Beside his writings on animal liberation and bioethics, Peter Singer is probably best known for his views on the obligations people in the affluent parts of the world have to those living in absolute poverty. His article “Famine, Affluence, and Morality” is a classic in applied ethics; in it, Singer argues that those of us in the affluent world–to the extent that we expend resources on luxury goods that could be spent on alleviating extreme poverty–are acting in a grossly immoral fashion.

Picking up on these themes, Singer has just released a book called The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty. Again, the emphasis is on extreme poverty. Singer contends that ending extreme poverty is within our reach, but only if we in the richer world give much more of our incomes than we currently do to relieving that poverty. He proposes that we should give away our income to poverty relief organizations according to a sliding scale based on income (1% for those making under $105,000, 5% for those making between $105,000 and $148,000, and so on). Singer points out that Americans in particular routinely overestimate the amount of foreign aid the U.S. gives (and much of that is not even aimed at development or poverty relief); increasing the amount we each give is not only good for the immediate end of helping very poor people, but it can also serve to ratchet up public perception of how much we in the rich parts of the world owe to people who are extremely poor.

Here’s an article summarizing Singer’s argument; here’s the book’s website, which offers suggestions for how much to give and a list of organizations doing good work. It’s interesting that such a resolutely secular thinker as Singer would suggest such a notion at a time when many, if not most, Christians have given up the idea of the tithe. Not a bad thing to think about this Lent when considering where you alms can make a difference.