Opportunity cost is the best foregone alternative. Singer may believe that billionaires spend all their money on the poor. Thus, every penny they give for Notre Dame's restoration is taken from the impoverished. This is very foolish. Billionaires are diverting money from donations to the Opera or some fancy Museum. Since the gilet jaunes have bared their fangs at the billionaires, they will spend some money on attacking them and more on ensuring their wealth stays out of the hands of any State vulnerable to agitators of that stripe. Anyway, the gilet jaunes are rich in comparison to people in some developing countries. If they can spend money on consuming calories so as to fuel their howling at Billionaires, the question obviously arises, why do they not howl at themselves demanding that they help those poorer than themselves rather than raise slogans against the rich? The same point may be made about Singer & his co-author. If they can spare the energy to write this article, why can't they devote an equal amount of time to biting their own heads off so as to show solidarity with the poor?



Let us confront the awkward question- how many lives does writing articles like this actually save? It may be that restoring Notre Dame will boost faith in a Religion which teaches a duty of giving to the poor. But which religion does writing this article give a boost to? If Singer and his co-author are genuinely intelligent they would themselves be billionaires. If they are stupid why should we listen to them? We may listen to a stupid priest if we believe this will get us to heaven, but what is the point of listening to a stupid pedagogue who says Heaven does not exist?



Suppose Singer abruptly terminated his article halfway through his second paragraph. We would respect his writing more because we'd understand he'd foregone writing about helping the poor to actually go out and help the poor. The problem with 'second order' charity (i.e. telling other people to be charitable) is that it crowds out first order good.