“No doubt we instinctively prefer to help those who are close to us. Few could stand by and watch a child drown; many can ignore the avoidable deaths of children in Africa or India. The question, however, is not what we usually do, but what we ought to do, and it is difficult to see any sound moral justification for the view that distance, or community membership, makes a crucial difference to our obligations.”

Australian moral philosopher

Peter Singer is an Australian moral philosopher, best known for his work in applied ethics and for shaping modern debates about animal welfare and global poverty. He is Emeritus Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University. His book Animal Liberation, published in 1975, criticized intensive animal farming and speciesism and helped shape the animal rights movement. He is also known for "Famine, Affluence, and Morality," which argues that people have a moral duty to help the global poor, and for later books including The Life You Can Save and The Most Good You Can Do, which influenced the effective altruism movement. He has worked from a secular, utilitarian perspective throughout much of his career.