Burns 1 Andrew Burns Mr. Girard AP English Language and Composition 16 December 2008 On Charitable Incentives Charity is the giving of one’s own to another without the expectation of anything in return. In reality, the act which we call charity is more properly called “almsgiving” for, charity, deriving itself from the Latin “caritas,” refers to a love of God and almsgiving is a specific aspect of charity whereby a person loves God and loves his fellow man enough to give of his own. Regardless, a charitable act is an act that expects nothing in return. By rewarding or incentivizing an act of charity, one negates charity. To speak of incentivized charitable giving is to speak of commerce, not charity and, though there is nothing unethical with commerce—the very lifeblood of civilization—it is wrong to call commerce “charity,” because that is a misnomer. Thomas Aquinas asks us to look at the motive of an act to see if it is charitable. According to him, a deed is charitable if the deed arises “out of compassion and for God’s sake.” In a more secular respect, an act of charity must arise from compassion for the individual to whom the deed, in this case the gift, is directed. If a “B” student from Mrs. Jacobs’ class learns that he may receive enough extra credit to bring his grade to an “A-” by bringing five cans of food for the homeless, and if the “B” student brings those cans, and if he then receives and “A-”, no charity has taken place. In fact, this scenario features an interesting example of bartering. The “B” student, now the “A-” student, exchanged five cans of food, goods, for a service, the act of adding extra credit points. This transaction is no different than if student “B” gave the teacher a pair of diamond earrings in exchange for a higher grade, though the latter is labeled bribery, the former “caring.” That Mrs. Jacobs intends to, out of charity, give the cans of food to a food bank
Burns 2 is immaterial. And if she is, as is more likely, fulfilling an administrative obligation by collecting the cans for charity, she likewise does no charity, but performs her duty. Duty, charity and commerce are distinct entities that must be treated as such. To treat an incentive, i.e. commerce, as charity obscures the actual meaning of both. The distinction between all three arises from the intent with which the action was performed. Was it performed out of compassion? Then it is charity. Was it performed out of a desire? Then it is commerce. Was it performed because it was required? Then it is duty. The liberties with which certain organizations take with the word charitable do the public a great disservice, especially the segment of the public that does true charitable work. Is it right that the woman who gives twenty hard-earned dollars to a homeless man out of compassion is seen as doing less “charity” than a man who writes a million dollar check, seeking a tax write-off or an image boost? The latter two are not charity, but commerce and vanity, commerce being of neutral virtue and vanity being of a sinful nature. It follows that, under the banner of incentivized charity, deeds rendered from impure motives are painted virtuous and those from purer motives, but of a less substantial nature, appear less virtuous. The billionaire who donates a billion dollars to “Save Africa” only to avoid an estate tax is not doing it out of charity, but out of expediency, seeing it more efficacious to dispense of monies to the needy than to the ineffective government apparatus; the actress that advertises for a cause does so for exposure, not for the cause solely, possibly for the cause and for the exposure; charity is typically small and unostentatious. Clearly incentivized charity is oxymoronic because you cannot incentivize an act of charity—an act that must be intrinsically motivated not extrinsically rewarded. Still, there is nothing inappropriate with employing commerce to facilitate one’s own or a third-party’s charity as Mrs. Jacobs does in our scenario. By giving incentives to students, she was able to collect more cans of food than she would have through merely asking and, as a result, was able to give more to those in need. In the same way, there is
Burns 3 nothing unethical about organizations using incentives to move people to act. A lottery for blood donors, tax write-offs for school donations, food drives for public television organizations, etc. These types of contributions are not charity, they are commerce, and should be labeled as such. The food provided by the “B” student to Mrs. Jacobs’ might very well save the life of a struggling mother or a teen down on his luck. This is, of course, a good thing, for it is good to see those in need provided with the materials necessary to extricate themselves from a desperate situation. Perhaps we call this and similar acts “charity” to ennoble behavior we perceive as deficient in goodness or to assuage our guilt for its intrinsic selfishness, but we needn’t do so. Commerce of this sort is the best type—it provides mutual benefits for those involved, yet still serves a noble purpose.