http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/books/11garn.html?pagewanted=print
If You Think You’re Good, You Should Think Again
- “First premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.
- Second premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.
- Third premise: By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.
- Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong.”
- counters
- Charity begins at home.
- I work hard for my money.
- Charity breeds dependency.
- Some charity groups waste too much money on overhead.
- Helping the world’s poor will bring “meaning and purpose” to our lives, he suggests, through financial adjustments that will mostly “make no difference to your well-being.”
- “Roughly 5 percent of annual income for those who are financially comfortable, and rather more for the very rich.”
- When it comes to living the so-called “good” life, one’s moral omissions count more than ever.
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