Million Dollar Baby

Over the years, I have tried to guide my choices by the utilitarian principle that whatever is done, should benefit the most people. For example, in deciding what charity to support, a utilitarian would choose the one which will have the biggest impact on the most people. Simple.

We live in the richest country in the history of the world, where technological wonders abound. We are fortunate, but we are few. Half the world lives on less than 2 dollars a day (that’s over three billion people), and a billion people live on less than a dollar a day. One dollar a day! Each year, malaria causes over 1 million deaths, (one child dies of malaria every thirty seconds in Africa, alone) but this deadly disease can be prevented with a simple $3 mosquito net, which, unfortunately, is out of the grasp of much of the world.

Errol is a million dollar baby. After his third heart surgery this summer, his total medical tab may well surpass $1,000,000; which could buy a lot of mosquito nets (333,333 to be exact). If we spent that $1,000,000 on mosquito nets, basic health care, and rudimentary sanitation, thousands of kids could be saved. Is Errol worth more than 1000, 5000 kids? He is, to me; but what about to the rest of us?

This is not to say that I don’t think we should save kids like Errol. We should! (After all, Errol’s $1,000,000 is chump change compared to the amount of money we spend on cosmetics, video games, or wars - Iraq runs well over $1 billion a week.) But these life and death equations put me into something of a philosophical pickle. Could we get a bigger bang for the buck? The answer is pretty clear, which means that I either need to change my utilitarian philosophy, change my actions, or just admit that I’m doing a bad job of acting on my beliefs.

Or, there could be another way. Perhaps the same generous impulse that saved Errol’s precious life, could embrace other kids, no matter where they live. I know that we aren’t going to give every kid in the world a million dollar heart, but maybe we could just give them a $3 mosquito net. If we can share the goodness that saved our beautiful son’s life (three times) with others, Errol’s life will benefit the most people.

If you want to help with children’s health, for free, you can cut and paste the following link.
http://www.thehungersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=5&link=ctg_chs_home_from_ths_home_sitenav