Comfort vs. Awareness
On coronavirus, compassion and recovery
There is a famous story of the pond from Peter Singer, a well-known (albeit controversial) philosopher.
It goes like this: imagine you are walking to a class past a pond where a child is drowning. Singer asks: do you have any obligation to rescue the child? Most people say they do. The importance of saving a child far outweighs the cost of ruining one’s clothes and missing class.
Singer asks: Does it make a difference that there are other people walking past the pond who would equally be able to rescue the child but are not doing so? No, is the quick reply, the fact that others are not doing what they ought to do is no reason why I should not do what I ought to do.
Once we are all clear about our obligations to rescue the drowning child, he asks: would it make any difference if the child were far away, in another country, but similarly in danger of death, and equally within your means to save, at no great cost — and no danger — to yourself?
All agree that distance and nationality make no difference in this context.
Then he points out that we are all in that situation of the person passing the shallow pond: we can all save lives of people, both children and adults, who would otherwise die, and we can do so at a very…
