I can’t claim to have come-up with this question – I heard it posed on the BBC (Radio 4) on a Sunday morning in February.  The programme was investigating the question as to whether people who can afford to do so where morally obliged to give to charity.

The presenter outlined the following hypothetical situation:

You are out, alone.
You come across a shallow lake in which a child is drowning.
You have no telephone or any other means of getting help.
If you do nothing, the child, in all probability will die.
If you help, you will save the child’s life – but you will ruin your clothing at a cost of £50.
(Forget the ‘I will take my clothes off before I help’ argument – Just consider the question)

Would you help or would you do nothing?

Of course, you would help. Anyone would.

Now ask yourself this question.

Children are dying every day because they are living in poverty, because they do not have access to medical care, sanitation or a not protected against preventable disease such as Malaria.

£50 would buy protection through mosquito nets or would provide medicine or help provide clean water.

Charities are asking you to help.  If you give £50, you will, in all probability save a child’s life.  If these children do not get help, they will, in all probability, die.

So, if you can afford to give £50 to charity – yet choose not to – are you making the same moral decision as choosing not to help the child drowning in the lake?

Something to think about.