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.

Nature of Obligation

My aim is to consider the circumstances in which the standards of ethics may conclude that an individual is obligated to act for the benefit of another party. This tends to be a difficult subject, and the focal point of much consideration and argument, and a fundamental consideration to ethics.

To begin, obligation is the focal point of ethics. When a person acts alone, undertaking an action that has no appreciable impact on other parties, the question of ethics do not arise. A person is expected to act in ways beneficial to himself as a matter of course. A person is entitled to act in ways that are harmful to himself, though this may seem irrational to an observer. The consideration of "right" and "wrong" are practical matters, nothing more.

The consideration of ethics begins only when a second party enters the stage, and the consequences of the actions undertaken by an actor impact this second person. They may have a direct impact, in which any harm or benefit immediately arises from the action, or an indirect impact, in that the consequences of the action alter the situation in a way that is ultimately beneficial or harmful to the other party by virtue of the change in the environment.

The fundamental question of ethics, then, is whether it is "right" for a person to take an action due to the consequences it may have for other parties. This gives rise to the notion that the individual is required to consider the impact to other parties before undertaking any course of action.

And at this, a working definition of obligation can be derived: obligation is the requirement for an individual to consider the consequences of an action to other parties in advance of undertaking that action.

While this may be tedious, my sense is that it might give rise to problems if the goal of obligation were not fully explored: given that the options are to act or refrain from acting, and given that the consequences may be beneficial or harmful, there are four possible outcomes (1):

Obligation to act in ways that are harmful to others

The notion that a person is obliged to harm others seems entirely absurd at first, and on further consideration it remains largely so. The only exception I can presently conceive is in reaction. It might be argued that acting in a way to harm another person effects restitution (when the actor seeks to be compensated for the harm done by the previous actions of another person) and a punitive value (when the harm inflicted on another is a punishment that is intended to dissuade them from repeating the action that elicited the reactive punishment).

Punitive action is a topic best suited for political and legal debate, so I expect to avoid it in future. While the notion of restitution seems germane to the topic of business, in that an individual who has performed a service and not received payment may feel obligated to obtain compensation in a manner that could be perceived as harmful to the other party, the primary interest in doing so is not to harm the other party, but to gain the benefit to which they feel entitled. This may bear further consideration in that context, but not in the sense of obligation.

Obligation to refrain from acting in ways that are helpful to others

This notion seems unusual, though not quite as absurd as the former, in that the typical argument is based on the premise that when it is possible to help others, the obligation is to render aid rather than withhold it (which will be addressed later). Even so, my sense is that there are instances in which a person may be obligated to refrain from acting in a way that benefits other parties.

One instance in which it is logical to feel reluctance to render assistance is in the context of education or mentoring. The belief that another person will not learn a skill or be inclined to develop the facility for performing a task if another party intercedes to perform tasks in his benefit does seem to be rational. In this sense, the actor's intention in refraining from assisting is positive in its intent: to give to the other person not the immediate benefit they may wish to have, but instead a more long-term benefit of learning to accomplish the task for themselves.

Another instances in which it is logical to refrain from rendering assistance is in a situation where the actor accepts the limitation of his own knowledge. That is to say, the actor is uncertain whether the action he undertakes will render a benefit the other party desires without doing greater harm. In plainer terms, there is the obligation not to interfere in situations where you lack the information, experience, and knowledge to be sufficiently certain that the action will have a beneficial outcome.

Obligation to act in ways that are helpful to others

Under certain circumstances, the notion that a person may be obligated to undertake an action for the benefit of another party seems reasonable. However, the precise circumstances are a subject of much debate, and bear far more scrutiny that I can give them in the content of the present post.

I expect there will be many meditations in which the notion of this obligation is considered, and I can think of no general principle that I can state at the present time, without more intense consideration.

Obligation to refrain from acting in ways that are harmful to others

It seems to me that the obligation to refrain from acting in ways that are harmful to others is virtually an axiom. "Doing no harm" seems a requirement for considering an action to be wholly ethical. An individual is entitled act in a way that harms himself if he so desires, and obligated to suffer the negative consequences of his own actions is a matter of course, but I can find no rational basis the notion that an individual is obligated to harm others.

Exceptions to this principle seem absurd: the notion that a party would seek to obligate another to undertake an action in which the sole consequences would be to harm them would be the equivalent of acting, by proxy, to harm themselves - which would fall into the defined categories as altruistic, sacrificial, or insane.

Notes

1. I have conveniently omitted from the consideration above instances in which an action has no consequences for others, or instances in which the consequences do not result in appreciable harm or benefit to others. I don't wish to take these off the table, as a number of false dilemmas arise from the exclusion of the possibility of actions that have no appreciable consequence. However, I believe they can rightly be excluded from consideration in the context of obligation.

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.