Prioritizing the Benefit to Others

When an individual acts in self-interests, the prioritization of his interests is weighted according to the immediacy of benefit to self. When an individual acts in the interest of other parties, there are two considerations to be made: the level of benefit to a given party and the choice of one party's benefits over another's.

The first consideration, the choice among benefits to a single party, would seem to be easily resolved, as the same method of prioritization can be applied: if your intention is to benefit a starving man, his needs are best addressed by a meal. Giving him "job training" to improve his lot may be argued to have a greater long-term impact on alleviating his condition, by better equipping him to serve his future needs (second-level security need) but his immediate condition (first-level survival need) is of greater importance.

The second consideration, determining which of multiple others is to be served, seems more arbitrary: the need of a person five feet away is no greater or less than that of a person five thousand miles away. The choice to help the closer party is often a practical matter: it is easier. And while the easy choice is not necessarily the most ethical, it is often the most efficient. To provide assistance to a party at a distance requires transportation (the cost of which may make the donation impracticable), transportation will take time (by the time help arrives, it may no longer be needed), etc. The impact upon ethics is in the effect of distance upon the conditions and probable consequences of the decision.

When it is just as practical to serve the needs of one party as the needs of another, it becomes a question of the actor's own values. In particular, the benefit to others may be regarded as a third-level of fourth-level benefit to self.

The third-level benefit to self is service to social needs, and it seems rational that the greater the service to self, the more one is vested in the interests of the other party. Hence, a person is more likely to act in the interests of a member of their immediate family than a stranger, a member of their community rather than an outsider, a member of their own country than an immigrant. This is not merely an emotional decision, but a rational one, in that the benefit is to bestowed upon a "closer" party because the actor has greater personal interest in their welfare, in that the relationship with that person has greater potential future value to self.

The fourth-level benefit to self is an interest in gaining esteem, which is very often the unspoken motive behind charitable or altruistic actions. A person provides benefits to others so that other individuals (including, but not limited to, the individual to whom they granted the benefit) will be more inclined to regard them as a noble person and worthy of their deference. This is evident in the desire to be charitable in a conspicuous way - not merely to perform an act of charity, but to make it known to others that they have acted charitably, and therefore to grant them the esteem that was the self-serving motive of being charitable.

The exception would seem to be an anonymous donation that benefits others, but my sense is this is still related to gaining esteem - only in this instance, it is self-esteem. It is not important to others to recognize the charitable action, but the individual experiences positive feelings about themselves for having undertaken a charitable action. In the absence of any other benefit to self, charitable action is valued because it "feels good" to be charitable, regardless of whether the action actually benefited anyone else. This phenomenon explains why so many people donate to charity without checking to see that the funds they donate are being used for the purpose for which they were provided - they have reaped the reward of self-esteem, which was their prime motivation.

In acting for the benefits of others, an person who is rational and ethical will evaluate these various factors to come to a decision about which action to undertake, though my sense is there is quite a bit of interplay among the various factors. For example, if it is a choice between granting a benefit to a party that in a manner that would grant the actor greater esteem and a more distant one to who is in greater need, the consideration of the various factors may not be logically or mathematically precise.