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Articles

The Place of Self-Interest in Morality

Jos Philips considers when acting on your self-interests is morally acceptable too.

Recently, a class of students of mine were discussing a well-known piece by Peter Singer, ‘The Singer Solution to World Poverty’ (New York Times Sunday Magazine, 1999). In it, Singer argues that not giving to Oxfam is as morally wrong as Bob’s saving his Bugatti from being hit by a train rather than saving a child who is about to be hit. (Bob could steer the train towards his expensive car to save the child while keeping himself safe, but he isn’t willing to do so.) As usual, the students started to list various supposedly morally-relevant differences between Bob’s case and not making a donation to Oxfam – a donation which could potentially save the life of a hungry child. Then one of the students – an elderly man who had been a doctor in Africa – spoke up, saying that fighting the great evils that happened to people was much more important a consideration than all the other reasons (excuses) that his fellow students were thinking up for not doing so.

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