Are you to blame for world poverty if you do not give to charities?

Simply put, yes, we are. Most of us have enough financial income to provide us with a simple yet
complete lifestyle, whilst there are others starving or dying from preventable diseases because they
cannot afford medicine or food/water. Therefore, if we do not help, if we do nothing, we are considered
ethically irresponsible. People produce many arguments as to why we should not donate to charities
and are therefore not to blame for world poverty. To demonstrate why these arguments are simply
useless, we can use the example of a little girl drowning in a pond. Many claim that they would help the
little girl because she is part of the local community, which argues that our moral obligations derive from
our relationships, and therefore we are not obliged to aid those in far-distant countries. This defies the
thinking of effective altruism, which is to provide aid to others without caring for the impact on oneself.
Others claim that they do not have to donate to charities because there are others who are also not
donating. Whilst some say they may understand this way of thinking, if once again placed in the context
of the toddler drowning, people would not just stand on the shore and do nothing because no one else
was trying to help them. These types of people also argue that the government is to blame for the
poverty of people or even that the poor themselves are to blame for their financial situation. Yet while
that is true, there is so much poverty in this world that is not caused by the people themselves and,
therefore, really needs economic help. The last main argument against this way of thinking is that the
donation could be stolen, embezzled, or not be enough to aid the people. Well, to counter that
argument, we have the fact that nowadays there are special sites where you can check the liability of a
charity. And even if the chances of getting the money from these people are extremely low, would you
not be willing to take it? If the chances of saving the toddler were 40-60, would you not be willing to risk
it to save her? Therefore, in the end, after viewing different arguments and why they cannot be
considered proper arguments, we can see why the philosophical thinking of altruism will be so
important when it comes to changing our lifestyle choices and decisions in the future. Not only that, it
will also help us define the future of quite a lot of people in our world.