Philosophers have a bad name in society. It's mostly well-paid academics going on about stuff that serves no real point, and certainly no real people. Most mainstream philosophers happily repay this compliment by talking down to colleagues concerned with real-world problems such as poverty, public health issues and such topics. Real philosophy, to them, to be good, has to be inconsequential, but inconsequential in a formally elegant way.Well, the good news is, and I'm trying to rehabilitate practical philosophy here, that an ever-growing number of philosophers disagrees with such sentiments. A trail blazer for useful applied philosophy has been the Australian utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer. Singer is the author of countless books, some of which made it even on to the New York Times bestseller list. His most recent project is very much worthy of support.
He is responding to a growing debate among philosophers about how we ought to respond, as citizens of the wealthiest parts of the world, to the continuing occurrence of extreme poverty. Political philosophers such as Thomas Pogge came up with a couple of grand theoretical ideas, including a rejigging of the world economic order and the institutions that support them. It goes without saying that their impact on the real world outside academic talkfests has been non-existent (much as I would also like to see some of the changes Pogge and his acolytes are aiming for - albeit for different reasons, I'm a closetted philosopher after all).
Singer is not so much concerned with building grand theoretical edifices and singing the song of human rights and ever growing human dignity, he's concerned about practical changes that would immediately benefit real people.
Coinciding with the launch of his latest book he also started a campaign trying to get as many of us to pledge to donate immediately a percentage of our annual income to charities that have a proven track record at improving the living conditions and quality of life of those of us living in extreme poverty. I urge you to check it out and consider supporting a charity that has an immediate positive effect on the living conditions and quality of life of those living in extreme poverty.
This should not prevent you from participating in academic philosophical talkfests on poverty reduction of course, just don't delude yourself into thinking that that in itself would make any discernible difference to anyone at all.
