You're leaving a restaurant where you just spent £80 on dinner for two. A homeless person is sitting outside. You have cash. You walk past without giving anything, then pause. There's no rational reason you couldn't give £10. You know they'll probably still be there when you walk back.
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Question

You're leaving a restaurant where you just spent £80 on dinner for two. A homeless person is sitting outside. You have cash. You walk past without giving anything, then pause. There's no rational reason you couldn't give £10. You know they'll probably still be there when you walk back.

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Accepted Answer

51% chose "Go back and give money" and 49% chose "Keep walking — one act won't change the systemic problem". Peter Singer, in his famous 'Drowning Child' thought experiment, argued that if you can prevent something bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, you're obligated to do it. Spending £80 on dinner while walking past genuine poverty is, by this logic, a moral failure. Critics argue that individual charity doesn't address structural causes and may even enable systems that produce homelessness. Both positions are philosophically defensible.

Homeless person outside the restaurant

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