Oceans Away

Peter Singer's article discussed what our obligations are to help people who are less fortunate than ourselves. He used a couple different metaphors to explain his point. Both metaphors, the one in which the woman has to decide whether or not to take back a boy she unknowingly gave to an organ peddler and the one in which the man has to decide whether or not to save his car or a distant child from a runaway train, can be easily compared to our personal decision of whether or not to give our money away to help dying people. However, it is hard for people to see it that way. We consider the woman a monster if she does not take the boy back and the man evil if he chooses to save his car over a child. Yet it is not often that people choose to give their money away to charities that could save a child's life instead of spending it on themselves. The children seem so far away that they hardly exist in our minds and we are always doubtful that our money will even do anything to help them. We are also stuck in the mindset that we don't need to give away our money because other people will do it for us. Why give $200 to a charity if someone across the country will give that charity $1,000? Someone else will always make up for our shortcomings. With that mindset, no money will ever be donated to charity and thousands of children's lives will not be saved. We all hope that we would choose to save the child over our car, but it's easy for us to say that while sitting at home on a nice couch with oceans obstructing our view of the endangered children. I agree with Singer's general argument, a privileged person does have an obligation to give a portion of money away to those who need it much more than them. But I don't know how much they should be obliged to give. As someone who lives off of my parents' income, it is harder for me to know what a good amount is. But I like the analogy of giving a substantial amount of money away to parts of Bob's body being amputated by the train. Eventually, the privileged person will no longer be living a comfortable life. If their life is more comfortable than the dying person in another country, should they continue to  give more? I'm not sure that I know the answer.