Nefsky, Julia, Tenenbaum, Sergio | 2024
Working Paper 2024:7
Part of preprint Studies in the Ethics of Coordination and Climate Change
Peter Singer famously argues that when we spend money on seemingly ordinary pleasures for ourselves, we are doing something gravely wrong. In the process, he (famously) draws an analogy between spending money in such ways and not saving a childdrowning in a pond when you could easily do so. There have been many responses to Singer. Some of these make potentially important points and might give grounds for rejecting Singer’s principles. But what they do not do, we argue, is respond effectively to the Pond Analogy and the argument it itself gives for Singer’s conclusion. This reveals that Singer’s focus on deriving his conclusion from general principles is a mistake; the hard-to-resist argument is the Pond Analogy itself. More broadly, we show that the Pond Analogy presents a crucial challenge to our ability to give a plausible, coherent conception of morality. We close by sketching our answer to it.
