Peter Singer once asked, “If you were walking by a pond and there was a child who was drowning in it, would you wade in and save that child’s life, but in doing this ruin your fancy shoes? Would it be okay to let the child drown because you’re worried about your shoes?”
And of course everybody says no.
And then the next question he posed was, "Why is this different from allowing people (even children) across the ocean in Africa, who desperately need food or medicine, to starve or go without the medicine they need if we have the financial resources to prevent that from happening?"
(BBC Radcliff Richards' elaboration:) If you will willingly sacrifice the cost of a pair of shoes to save the child in front of you, how can you justify not doing do the same for another child on the other side of the world?
