(this is not criticism of effective altruism, only one analogy that's used as an argument) Peter Singer writes in the The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle: To challenge my students to think about the ethics of what we owe to people in need, I ask them to imagine that their route to the university takes them past a shallow pond. One morning, I say to them, you notice a child has fallen in and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy but it will mean that you get your clothes wet and muddy, and by the time you go home and change you will have missed your first class.
What are all these children doing in my ponds?
What are all these children doing in my…
What are all these children doing in my ponds?
(this is not criticism of effective altruism, only one analogy that's used as an argument) Peter Singer writes in the The Drowning Child and the Expanding Circle: To challenge my students to think about the ethics of what we owe to people in need, I ask them to imagine that their route to the university takes them past a shallow pond. One morning, I say to them, you notice a child has fallen in and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy but it will mean that you get your clothes wet and muddy, and by the time you go home and change you will have missed your first class.