World 12 · Philosophy of money · Lesson 11 of 13

What do we owe other people?

Family, strangers, society: the different answers to what our money owes anyone else.

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The idea

What do we owe other people, financially? Answers range widely. Many traditions emphasise duties to family first — supporting parents, children, relatives — and see these obligations as part of a good life. Religious traditions often add duties to the poor and to the community, with structured giving such as zakat, tithing or dana.

The philosopher Peter Singer, in his essay Famine, Affluence, and Morality, argued for a demanding view: if you can prevent something very bad from happening without sacrificing anything of comparable importance, you ought to do it. He illustrated this with a child drowning in a shallow pond — most people agree you should wade in and save the child even if it ruins your clothes — and asked why distance should make a moral difference when people far away face preventable suffering.

Others defend partiality: that it is right, not selfish, to give special weight to family, friends and community, and that duties to strangers, while real, are more limited. Many political thinkers frame the question through the social contract — what we owe one another as members of a shared society, largely through taxes and public institutions rather than private giving.

Why it matters

How you answer this question shapes how you share money with family, how much you give, and how you view taxes and public responsibility.

A real example

The situation

Adaeze sends money to her parents every month and feels she should also give to charity, but cannot afford much of both.

What happened

She decides her first duty is to her parents, and adds a small, regular gift to a cause she cares about, planning to increase it as her income grows.

The takeaway

Clarifying her own view of what she owed turned competing guilts into a plan.

How people actually behave

People often give in response to emotional appeals and proximity rather than according to their own considered principles, and feel guilty either way.

Common mistakes

• Giving only in response to pressure rather than principle.
• Assuming there is only one right answer to what we owe.
• Giving beyond your means in a way that harms your own dependants.

Different perspectives

Reasonable people disagree here. None of these is presented as the answer.

Our duties to strangers are demanding

Singer argues that when we can prevent serious suffering at modest cost to ourselves, distance does not remove the obligation to help.

Special duties to those close to us come first

Many traditions and philosophers argue that partiality to family and community is a legitimate and important part of morality.

Duties are shared through institutions

Others argue that much of what we owe each other is best met collectively, through fair taxes and public services, rather than left to individual giving.

Questions to think about

• Who do you feel you owe money or support to, and why?
• What would a considered giving principle look like for you?

Try it: Your circles of duty

1. Draw circles: yourself, family, friends, community, strangers.
2. For each, write what, if anything, you feel you owe.
3. Decide on one concrete practice that reflects your answer.