Peter Singer is known as the “world’s most influential living philosopher." This Australian moral philosopher, author and public intellectual is the co-founder of 'The Life You Can Save', 'The School for Moral Ambition' and 'Profit for Good'. Currently, he is the Professor of Bioethics, Emeritus, at Princeton University. Peter Singer recently was in Bangladesh to visit various development programmes of Brac, as well as Aarong and Brac University.
In an interview with Prothom Alo's Ayesha Kabir, he spoke about how the plight of Bangladesh's refugees during the 1971 Liberation War sparked his thinking about helping people in extreme poverty. He explained his concept of "effective altruism," about changing the norms of ethical behaviour, and more.
Welcome to Bangladesh. How has your time here been so far?
Peter Singer: Thank you. I've had a very interesting time. I've learned a lot. It's been a very busy two or three days.
You are known as one of the world's most influential living philosophers. You often use the term "effective altruism". Can you elaborate on this term? What does it mean?
Peter Singer: The idea of altruism is reasonably familiar. An altruist is somebody who does things for others, not only for themselves. And the effective altruism movement doesn't expect people to be saints. It doesn't expect them to think only about others. It is about generally trying to make the world a better place. This should be an aim shared by all.
Secondly, we all have limited resources to do good for others, even Bill Gates. So when we have limited resources, we normally want to get the best value from those resources that we can. If you need a new phone and you only have a certain amount to spend, you will try to find the best phone for the money you have. But when it comes to giving to charity, most people have not applied the same standard. They have not done research into where they can do tThe effective altruism movement is about generally trying to make the world a better place. This should be an aim shared by allhe most good with what they're prepared to donate, whether it's money, time or skills, to altruism. So the "effective altruism" movement says it's very important to find the most effective ways you can help others, because the difference between less effective and more effective ways is huge.
There are charities that genuinely are trying to do something, but they just haven't found the most cost-effective way to use their resources. So effective altruism puts those two things together.
How did you reach this philosophy about effective altruism?
Peter Singer: My line of thought is about our responsibility for helping people in extreme poverty. We're talking about people who have money. After meeting their basic needs, they still have money to spend on luxuries. I wrote an article in the context of the Bangladesh War of Liberation, called Famine, Affluence and Morality. I wrote it in 1971. It was published in 1972. I started off with the fact that there were 9 million refugees from what was then East Pakistan who had fled across the border into India. India was struggling to meet that enormous need for food, shelter and sanitation.
I was at that time a graduate student at the University of Oxford, studying philosophy, and particularly ethics. I started thinking about what my ethical responsibilities were in this situation.
So I came up with this example, which has become quite famous. It is about walking past a shallow pond in which a small child has fallen, and the child is in danger of drowning. There's nobody else around the pond. You can save the child, but you will ruin your shoes and have to replace them. Would it be wrong of you to ignore the child and walk past the pond because you didn't want to spend money on a new pair of shoes? Obviously, people would say that would be a terrible thing to do.
But I argued that, in the situation of the refugees in India, most people in the affluent world were not doing anything about it. And even though the refugees were far away and you couldn't actually see them in front of you, it was ethically a similar situation. For a modest sum of money, you could quite possibly save a life and certainly contribute, together with others, to saving many lives. And that was what we ought to do.
That article got reprinted many times. A lot of students read it, and a lot of professors used it in their classes. Some decades later, some students decided that they wanted to found an organisation that would try to make this idea better known. They did some research on how big the differences might be between the best use of your money to help people and just an average kind of use of your money. So the emphasis was on quantification and assessment, using evidence to determine where you should put your money.
You mentioned the refugees in 1971. You must be aware that right now in Bangladesh we have a large number of refugees from Myanmar. International funds drying up. What would your message be about this particular situation?
Peter Singer: It's a very difficult situation. Obviously, what we would want to say is: allow the refugees to work and eventually give them a path to citizenship. But I understand that the government is worried that if they do that, they will get more refugees, and Bangladesh is already quite a densely populated country. So I understand that it's not easy. Somehow, there needs to be some assurance that this will not lead to a larger number of refugees coming across the border.
You were talking about this divide between the ultra-rich and the extremely poor. Would it be unrealistic to expect the ultra-rich to make a significant difference to poverty? Your ideas are very doable, but why isn't it being done? Are people simply selfish and uncaring?
Peter Singer: I don't think the rich are all the same. There are some rich people who have given away an immense amount of money. Bill and Melinda Gates set up the Gates Foundation. Warren Buffett is another super-rich person who gave a lot of his money away, and there are others, too, who have supported effective altruism causes. Dustin Moskovitz and his wife, who have made a lot of money in IT, are giving away most of their fortune, too, and they're actually funding a lot of research into finding the best ways to help people get out of poverty.
As I said, I don't think all the rich are the same, but unfortunately, you're right about the majority of them. And, of course, the most conspicuous and richest man in the world at the moment is definitely not an effective altruist.
We just have to keep trying to change the norms of ethical behaviour. Unfortunately, we have some leaders who are setting very bad examples in terms of ethical behaviour. We have some internet influencers who are the same. But I'm in touch with a lot of people who are doing very ethical things through the effective altruism movement. So I don't think you can say that everybody has suddenly become selfish. That is certainly not true.
Bangladesh has made a lot of progress and lifted a large majority of its population out of extreme poverty. So I think Bangladesh's story is actually an inspiring one
So you do think that you and like-minded people can really make an impact?
Peter Singer: Almost anybody can make some impact if they can find the most effective organisations. I set up this organisation called 'The Life You Can Save', which recommends the most effective charities helping people in extreme poverty. So they can easily get that information and they can find that they can make a big difference without being particularly rich.
If you choose the right charities, they're very effective, and you will find it rewarding.
Institutions like BRAC and various other charities around the world can do a lot, but it is the governments that make policies. Do you think governments also need to be influenced to work in a similar direction?
Peter Singer: Yes, they do. Unfortunately, governments are not living up to their responsibilities now. The example set by the United States is a very poor one, particularly in recent times. And other governments are saying, well, if the United States is going to slash its overseas aid, we'll do the same. So that's a very bad example to follow.
I'm also advocating that companies do more to donate profits, or some of their profits, to good causes. I've recently co-founded something called the Profit for Good Alliance, which is an alliance of companies that give at least 10 per cent of their profits to good causes. We want to publicise them. We want to try to get consumers to prefer them. We want to spread the idea that just earning profits is not enough. You need to use at least some of that to make a positive difference.
There is a website you can look at called profitforgood.com. It's not officially launched. We're going to have a big conference in Europe next June to launch it.
What about the United Nations, which was ostensibly formed to make a difference in such situations. Has it become totally dysfunctional?
Peter Singer: No, I don't think the UN is totally dysfunctional, but it has been ignored by some world leaders. It was obviously ignored by Putin when he invaded Ukraine. And it seems that Trump has also been ignoring it. On a smaller scale, the capture of Maduro in Venezuela was a pretty flagrant violation of the UN Charter, and on a larger scale, I think the war with Iran. There was no real necessity for that war. The negotiations should have been continued. War must always be an absolute last resort. You can't say that the US and Israel's attack on Iran was an absolute last resort at all.
Prothom Alo :
What about UN organisations like UNICEF, UNDP and UNESCO. In terms of the amount of funding they're getting, do you think they're spending it effectively?
Peter Singer: None of those organisations you mentioned are on 'The Life You Can Save' list of the most effective charities. They do a lot of different things, and some of those things are good, but I don't think that everything they do is good. They're not as close to the local people as BRAC is, for example. I think one of the things about BRAC from the start was that it sought to learn from local people what they wanted and gain knowledge from them.
Lastly, what message would you like to leave for Bangladesh?
Peter Singer: As I said, Bangladesh was at the start of my thinking about poverty. A lot of people had very gloomy predictions about the future of Bangladesh as an independent nation. And those gloomy predictions have not come true. On the contrary, Bangladesh has made a lot of progress and lifted a large majority of its population out of extreme poverty. So I think Bangladesh's story is actually an inspiring one, which should give people hope and encouragement to continue working towards ending large-scale extreme poverty everywhere in the world.
Thank you. That's a positive note to end on.
Peter Singer: Thank you.