>>719828606
When claiming that proximity refutes the drowning child argument, lots of people like to say is that you have a great obligation to your friends and family. I don’t know what prompts them to say this in response to the drowning child argument, as it has nothing to do with the argument! Even if you have special obligations to your friends and family, your reasons to save drowning children that you don’t know are still equal to your reasons to save kids you don’t know who might get malaria. The drowning child is not your child—they’re a child that you don’t know personally.

People often claim that you have a greater obligation to those in your own country than to foreigners. I’m doubtful of this, but let’s grant it. Now imagine that you’re on the Mexican border and see a drowning child. They’re not a member of your country. Nevertheless, you should wade in the pond and save them, even at the cost of an expensive suit. Failing to give to effective charities, I claim, is like ignoring the drowning Mexican child—even though they’re not part of your country, you still have an obligation to save them.

Additionally, it’s often claimed that there’s an important difference in that in the drowning child scenario, you’re the only person who can save them, while when giving to charity, others can save them too. I’ve always found this idea super weird: your reason to save people doesn’t evaporate just because other people aren’t following their duty to save people. We can see this by imagining in the drowning children that there are a bunch of nearby assholes ignoring the child as he drowns. Does that eliminate your reason to save the child? No, obviously not. But this case is, in terms of other people not acting to save the child, analogous to real-world charitable donations.