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