Peter Singer's Famine, Affluence and Morality, first published in 1972, rapidly became one of the most widely discussed essays in applied ethics, and is one of the reasons why Singer has been described as the world's most influential living philosopher. Professors have used Singer's example of the child drowning in a pond who you could easily rescue, to challenge their students to rethink their attitudes to people in extreme poverty. Exposure to Singer's arguments has led many of those students to change their lives, in one case, even to the point of donating a kidney to a stranger.

As Bill and Melinda Gates point out in their Foreword, Singer's classic essay is as relevant today as it ever was. It is published here together with two of Singer's more popular writings on our obligations to those in poverty, and a new introduction by Singer that brings the reader up to date with his current thinking.

Peter Singer has been described as the world's most influential philosopher. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, Rethinking Life and Death, One World, The Life You Can Save, and The Point of View of the Universe. In 2014 the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute ranked him third on its list of Global Thought Leaders, and Time has ranked him among the world's 100 most influential people.