A few days before going to press, a story came out of the Bahamas.
Apparently, while posing for a photo, a girl fell from the fourth floor of a Disney Cruise ship and into the water.
The ship was on its return voyage to the States from the Bahamas, and was going full speed ahead.
Her father, who was taking the picture, jumped over the railing and into the water to make sure she didn’t drown while the ship stopped (something that isn’t very easy to do) and launched a rescue boat to save them.
Both daughter and dad are doing fine, and we might think that everything is right in the world. That is what we would do if our child fell overboard. We would, without hesitation, jump in to save them.
But what if we were wearing a fancy suit? Like, a really snazzy outfit that cost a couple hundred bucks. Would we still jump in to save them?
Of course we would. No questions asked. My child is in danger. I will do all that I can to protect them.
Okay. But what if it wasn’t your child? If you saw a ten-year-old kid go over the railing on that Bahamas cruise that you’ve been saving for for the last decade. Would you jump in to save them? Not your child. Much more complicated decision.
Okay, let’s make it a bit easier. Instead of falling into the ocean, the kid has fallen into the pond out behind the visitor centre. It’s not that deep, but it’s too deep for them to struggle out of.
And you? You’re still wearing those snazzy clothes, maybe sporting a fancy new set of shoes that will totally be ruined if they get wet. And you’re on your lunch break from work. Do you go in to save the kid?
I mean, that pond isn’t very clean, and it’s ringed by mud and kruft and if you went in to rescue them, you’d have to go home and change and you’d be late getting back to work and your boss would be annoyed and probably think you were making up a story about saving a drowning kid because you want to appear heroic.
Do you go save the kid?
This is a question that Australian Philosopher Peter Singer likes to ask his class.
And, according to Singer, the students unanimously say they would, without question or hesitation, go save the drowning child.
“The importance of saving a child so far outweighs the cost of getting one’s clothes muddy and missing a class, that they refuse to consider it any kind of excuse for not saving the child,” writes Singer in his essay “The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle.”
Does it make a difference, asks Singer, that there are other people walking past the pond who would equally be able to rescue the child but are not doing so?
“No, the students reply, the fact that others are not doing what they ought to do is no reason why I should not do what I ought to do.”
Okay, says Singer. But what if the child isn’t in a pond that you’re walking by. Instead, the child is equally at risk, but is hundreds of miles away. Maybe you’re watching a computer screen and the child falls into a pond. Above the pond is one of those crane game claws like in Toy Story, but it’s really big. And you can lower the claw to save the kid, but every time you lower the claw it costs a buck.
Are you going to save your hard earned cash? Again, no. You’re going to drop a dollar to save the kid. Maybe two if you miss the first time. Maybe more.
Now, what happens if the kid isn’t drowning? What happens if the kid is starving? Your fancy Fluevogs are not at risk, though if you support the kid, you might not be able to afford another pair. You don’t have to get dirty at all, you just have to sacrifice dinner our, or maybe a new shirt. Do you do it? Do you forego fancy Fluevogs to feed Francesca, our Filipino infant?
That’s a harder one. Because, while supporting one child is well within most of our means, few of us do.
Why? Well, if you’re anything like Singer’s students, you’ll raise practical issues: Can we be sure that our donation will really get to the people who need it? Doesn’t most aid get swallowed up in administrative costs, or waste, or downright corruption? Isn’t the real problem the growing world population, and is there any point in saving lives until the problem has been solved?
But even if a substantial proportion of our donations were wasted, the cost to us of making the donation is so small, compared to the benefits that it provides when it (or at least, some of it) does get through to those who need our help, “that we would still be saving lives at a small cost to ourselves – even if aid organizations were much less efficient than they actually are.”
Singer quotes 19th Century Irish Historian WH Lecky, who wrote of human concern as an expanding circle which begins with the individual, then embraces the family and ‘soon the circle… includes first a class, then a nation, then a coalition of nations, then all humanity, and finally, its influence is felt in the dealings of man with the animal world.”
But as our concern expands, it appears that sometimes, it also fades. Like the ripples from a rock tossed in a still pond (preferably not one with a drowning child in it), the edges of the circle are pronounced at the beginning, but the wider the circle grows, the more the energy is spread out and the less noticeable the circle is.
So, while the need of starving children is great, it is hardly noticeable at the fringes of our altruistic consciousness.
Meanwhile, 242-BREW had to turn away donations after the fire. This is not—I want to be quick to point out—a bad thing. People here are beyond generous when it’s our people who are hurting. I guess my question is how do we take that kindness and generosity and expand the circle to include people who might not be the proverbial child in the pond? How do we be good neighbours, not just to the people down the street, but to all those in need?
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
