By: Remy Lapidus
In the New York Times on Sunday, U2 singer Bono wrote an editorial urging charity even during times of hardship. He explained that going to Church on Easter provides him with a new feeling of rebirth, and that our current recession should provide each person with one as well. Just because people in the United States are facing hardship, it does not mean we should abandon our obligation to help others abroad living in extreme poverty. He suggested that today people are volunteering more, because they have less money to give. And although this is in itself beneficial, giving foreign aid remains a necessary investment, not just as a good deed. Poverty-stricken countries that become more self-sufficient through aid will eventually be able to participate in the global economy making all countries wealthier.
Peter Singer, a philosopher, discusses the moral obligations of what Bono describes as a spiritual requirement. What makes someone a good person? Not committing horrible atrocities? Or is it simpler than that? Can you be a good person just by avoiding hurting those you love, trying to give some money to charity and working hard? Peter Singer emphatically says no. He argues that if you are not giving away a significant portion of your wealth to foreign aid, you cannot say in good conscience, that you are a “good” person. What can make someone good in Singer’s eyes? Giving away as much of your wealth as is possible to leave you modestly comfortable. In Human Rights and the Holocaust class, we talk about how ignoring a homeless person on the street is committing a spiritual crime because you are devaluing their existence. Singer explains that about half a million children a year in developing countries die from the rotavirus—a disease that no longer exists in the US. He tells the story of Bill Gates, how upon learning this statistic, realized that in today’s world, some lives, those of children in developed nations, seemed to be valued more than those of children in other, poorer countries. Singer argues that by not giving away some of your wealth to helping those living on less than one US dollar a day you are committing a moral crime. This crime is valuing your own comfort, or a new yacht, for example, over a thousand times more than the lives of poverty-stricken people you can save by giving your money to aid instead of spending it on yourself.
