July 26, 2006

The Problems of Rhetorical Excess
Everett

Hold on a minute, Annatar. "No limit on what is given?" Surely you can't mean that, at least not without qualification. You can't give more than you have. Certainly that is a limit to what is given. Leaving that aside, certainly other financial obligations further limit what is given. Your obligations to provide yourself and your family surely impose a still further limit upon what is given. Heck, what you've given previously imposes a limit on what can be given.

This doesn't even begin to address some of the more practical issues when it comes to giving, including those raised by the massive involvement of the state in social welfare programs, irrespsective of their effectiveness.

To whom are you obligated to give? After all, if a beggar asks you for money, and you think he will use it to buy, say, crack cocaine or alcohol, is it not your moral obligation to refuse to give him the money, lest you become complicit in his self-destructive behavior?

If a beggar asks you for five dollars to buy a meal, would it not be better to give him money for bus fare and direct him to a homeless shelter where he can get a hot meal and have a roof over his head? In other words, shouldn't what is given, as a general rule, be given so as to achieve the greatest good with the least amount spent?

Should not charitable giving be guided with an eye toward accomplishing the greatest long-term good possible (absent a more pressing immediate need), no matter the cost?

If the state has made itself responsible for the material well-being of the poor, is not my moral obligation fulfilled if I merely direct a beggar to the nearest welfare office?

Poverty is the state of nature. Are there not situations where it would not merely morally justifiable, but morally superior to not give if you legitimately thought not giving would motivate the beggar to look to overcome his poverty through his own efforts and not through the generosity of others? Indeed, instead of giving, would it not be better to direct him to a place where he might find work?

A certain amount of leisure is essential to life. To what extent am I obligated to sacrifice my leisure for the sake of others?

Along the same lines, is it acceptable to give time instead of money?

Is it wrong to purchase gifts for family and friends or spend time with them instead of dedicating these things to the poor?

You assume quite a bit when you assert, in effect, that the level of taxation does not have an effect on charitable giving. If people have less money, they will give less to charity, and if they have less money because the government is taking it from them in the form of taxes for welfare programs, they have even less incentive to give to charity because their money is already going to help the poor, and even if it weren't, the government is taking care of the problem.

Also, unless I missed something in history class, things like socialized medicine and unemployment benefits are fairly new things. I don't ever recall hearing about the great government benefits package in ancient Rome.

The best guideline I've heard in regard to charitable giving is to give a little more than you think you can afford to give, and make sure you have a decent idea as to how your money will be spent.

The argument in your piece "Alms and Wars" also suffers from rhetorical imprecision. You conflate the legitimacy of a government with the question of what the proper scope of government power is. A government may be legitimate and yet enact laws and policies that go beyond the proper scope of its power, even if said laws and policies enjoy the support of the majority. The issue at hand is not the popularity of the airline tax, or even if the tax will have the desired effect (highly unlikely, I think), but whether the government of France has the obligation to levy taxes to provide for the material well-being of people in other countries.

Well, I'm back to disagreeing strongly with Annatar. All is again right with the world.