Privacy about giving is counterproductive. There is solid scientific research showing that people are more likely to give if they can see that others are giving. The richest people, in particular, should be setting an example.
Interpretation
Giving openly encourages others to give as well, especially those with resources.
This quote by Peter Singer highlights the importance of visible generosity in social dynamics. It suggests that when individuals, especially the wealthy, openly share their resources, they inspire and motivate others to participate in philanthropy. This phenomenon is supported by research indicating that people are more likely to contribute if they observe others doing so, thus creating a culture of giving that benefits society as a whole.
In practice
During a charity event, this quote can be used to motivate attendees to contribute more openly.
The belief that the animals exist because God created them - and that he created them so we can better meet our needs - is contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-human primates and other animals millions of years before there were any human beings at all.
Pain and suffering are in themselves bad and should be prevented or minimized, irrespective of the race, sex, or species of the being that suffers. How bad a pain is depends on how intense it is and how long it lasts, but pain of the same intensity and duration are equally bad, whether felt by humans or animals.
What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.
Almost everybody accepts that some people can be killed. 'The concept of 'brain death' - the belief that people on respirators can legitimately be killed - shows that.
If we all think only of our own interests, we are headed for collective disaster - just look at what we are doing to our planet's climate.
Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, prudence, and so on, but there is nothing special about sex in this respect, for the same could be said of decisions about driving a car. (In fact, the moral issues raised by driving a car, both from an environmental and from a safety point of view, are much more serious than those raised by sex.)
And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.
We've been trained to squint into a legal microscope, hoping that we can judge any dispute against the standard of a perfect society where everyone will agree what's fair, and where accidents will be extinct, and risk will be no more.
When you live completely in each moment, without expecting anything, you have no idea of time.
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.
When you cut into the present the future leaks out.
For my own part, I have been wont to converse with poverty; and however disagreeable a companion she may be thought to be by the affluent and luxurious, who were never acquainted with her, I can live happily with her the remainder of my life if I can thereby contribute to the redemption of my country.
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