Death in a Shallow Pond: A Philosopher, a Drowning Child, and Strangers in Need
by David Edmonds
This is the second of David Edmonds’s books to focus on a thought experiment. The previous one on the trolley problem (insensitively named ‘Would You Kill the Fat Man?’) was a great success. This one looks closely at Peter Singer’s thought experiment about a child drowning in a shallow pond and gets to the heart of debates about the moral limits of charity and the philosophical reasons that are given in support of widening our concern for those in great need in distant lands.
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“Death in a Shallow Pond is also about a single thought experiment, Peter Singer’s famous thought experiment about a child apparently drowning in a shallow pool of water while nobody else is around. You’re walking past—would you jump in to save the child, at minimal risk to yourself? It’s a shallow pond, but you happen to be wearing very expensive shoes, and they will be ruined in the process. Most people say, yes, of course I’d save the drowning child, if there was nobody else around, even if it ruined my shoes, why do you even ask? But Peter Singer says, aha, then why don’t you give the value of the shoes you would be prepared to sacrifice for this child to save a child dying in sub-Saharan Africa for not having access to clean water or basic medicines? Consistency seems to demand that you should.” Read more...
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