Charitable Action and Esteem

In the context of relationships, there arose the notion of gratuitous action: an individual undertakes an action for the benefit of the other party, while having no expectation that the other party would undertake any action in return. However, the topic was set aside, as it is not unique to relationships: there are charitable actions performed for the benefit of others outside the context of a relationship as well.

The motivation to act in the benefit of others was previously matrixed against the motivation to act in self-interest, arriving at the classification of such actions as benevolent (the actor also benefits), charitable (no appreciable consequence to actor), or altruistic (the actor suffers harm).

In the context of a relationship, an action that benefits the other party is done for the sake of strengthening the relationship - and the relationship being of value to the actor, an action that might be characterized as charitable or altruistic could be argued to be merely benevolent, in that the motivation of the actor in providing an unsolicited benefit is to gain for themselves the preservation or reinforcement of a valued relationship.

Outside the context of a relationship, the same argument may be made: a person who acts for the benefit of others may not gain an immediate benefit for himself, but his service of another party gains their favor and thus increases the likelihood that the other party will be inclined to enter into a relationship with the actor in the future.

Even when a relationship with the benefactor of an action seems improbable, there remains the notion of esteem: a person who acts to benefit others without an apparent benefit to himself is seeking to improve his reputation as a "good" person, hence increase the likelihood that others will be inclined to enter into a relationship with the actor in the future.

This is clearly the motivation of conspicuous acts of charity: when a business performs charitable acts, it takes measures to ensure that these actions are publicized in order to gain the benefit of esteem. The same can be said of any individual whose charitable action is overt - the motivation to be charitable is to gain the benefit to their personal reputation as a means of increasing their esteem.

As such, any overt act of charity or altruism is not selfless, but is performed in self-interest, even though the benefit to self may be vague, will not be realized immediately, and may not be realized at all. The motivation of a charitable person is to gain esteem, a line of credit that they may draw upon in future.

It's noted that, in order to generate esteem, an act of charity or altruism must be overt. If no-one is aware of a charitable act, it produces no esteem for the actor. It could be argued that an anonymous act of charity is "truly" charitable, as the actor gains no benefit, or it could be argued that even an anonymous act of charity is done for the sake of self-esteem or self-actualization.

I don't intend to explore the notion of anonymous charitable action further. Since it is internal to an individual, its would seem to be of little relevance to social ethics.

Categorization of Consequences

In considering the consequences of an action to self versus to others, there seem to be nine possible outcomes when comparing the consequences to self to the consequences to others, which can be schematized thus:

	Benefit Others	No Consequence	Harm Others
Benefit Self	Benevolent	Self-Interested	Questionable
No Consequence	Charitable	Inconsequential	Sociopathic
Harm Self	Altruistic	Sacrificial	Irrational

As a note, I'm not sure if the labels I've given to these categories are entirely accurate, but found that attempting to use some neutral indicator was either verbose ("actions that benefit the self while having no consequence to others") or incomprehensible ("Type BN" or "Type 2"). This may bear further consideration - but for the present, the intention is to consider the interplay of the outcomes.

And while it's been noted before, it bears repeating that "no consequence" is shorthand for "no significant consequence," in that all actions have some consequence, but the consequence has no significance under most circumstances.

I've considered the merits of considering each of these nine categories, in and of themselves, but have decided not to do so at the present time. It seems a bit overly oriented with details that may be inconsequential. I may change my mind about that later, but for now:

Actions that have no consequences for any party, called "inconsequential" in the table above, do not merit further inquiry. An action that has no consequence cannot be assessed as good or bad, but might reasonably be called a waste of time and resources. Perhaps the only interest to ethics is the choice of an inconsequential action over a beneficial alternative, but even that seems of little interest

Actions that have a benefit to one or both parties (benevolent, charitable, or self-interested) but cause no harm to anyone are likewise of little interest to ethics: one can conclude that the action is "good" without the need to meditate upon it further.

Actions that harm one or both parties (sacrificial, sociopathic, or irrational) but precipitate no benefit for anyone are likewise of little interest to ethics: one can conclude that the action is "bad" without the need to meditate upon it further.

The altruistic action, which harms self and benefits others, merits some consideration. However, even this is of limited interest to ethics, as the decision is entered into freely by the actor, who is just as entitled to act to his own detriment as he is to act in his own benefit. In situations where a third party attempts to manipulate or deceive an individual into harming himself for their benefit, ethics is applied to the action of manipulation or deceit separate from the altruistic action.

The category of greatest interest to ethics are those actions deemed questionable - where an actor seeks to benefit himself and accepts that there are negative consequences to others. The degree to which this is acceptable or unacceptable to ethics is largely a matter of degree. By the strictest application of ethics, a person is required to do no harm to others, even if this means foregoing any benefit he might gain by doing so. By a more liberal interpretation, a person may be forgiven for the harm to others if the harm done is of lesser degree than the benefit - but even in that interpretation, it is conceded that the action is essentially unethical.

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.

Motivation to Act for the Benefit of Others

Given that action is motivated by the desire to effect a benefit and that it can be taken for granted that an individual will act in self-interest, there remains the potential for an individual to act to effect a benefit for others.

There seems to be an imperative in Western culture to act for the benefits of others. This quality is evident much of historical philosophy and the contemporary philosophy that derives from historical bases. Much of which seeks to define ethics in a societal rather than a social context - the difference being that a "societal" approach to ethics considers the individual as having less value than the group and must therefore self-sacrifice for the benefit of others, whereas the "social" approach to ethics acknowledges that an individual is entitled to act for his own benefit but consider any negative impact to others as undesirable consequence.

Likewise, there is a notion that a truly altruistic person disregards their own needs and safety in order that their actions might benefit other parties - often vaguely defined as a "society" to which he is subordinate. This strikes me as a hollow notion, and one most often used in an unethical manner: to subordinate others to the service of an imaginary group (mainly, the church or the state) in order to skew their logic to serve the purpose of the individual to serving the interests of whomever is seeking to motivate/manipulate them.

Proponents of societal ethics tend to represent social ethics as being opposed to society - that acting in self-interest is done with disregard for the welfare of others - and therefore an individual who does not subordinate themselves to service of the society is anti-social, perhaps even to the degree of being sociopathic or seeking primarily to harm others. This is propaganda.

The social approach to ethics accepts that individuals will act in their own interests, but includes the benefit of others as a benefit to self, and proposes an ethic of action that does not necessarily exclude service to others or disregard their welfare. Considering that the motivation of the individual stems from the needs of the individual, any "other" party may be considered as a third- or fourth- level need of the self.

Returning to Maslow, the higher-level needs that an individual is motivated to serve derive from their interaction and relationship with other individuals.

A third-level need, called a "social" need recognizes that man is a social creature, and is motivated to pursue mutually-beneficial relationships with other individuals (who are expected to be motivated by the mutually-beneficial nature of the relationship). The mutually-beneficial nature of the relationship is key to the motivation of the individual: if there is a social connection from which the individual receives no benefit, there is no motivation to establish and preserve that relationship.

The fourth-level need, called an "esteem" need, is also evident in a social context: the desire to gain esteem exists only within a social context. This is achieved only though service to others, as "esteem" is granted to members of a group who are seen to be of greatest service to the group. There is therefore a motivation for an individual to act in ways that achieve benefits to others.

The fifth-level needs tend to be vaguely defined, but they also strike me as being social in nature: a person is "actualized" in their growth within a society and the positive impact they have upon it. In a loose sense, it can be said that a person is motivated to reap the psychological rewards of acting to achieve a "better world" in a sense that is related to long-term benefits and large-scale impact.

The main difference between societal ethics and social ethics is that, in societal ethics, Maslow's hierarchy is inverted (or perhaps subverted) to suggest that the individual must first seek to achieve a "better world" before concerning himself with his basic (survival) needs, whereas in social ethics, the good of society is a recognized as a need, but is prioritized at the proper level of interest: an individual is motivated to act in the interest of his own survival before acting to achieve the higher-level goals, which is in line with Maslow's theory.

Entitlement of the Actor

Having considered the potential positive and negative consequences of an action to the actor himself, it has been concluded that an action that has no consequences for any other party is not within the scope of ethics to evaluate.

There is, however, a precipitating (or perhaps underlying) premise: that an individual is entitled to undertake action in his own welfare, which include undertaking actions that may ultimately be detrimental to his own welfare.

Objectively, it may seem that there are situations in which another party may wish to intervene in order to prevent an individual from undertaking action that poses a threat to his own welfare, or even to compel an individual to undertake an action that would improve his own welfare, but intervention is ethically questionable, as any party other than the actor does not have sufficient knowledge of the intentions of the actor and is likely to be mistaken about whether the action in question is intended to be beneficial or harmful to the actor.

In situations where another party's own welfare is at stake, the desire to restrict the actions of others can be based in a desire to defend against a threat to their own welfare. As such, the act of intervention is pursuit of personal interest, in which instance the person who means to intervene must consider the ethics of their own (intervening) action.

In situations where this other party's interests are not at stake, there is no justification for intervening. There remains an emotional motivation to act, the notion that another party will feel a sense of regret at their failure to have intervened, but emotion is no basis for logic (though again, it may in some instances be a cue that the logic bears greater scrutiny), nor are the consequences of not acting to be equivocated with the consequences of undertaking to act.

Ethics in Social Context

Another extrapolation from Maslow is that action is motivated by the needs or interests of the actor, and that ethics is considered in terms of the impact of that action in terms of its consequence to other parties. In other words, ethics is not primarily concerned with the self-interest of the actor.

It is expected that a person will act in pursuit of their own values, and in instances where there is no consequence to any other party, ethics does not apply. When a person is motivated by their own hunger to eat, the act of eating is not of any ethical significance whatsoever – it is merely the satisfaction of his own needs, of consequence to no other party.

That is not to say that any benefit to self is to be excluded or discounted from consideration. The fact that the act of eating renders a benefit to the actor remains as a motivation to act. The decision is still rational, and it is practical, but the lack of benefit or detriment to another party makes it of negligible interest to ethics.

Ethics is concerned with the social context of action – the consequences of an action to other parties. I cannot go so far as to say “to society,” as “society” lacks definition and includes parties for whom an action has no consequences. And again, if there are no consequences, there is nothing for ethics to consider in determining the nature of the action in terms of good or evil.

It’s also noted that needs are taken for granted, and a motivation to fill a need is presumed. This is the rationale for action, which is of key interest to ethics. It seems pointless to apply reason to evaluate an action that is not the result of a reasoned decision, though ethics may castigate the neglect of considering consequences before undertaking action.

It is also presumed that some action will be taken to address a need. A person who is hungry will seek to satisfy that need by eating, a prerequisite of which is obtaining food. In such an instance, ethics is not primarily concerned with the satisfaction of the need for the actor (to eat being neutral), but with the actions undertaken in obtaining food, insofar as they affect other parties.

That is to say that the person will eat, as a practical matter, and the function of ethics is to help him to identify the course of action, among the various possibilities, by which he will satisfy this requirement. It is the means, rather than the action, that are evaluated with the intention of making a rational decision, given that the individual is motivated to undertake some form of action to fill that need.

And to return to the original point, that if the action an individual undertakes to fill a need has no impact on any other party, his actions are of no interest to ethics.

Maslow Reconsidered

The primary problem in applying Maslow's hierarchy to ethics is that Maslow explores the motivations of the individual to act in his own benefit, whereas ethics most often considers the effect of actions upon others.

That said, there are a few aspects of Maslow's theory that seem compelling:

Primarily, that interests can be prioritized by a hierarchy, some being more important than others. This seems entirely rational, and has value to ethics in overcoming some to the problems inherent in binary systems of ethics - in which a consequence is labeled as good or bad without a sense of the degree of importance or impact.

Second, that the importance of an interest is relative to the achievement of a core value. In Maslow's hierarchy, it is clear that the chief "need" toward which an individual is motivated is life itself - in the sense of the survival of the individual. I have a sense that the same can be said of ethics - not only in the role that values play, but also in the identification of life itself as the root value, from which all other values are derived.

Third, and this is admittedly an indirect extrapolation, that the motivation of an individual to serve his own interests is entirely a matter of psychology that has little importance or interest to ethics. Said another way, ethics takes it for granted that an individual will act in his own interests, to serve his own needs, and that this is of no consequence to ethics. Instead, ethics focuses on the consequences of an action to others, and one of the chief ethical dilemmas is in considering when the harm done to others is justified by the benefit to self.

Each of these three aspects merit further consideration.

Consequences: To Self and to Others

A significant factor in assessing the ethics of a decision lies in the parties impacted by a decision. The primary distinction seems to be the individual who makes a decision, others who can influence the decision, and others who have no influence over the decision. Each of these parties may be subject to the consequences of a given decision.

It is supposed that an individual who makes a decision, but is not impacted by the consequences of that decision, is in an objective position and is best qualified to make the determination of which course of action to undertake. I would not entirely agree with that assessment: primarily, because I cannot presently conceive on an instance in which a person is not impacted by a decision that he, himself, makes. The decision-maker's interests are served at some level.

When an individual who makes a decision is impacted by the consequences, and makes the decision that is of greatest benefit to himself, this is perceived as deciding in self-interest. It is presumed that a rational individual will make the decision that is of greatest benefit to himself.

There is a special case in which the consequences of a decision impact only the person who makes the decision - no other party will benefit from or be harmed by the consequences of the action that is subject to the decision. This is unusual, but not entirely unheard of, and I would suggest that such decisions are outside the scope of ethics.

However, it stands to reason that ethics may imply a duty on others who are aware of such a decision to intervene in instances where an individuals make a decisions that are harmful to themselves. Whether intervening in this manner is right or wrong is a topic to be considered later - but for the present, it is concluded that instances in which an individual makes a decision that impact only himself are outside the scope of ethics, at least for the individual making the decision (whether to intervene is a separate decision).

When the consequences of a decision by one person have an impact on others, that decision becomes a subject of ethical consideration: specifically, whether the individual has the "right" to make a decision that impacts others, and whether the individual is to be held accountable for the impact of their decision upon others.

There is the notion of whether the others who are impacted by the decision have a corresponding duty to the decision-maker. If one is harmed by the action of another, does one have the "right" to retaliate or extract compensation? If one is benefited by the action of another, does one "owe" anything to the decision-maker? However, these are separate topics, as what is under consideration is not the present action, but a separate action to be taken in response.

In terms of the ethics of the immediate decision, the question arises of what level of consideration should be given to the benefit or harm that will be done to others.

Also, a mitigating factor in the impact to others is whether the other party who is impacted by a decision had advance knowledge, the opportunity to influence or participate in the decision-making process, and who actively participated in carrying out the action that were the results of the decision.

I don't propose to address these issues immediately, merely to identify them as an area of consideration when evaluating the ethics of a decision.