In class on Thursday, we discussed Aristotle's definition of virtue. He states that virtue is the mean between two extremes and that any vice is either a deficit or excess of one of these virtues. We started going through multiple well-accepted virtues, such as honesty and courage, and eventually landed on generosity for a part of our discussion. Thinking of the two extremes of generosity was much easier than our detailed discussion with honesty and courage. It is easy to understand a deficit in generosity, ultimately greed or selfishness. And we also talked about how being too generous (i.e. giving all your stuff away to follow Jesus) can be considered as "too generous".
When creating counter-examples, an excess of generosity was obvious when examining its effect on the one being too generous. Giving all your things away can easily be classified as foolish. But what became less obvious was finding and understanding examples where those on the receiving end of the generosity did not benefit. This is understandable considering the big role many charity organizations play in today's society. But many times people do not think about how charitable acts can cause more harm than good. While I am not arguing that all charity is bad or that no forms of charity should exist, it is important to realize that certain and excessive charitable acts can harm a community more than the benefit they receive.
This is because charities often target symptoms, not causes. Like the Bellevue Baptist Church example I mentioned in class, the 1.2 million dollars raised in one church service is funneled into initiatives that helps clean up around Memphis, provide food for those in need, and various other programs for the Memphis community. But often this hurts the community more than it helps. In my research this summer, I defined one of the main problems with Memphis is the effort of those trying to "fix" communities in which they do not live in or affiliate with. People come in an attempt to help those in other communities instead of providing those within the communities the resources and education to improve their community from within. Many of those I interviewed in the multiple Memphis communities this summer see charity organizations as people that make a living off of the community's situation. While this was a difficult concept for me to grasp at first, I understand now that many times residents of communities receiving the excess of generosity feel that those giving are only doing so to profit themselves.
Aristotle would argue that the resentment of the community is a result of an excess of generosity. When the mean is not found or stuck to, it is important to understand that it is not just the one being excessively generous that is suffering. Often they don't suffer at all and as a result, do not realize that they are contributing more to the problem than they are helping fix it.
I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion that Aristotle would argue the Memphis example is an excess of generosity.
ReplyDeleteFirstly we must look at whether the consequences of an action truly should be taken into consideration when finding the mean of a virtue. It seems clear that because we cannot determine the consequences, no reasonable person could factor them into a decision. Take the classic example: I go into the park and hand out donuts to homeless people. The fact that one of them is diabetic and goes into a coma does not change the generosity of my action.
If we do think these actions are not truly generous, I would say it is due to the people involved not taking all the aspects of the situation into account. It is not vicious to donate this money, but perhaps it is illogical to do so in the way they have.
To reverse the conversation, I do believe the church has committed to being overly generous. First, we must agree doing anything generous does not mean selfless. The churchgoers donate money and feel good about their donation. The initial raising of money does not prove to be a vice in my opinion, but what is done with the money is. I agree the way they spend is illogical considering the needs of those affected. They hire people to clean and teach, but the residents could be the ones getting hired to improve their own community. The money can be used to start communal organizations that sponsor cleanups with lunches. A community garden could be started. A community run workout center. My point is the money seems to be spent on outside organizations, giving the opportunity for more people to be ‘generous,’ but truly this is self-serving. If all the money was spent on initiating inner-communal uplifting with minimal external influence, the money would be used to teach those communities how to fish. I have not looked into the many programs the money supports, but from class it sounded like mostly external forces were being hired, many I assume have connections and volunteers from the church. Maybe there is mistrust and some do not believe the communities could help themselves better than others. Either way, I think the illogical spending of the money could be argued as a logical attempt to satisfy a morally upright community’s desire to repress class guilt.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Aron on this and think that its not necessarily being overly generous, it probably is an issue with how they are spending the money. I would think that the more money for charity would be better, and that the generosity of lots of money would allow for more things to be done. I understand that it could cause issues with the communities when people just come in and mess things up, but if the programs were run correctly and with these issues in mind I believe that it could help the community. Yes, being overly generous would be "foolish" and not something that I would recommend, but when you look at all the inequalities in the world I think that it wouldn't hurt to be too generous and would not be a bad thing. I think that some of these virtues are difficult to think of an extreme where it hurts to have to much of it.
ReplyDelete