Would the World Be Better If Everyone Were a Do-Gooder?

You’re taking a walk and you pass a shallow pond, where you find a drowning child. You would not harm yourself if you saved him, though you would muddy your clothes. Do you do it? To not do it would seem abhorrent to most of us. You would be a monster. Of course, you think. Muddy clothes are nothing compared to a dead child.

And yet some people, like the philosopher , will say to you that, in a way, you are walking by this drowning child right now. To ignore a stranger suffering on the other side of the world, when you have the means to immediately send help, is the same