CASE NOTES : ETHICS OF CHARITY

Excuse the rather short and less in-depth GOV points.. I rather ran out of time typing these XD By the way, these aren't my personal views and are not meant to offend or convert anyone.. in debate you just have to see things from both sides, even if one side may be quite unpopular.

THE CASE FOR & AGAINST CHARITY

OPP

-        Charisma Causes (Inequality)

o   How much donations goes to a cause doesn’t rely on the charity cause importance anymore – it relies solely on the marketing scheme, how emotional it gets people, how attractive/exciting it is

o   Promotes imbalance in causes – the wrong causes get too much funding, while the right causes which are the REAL problems are ignored.

o   Ex: Tsunami vs. long term “old news” of famine in Africa

o   Government funding is better since they distribute on a logical, reasonable basis, not purely based on who has the better marketing strategy

o   ASK : Is it right to withhold and give donations purely based on your own values and how YOU believe things should be? All causes are of relative importance to each other and it’s not right for one person to just decide which causes to support and which to ignore.

-        How much money actually goes to the cause?

o   Charities require lots of funding, marketing, media coverage etc. to get their causes heard

o   Much of the funding actually goes to marketing, bureaucracy, administration instead of the actual cause

o   Due to the capitalistic nature of charities – fluctuations to the market – the constant need for marketing and publicity drives them to use up much too many funds simply for attention, not for the actual cause.

o   THUS: Charities may just be a scam to make money for the workers and for the publicity while not actually achieving anything substantial for the cause.

-        Band-aid solution

o   Charities only provide a band aid solution to the real root of the problem

o   Only provide temporary aid that only serves to relieve the symptoms of the problem, not actually relieving the cause, causing the long term problem to continue

o   Ex: Charities feed food aid to the starving children of Africa but fail to enforce any government policies that help make the aid Gr. In the long term, nothing is solved and as soon as the ‘charisma’ of the cause fades, the band aid solution fades away and there has been on change.

o   Charities don’t

-        Exacerbates problem

o   Government overreliance on charity rather than tax funds

o   Since charity is giving a band aid solution that mitigates the damage caused by the root problem, government feel that the issue is less important and spend less resources to combat the root problem due to the appearance that the problem is less serious than expected due to charity mitigation

o   Encouraged government inaction by making the situation less serious but still leaving the root cause of the problem intact for further and more damage.

-        Charity and Arrogance

o   People often just give charity to feel good about themselves, not to actually help the cause. Sometimes they may just give a bit just to assuage their own conscience when the amount that they give is not enough to actually make a difference

-        Strings attached

o   Charities may give aid with strings attached which may benefit them but rob the victim of even more power

§  Ex: religion based charities which give alms in return for baptizing and taking away people’s original beliefs by converting them

o   Strings attached may cause more problems in the future

§  Ex: the condition to receiving food aid may be to exchange some power over resources or people which may deprive the taker of charity of freedom/rights/resources later in the future

-        Fickleness of charities

o   Charities, unlike tax systems, are fickly and fluctuate with the economy, people’s perspectives on the issue and with the amount of marketing put into it

o   One day, a cause may be hot, the other day, it’s forgotten although the problem still resides. Unpredictable, aid shortages.

o   A cause requires steady funding at least until the worst of the problem is over, many charities don’t follow through with this, moving on to the next hot cause as soon as the market for the first, unfinished cause slows down.

GOV

-        Moral duty to help

o   We have a moral duty to help people, if we have the power to save someone’s life at minimal cost to us, we should do it - otherwise we would be forfeiting our duty as a citizen of the world.

o   Analogy: if a child was drowning in a pond and you are able to and close enough to pull the child out of the pond at minimal harm to your person (sure maybe clothes may get wet but that’s a small price to pay for a child’s life), you should do it.

o   Helping others is how our world should operate because what goes around comes around. We should look out for each other

-        Every small change makes a difference

o   Even if your donation to charity might have a bit deducted from it for the charity itself, a large portion still goes to your cause

o   What is better? Sitting back and watching the world burn OR actually doing something, even if that’s a small thing, to help?

o   Many small donations add up and that’s the power of the masses, when many people donate, more change for the better is made.

-        Helps with cases outside of government jurisdiction

o   Many charity causes are not provided for (adequately or at all) by the government or are outside of the government jurisdiction.

o   If you still want to help, charities are the only way you can do it – don’t feel limited in your moral duty to help if you just happen to be outside of the area and can’t contribute anything with your tax dollars.

o   Many international cases that cross borders require charities for major funding since governments either can’t (due to innate corruption or current state of war/disorganization), won’t (cause is not sympathetic to the government – e.g. gay rights in a theocratic country) or is too difficult to help due to interborders circumstance

§  E.g. human trafficking, refugee aid in war torn countries, human rights issues in a country with a repressive government

-        Strings attached may solve root problem

o   Strings attached may actually help solve the problem by influencing the government to adapt certain policies that help solve the root cause of the problem

§  Ex: stronger houses in earthquake zones, etc.

o   Giving charity and helping people gives charities a unique position of power and they may use this power to influence for the better.

-        Inspires goodwill between countries

o   Charity from one country which donates to the problem at another country would soften relations between countries and this may extend into helping on an international scale by smoothing international relations.

-        Supplements scarce government funding

o   Government tax funds often aren’t enough and people suffer as a result. Charities supplement the programs and help provide better quality of results and conditions.