A Challenging Ethical Question

I recently saw the film Examined Life, a movie in which philosophers discuss things while walking around (it’s hard to explain better than that). In the movie, Peter Singer posed a question I hadn’t heard before. The premise, paraphrased:

You’re walking in a park one day, and suddenly see a small child drowning in a shallow pond. It’s clear that the child will die if you do nothing. If you attempt to save them, you will not risk drowning at all, but the $200 shoes you are wearing will be completely ruined. (Pretend you can’t take them off for some reason)

Now, most likely, you’d be willing to jump in and save the child in this instance. But what if you consider the moment when you bought the $200 shoes. You could have donated that $200 to an organization like Oxfam and almost certainly save a child’s life (or the lives of several children). If you’re willing to give up the shoes to save a life at the pond, why not save a life at the cash register?

I don’t know. Certainly this framework could be followed ad absurdum to the point where you can barely buy anything, but I still think there’s a meaningful point here.