Princeton, affluence and morality

In one of his most famous essays, Peter Singer poses the following question: if one of us were to pass a drowning child, would we have a duty to try to save that child, even if it meant soiling our own clothes in the process? Of course we would — we have the duty to prevent bad things from happening if we can do so without sacrificing something of equal or greater moral importance.

Singer goes on to prick the conscience of rich nations, stingy as they are in using their own wealth to prevent the deaths of millions in the developing world. By the time he finishes, those of us who choose luxury or comfort over aid to those in dire need of basic necessities have little moral ground to stand on.

Within a year or two, Princeton University will kick off a major fundraising campaign with a goal even higher than the $1.14 billion raised in the last campaign, which ended in 2000. These newly raised funds, when added to investment returns on our existing resources, will push our endowment above $15 billion by 2010.

Is Princeton University, holding a $15 billion endowment when such funds could save millions of lives in sub-Saharan Africa, exempt from the same moral scrutiny that we would apply to an equally wealthy individual?

It is not. The obligation might take a different form, but a rich university, like a rich individual, is morally bound to give all that it can to avert suffering in the world. We have the duty to prepare our students to prevent bad things from happening in the world if we can do so without sacrificing something of equal or greater moral importance. The mission of Princeton University is due for revision when we know the dimensions of suffering in the world and that we can be doing much more than we are to alleviate it.

I am not suggesting that Princeton liquidate its assets and parcel them off to Oxfam. I am suggesting that if we continue to hold and grow such a large endowment, we must define ourselves more ambitiously than we do now.

It is no longer morally acceptable for Princeton to be an educational institution in the traditional manner. Maybe there would be some justification — though the burden of proof would be high — for perpetuating current arrangements if Princeton came close to doing all it could to prepare its students to repair the world. This is clearly not the case: 40 percent of the job-seeking graduates of the Class of 2005 went into the financial industry.

We need to change our priorities. This means taking service learning seriously — making sure no student graduates without having been exposed to the fact that their privileged education entails demanding social obligations. It means that all students willing to spend a year, two or three after graduation in the trenches of the world's crises should find Princeton eager to fund their living expenses. It means living with an unattractive but functional Butler College for another couple of decades in order to fund research on a malaria vaccine or something of comparable benefit in our own laboratories.

There are a million emergencies in the world right now, and none of them can wait for us to take our time getting our act together. There is no good reason not to change our approach to academics and service immediately.

Knowing that millions around the world die every year from lack of basic necessities, do we have the duty to use our great wealth to try to help them, even if it means enlarging the mission of our great University? Of course we do. Thomas Bohnett is a Wilson School major from Princeton Junction. He can be reached at tbohnett@princeton.edu.