The next post under our new sections format comes from the blog’s resident philosopher, Sara Habibipour. Philosophy is full of complex questions designed to make you think. Sara explores here a thought-provoking moral quandary.–First Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Shay

By Philosopher Editor Sara Habibipour

Imagine one day you’re walking across a park on your way to work. As you walk past a pond, you see something splashing in the water, even though it’s quite shallow. When you look closer, you find that the thing flailing in the water is a small child who isn’t tall enough to stand up in the pond. You look around for a parent, but there’s no one to be found; it’s just you and the child. 

Of course, your first thought is to go save the child. After all, the pond is shallow, and it would pose no risk for you to just walk in and help them. But, you’re in your fancy work clothes that cost hundreds of dollars. And, if you stop to help the drowning child you’ll be late for work (and wet all day). Maybe you should just forget about helping the kid… 

Of course not! Almost everyone would agree that it would be immoral for you to just walk past a drowning child and not help, especially if your only reason is to preserve your fancy clothes. 

So, let’s apply this same logic to a starving child in Africa. You know that children are dying everyday from malnutrition, disease, and other preventable causes. So, if you’re not helping to save some of these children, by withholding your money from organizations trying to make a difference, then are you really all that different from the person who walks past the child drowning in the pond? 

Peter Singer, the creator of this thought experiment, would say, No, you’re not different. 

With everything that you buy that you don’t really need, you are making the choice between donating the sum you spend and buying whatever item you personally don’t need. That Starbucks coffee you had this morning? Based on the premise of this thought experiment, that could be seen as a selfish deed. Well, why not spend and donate? Sure, you can. Unfortunately, none of us have infinite bank accounts, so it might be easier said than done. 

But, when will we know when we’ve done enough? When will we get to stop living in guilt? 

In Singer’s book, The Life You Can Save, he suggests exact percentages based on income he thinks people should donate in order to have a balance between personal spending and helping someone in need. And, according to him, this can help you live a good life. 

But, allow me to insert my own opinion on what it means to live a good life.

Of course, we should all do our best to help those in need, whether it’s a human in front of us or a human across the world. As a person who hopes to become a physician and travel to underdeveloped countries to give medical services, I would agree with Singer that it’s important, even our moral duty, to help those in need. 

But, living a good life shouldn’t be confined to donating a certain percentage of your income. To know if you’ve lived a good life, ask yourself, “Did I try to make the world a better place? How did I do that? Did I try and reduce somebody’s suffering?” You don’t have to do something crazy to say you’ve lived a good life. Maybe you rescued a dog or you gave food to a homeless person–that would be considered reducing somebody’s suffering. 

But, it also shouldn’t just be a “one and done” sort of deal. If you gave someone a dollar once, I would consider that a good moment, not necessarily a good life. But, if you try to implement these good moments (and whatever that may mean to you) regularly throughout your life, then you can say you’ve lived a good one.

Have your morning Starbucks. Treat yourself once in a while; you shouldn’t have to feel guilty about that. Just do something to regularly help others, and that’s when you’ll know that you’ve lived a good life. 

First Editor-in-Chief: Elizabeth Shay