Peter Singer is a famous moral philosopher who agrees that it would be morally wrong to refuse to save the child. But what does this imply?
We all know that, right now, there are many people who urgently require aid. People die from famine, drought or easily treatable diseases. Every day most of us receive appeals from charities asking us to give money to help save these lives. We could easily save lives by donating.
Singer argues that there is no morally relevant difference between failing to help the drowning child and failing to help someone who could be saved by a donation to charity. There are some differences between the cases – the drowning child is right in front of you and the people dying from preventable causes are far away – but Singer says these differences don’t lessen our moral obligations.