Charitable Giving in a Classical Liberal State

In a free and open society one cannot escape profiting from others’ misfortunes when one gives to charity. This may be thought to be immoral especially if the charitable act is obviously motivated by self advancement. Yet others may say that charity is immoral because it somehow denies self-interest, which they deem to be the foundation of a free and open society. Both opinions may have grim implications.

By a free and open society I mean a liberal society with a liberal state. A liberal state is where the community recognised the natural trait of man that he does not like to be told what to do by others. Man is left alone to be guided by his own wit and feelings as long as this does not interfere with others’ freedom to do the same. This means that in this state one is reasonably protected from coercion of others. There is a place for a central government but its major functions are limited to protecting the personal private sphere of individuals from coercion and reducing transaction costs. Reducing transaction costs means reducing cost of trade. This may mean reducing cost of risk of trade by enforcing contracts, or creating standards like a measurement system. The society in such a state still looks after the needy by mandatory contributions from the rest. So there is some coercion and personal private sphere of individuals do overlap. But such provisions are only the minimum which ensures that coercion is minimised. This prevents extreme hardship of fellow man and also protects the general society from acts of desperation (e.g. food riots etc.).

In such liberal state one may not be forced to contribute to help the needy beyond stopping starvation. This means that if one does contribute to charity it is more likely to be a show of genuine, and more importantly voluntary, compassion.

At this point it may be said that because the individual is left to be guided by his own wit and feelings he most logically is actually guided by self-interest. This is because this is most likely to ensure the individual’s survival. However such thinking forgets that the individual is still a human. He is not just interested in his material well being. It is natural for men to derive pleasure from helping fellow man. Denying people from giving charity for the reason that it is against their own interest is thus contradictory. In a free and open society people will always do what is in their self interest, but that may also be interest of others. But charitable contributions may also benefit individuals in a more direct way.

A voluntary contribution to charity in a liberal state will obviously improve one's standing in the community. This is because the gift to the needy will be more likely to be a genuine show of compassion and mercy if one does not obviously boast about it. Naturally man values those who are willing to help him and ask for nothing back in return. However the receiver of charity may be less impressed by the gift if he found out that the charitable contribution was made for selfish reasons, like trying to improve his standing in a community which values selflessness. At the very least if one gives to charity only to improve his standing it is no longer compassion. At worst one may say that one is in fact is profiting from someone else’s misfortune. Profiting from someone else’s misfortune is in fact deemed unethical for selfish reasons. People generally would like to be treated by others as they would reasonably treat others. Thus a person in need would expect help instead of someone profiting by others by his position. This is why people think profiting from other’s misfortune is so unfavourable. Not because it hurts anyone but because if they themselves were in a position of need they would like to have had help instead of no particular gain for themselves while someone else was gaining something. One may characterise it as envy of someone else’s profit.

It must be noted that this is all somewhat of an oversimplification. People would be able to, to a large degree, judge when charity is genuine and when not. Certainly people would be able to tell if someone was boastful of his actions. Cultural norms will also have influence on when someone ought to help someone and when not.

Thus profiting from someone’s misfortune is not necessarily ‘bad’, at least from a materialistic point of view. It does not hurt the giver or the receiver but benefits both. The giver profits from his increased standing in the community. The receiver’s position is obviously helped out because of the hand out. This kind of an improvement where both parties benefit while no one is made worse off is called Pareto-improvement. However there is still the question of ethics. If one does not realise that demanding the stopping of profiting from someone else’s misfortune is in fact selfish one may still feel obligated to try to stop it. One may then argue that the state should concern itself to make the situation more ethical.

One possibility is banning all charitable giving. This would be impossible to enforce. People would still find a way to give to others. More importantly a ban on charity would be unnatural as it interferes with a basic natural trait of man to show compassion and mercy, whether for selfish reasons or not. This solution seems to be even more unethical (whatever that means) than the unethical situation it is trying to resolve.

A more reasonable solution may lie in making all charitable giving secret. This would mean that the giver no longer has the incentive of raising his own standing in the community. This would make it appear that some of the selfishness has been gotten rid of. Of course the giver may will still profit because he is fulfilling his own desires to give. So he is still ripping some profit. However if the incentive of raising one’s of standing is lost many people would stop contributing to charity and many needy would be worse off. It is also somewhat questionable if forcing people to make their contributions secret is in itself all that ethical. This is because this measure restricts people’s freedom (of basically boasting) while it does not stop any imposition on others’ personal private sphere which is the only excuse for restrictions of individuals in a liberal state and society. This solution may end up hurting the poor and the needy for the benefit of allowing a few moralists to sleep easier which seems a poor trade off.

Another possibility may be to allow the state to take from the well off and give to the poor like Robin Hood did. But forcing people to give in such a way is hardly ethical and constitutes robbery. This solution looses all traits of compassion and mercy and imposes on the natural freedom to choose not to give. This solution seems to be most unethical. From a materialistic point of view it does benefit the poor the most because the state can rob the rich to a very large extent and make the poor as rich as it pleases.

A theoretical solution may be to stop people from thinking selfishly or to make people stop regarding mercy and compassion as a virtue. This would require a vast social engineering project which of course would impose on individuals’ natural make up. This would be tyranny.

It seems that there are no ethical solutions to the unethical situation where one profits from another’s misfortune but falsely calls it compassion. All the solutions seem to be even more unethical. It seems that the best thing to do is simply let people be people and let them make their own judgment what is ethical and unethical, what they should do and not do.

On the Virtues of Gay Marriage

We do not treat people equally because all are equal. We treat people equally because all are different. These differences make everyone so valuable. One cannot exactly know how a person thinks or what experiences he has had thus one will never predict what kind of contribution that person can make to society.

In order to allow a person the maximum scope within which he is able to exploit his knowledge, talents and ambitions, and thus contribute something, law treats everyone the same so everyone has a level playing field. Arbitrary rules which elevate some while dragging other down are avoided. Discrimination and privileges are frowned upon. However this does not mean in any way that one must automatically like other people. Not liking someone is subjective and arbitrary. It dictates how one treats others in private personal relationships but it should not prevent one from recognising a person’s contributions.

In modern society there are few areas of life where illiberal discrimination still exists. Slavery has been abolished, women have been set free and given the vote, and justice no longer recognises a colour of a man, at least not in Europe and not in theory in USA. Since enlightenment we have been free to think. But even though most battles have been won by liberalism the war is not over. Probably the last area where prejudice and lack of respect for freedom of men still exist is in sexual orientation. Gay marriage is an example of a much wider fight for freedom of people to love who they truly love and not be coerced to betray their real feelings. It is also a fight for those feelings to be tolerated and accepted as just as valid as feelings of other people. Many argue against gay marriage because they do not want this tolerance to be allowed. Liberty, as it turns out, has enemies of all political creeds. Lets examine of the main arguments against gay marriage and by extension against gay rights.

Marriage, in a strictly utilitarian sense, is the commitment of two people to a lasting relationship and a signal to the rest of the world, predominantly to the state, to treat the pair as a unit. This manifests itself mostly in taxation, housing rights and other administrative policies.

As it stands right now marriage mostly remains a privilege of the heterosexual. The majority discriminates against the minority of homosexuals in dictating that they are not allowed to be recognised as married. But this fails to recognise the possible contributions same sex couples can make to our society. This discrimination is also silly, entirely arbitrary and dangerous.

In order to avoid sounding religious and dogmatic some may argue along the utilitarian path and say that the original point of marriage was to provide more stable conditions in which to raise children. This pre-dates all religious thought by the virtue of happening at the dawn of humanity, before superstition and other cognitive side effects created the idea of God. The argument says that same sex couples are incapable of having children so there is no point in gay couples having marriages. It is true that same sex couples cannot reproduce. Same sex couples can however adopt (another topic of gay rights movement) and provide a loving and carrying home just as often as heterosexual couples, as proven by research. Does this not mean that providing same sex couples an opportunity to marry will result on average in even better home for their adopted children? Don’t gay marriages encourage same sex couples to adopt unwanted children and provide them with a loving home and thus benefiting society? It seems that from a utilitarian point of view same sex couples provide a net benefit, especially to orphans.

One must recognise that extending the definition of marriage to same sex couples does not in any way damage the marriage between heterosexual couples. How can it? homosexual couples are not going to climb through the window at night and steal heterosexual couples' marriage certificate. Does extending the definition of marriage result in heterosexual couples losing their love or affect their marriage? Obviously not. Imagine a situation in a heterosexual relationship where one partner, lets say the husband, tell his wife “honey, same sex marriage now is allowed, I don’t think I love you anymore. We have to split up.” Of course this is ridiculous. Discriminating against same sex couples on these grounds is not rational. It is a whim, a silly opinion, it is arbitrary.

Saying that we ought to have discrimination in one arbitrary area of life and have equality in all other areas of life may result in loss of all equality. If we can arbitrarily discriminate in one area of life, why not two areas? How about three? How about all of them? This is what arbitrariness is. The slippery slope to loss of equality before the law is thus established.

It seems to me that by following the liberal principle of equality before the law and thus extending definition of marriage to same sex couples will result in more equality before the law and a clear benefit to society. It will not result in anything catastrophic. How can recognising love and commitment between two people be a bad thing? One is perfectly entitled to dislike the gays, but why try to coerce them, or prevent them from doing good for the rest?

Holy Ethics

Many claim that even if God did not exist, religion still teaches us morals. Some would say that the proof of existence of God and his wisdom is that he gave us the meanings of right and wrong. One way or the other this is a misunderstanding of the history of man.

Start from evolution being a proved scientific fact. Palaeontology, cell biology, geology all say that beyond reasonable doubt, evolution was the process by which life has come to be the way it is today. Before we evolved into what we are now, we existed as apes. At this stage we exhibited what may be said to be ethics. We protected the young, cared for the old and injured, helped each other and disliked and punished anyone who did not. To modern man these actions would undoubtedly seem virtuous.

Were these in any way morals? I think for it to be called such, these actions would have to, at least sometimes, go against individual's true self interest, to be selfless. So did these actions go against anyone's true self interest? Not really. These actions helped the individual to interact with others and ultimately served the individual. For example, man’s evolutionary grandparents protected the young because 'workers' and hunters were needed for the group. The group served the individual, for example sharing of the kills and provision of care if the individual was injured. So the young were protected for the good of the group which in turn was for the good of the individual. So these actions are based on selfish reciprocity. These actions were a function of evolution, adaptations to working in a group. Through varies evolutionary methods of mutation and sexual selection nature taught apes to work in a social group. This tribal behaviour gave the apes a greater chance of survival. In order to take full advantage of the group apes learned to be ‘moral’.

Fast forward to the dawn of modern man. Without questioning the very existence of God, everyone would agree that at that point in time the rational fear of the dark, snakes and the like, devolved into irrational phobias and superstition. This lead to the very early pagan religions. It would seem obvious to say the mentioned biologically controlled ‘ethics’ got mixed up in sun worshiping and the early debates about the nature of existence.

Fast forward again to the modern, more sophisticated religions. By studying the history of these religions one can see that vast quantities of material for the Holy Scriptures were borrowed from earlier times. Man’s understanding and thinking grew in complexity and simple truths became clouded in layer upon layer of abstraction, ignorance and the politics and power games of the rich and powerful. For example, questioning the authority of establishment of varies religions was deemed a sin and immoral.

Many would say that actually God himself was writing texts through people’s hands. He is the one who gave us rules and laws and morals through Holy Scriptures. It may be true that he was working through people in some way but these Holy Scriptures did not give us our morals. The idea that morals came about only through Scriptures is very convenient for the religions. It gave them the licence to make up their own ethics, their own right and wrong. The establishment used this authority to grab more power and guarantee itself long term survival. However, the idea that morals come from holy texts ignores the facts.

One cannot argue with that fact that the modern morals of man existed before they were “outlined by God”. If one does argue this point, one implies that modern morals did not exist before God wrote them down. We have already seen that this is not true. Morals existed before even writing itself did, because without them early society would not have functioned, humanity would not have survived. Look for example at the Ten Commandments. Is it really true to say that murder was exceptable, that property rights did not exist and perjury was unpunished? Of course not. The ancient Egyptians were doing just fine with their almost identical laws as was the proto-Persian as well as every other early civilisation.

It is true that modern law is based partly on religious rules. In UK at least some very early laws were based on the Bible and other church writings and opinions. But the Bible itself is based on earlier biological necessities of living in a group. I think it very important to wrestle back ethics from the authority of the religious types. The pious have all too often bent and twisted ideas of right and wrong into something very ugly. Torture during the Spanish Inquisition and flying aeroplanes into skyscrapers being some examples.

This leads one to the conclusion that there is no absolute right and wrong. All of ethics become relative. This does not mean that one is allowed to do whatever one wants. Man lives within society. This form of living is far more beneficial to an individual than living outside of society. There must be rules governing the behaviour of men to safeguard freedom of one from another’s force. One is thus free to experiment, explore, create and then trade or give away fruits’ of one’s labour. This allows everyone to benefit from individuals while also protecting them. Thus law is artificial in the sense that it not created by God but it is not arbitrary in its prescription of ethics since they come from the necessities of a functioning society. The development of ethics and law must be based solely on reason.

Ethics come from responsibility to others which is ultimately based on self interest developed by evolution. The Bible simply copied this reality and injected it with a requirement for slavish and unquestioning devotion to the clergy which was used to control the peasantry and enrich the church.