How Peter Singer’s Drowning Child Changed Modern Philanthropy

A child is drowning in a pond. You’re wearing an expensive suit. Do you jump in and save them? Of course you do. But philosopher Peter Singer asks the uncomfortable follow-up: If you’ll ruin a $300 suit to save that child, why won’t you donate that same $300 to save a child dying from malaria in Africa?

Welcome to The Business of Giving. I’m Denver Frederick. Today we’re exploring one of the most challenging moral arguments of our time with Peter Singer, whose simple thought experiment has fundamentally changed how we think about our obligations to strangers.

Singer’s philosophy forces us to confront an uncomfortable truth: if helping distant strangers is moral obligation, not charity, then most of us might be living fundamentally unethical lives.

Peter reveals the Oxford moment that transformed him from graduate student to moral revolutionary, explains how effective altruism survived its biggest scandal, and shares why he believes thinking people can literally change the world.

Get ready for a conversation that might just change how you see your own moral choices. This is Peter Singer on The Business of Giving.