Having a Greek word in the title is designed to give this post an auro of intelligence that it doesn’t deserve, but it also points toward an interesting question: Why do we care for the poor? Over at Aurochs and Angels (by the way, what is an auroch?), AA suggests that the alms giving is not simply about helping the poor, but also about helping the rich. Hence, he quotes with approval a statement suggesting that the poor in America have a duty to help those that are less economically fortunate than themselves, a group that includes the vast majority of humanity. He goes on to write:
That’s one reason I’m deeply ambivalent toward the modern welfare state: by bureaucratizing charity, we disconnect ourselves from it and make it somebody else’s job. I very much doubt that we get any of the spiritual fruit that accompanies almsgiving from those automatic IRS deductions that come out of our paychecks.
My problem with this argument is that it seems just a bit too neat as a reason for a middle-class or upper middle-class Christian to assuage any pangs of conscience about voting for tax cuts or reductions in government assistance to the poor. (For the record: I am generally in favor of lower taxes and am skeptical of most government assistance programs to the poor, but almost entirely for insturmentalist reasons.) The argument, however, is problemtic for a much deeper reason, a reason that has to do with the issue of meta-ethics and the Gospel. The question is does the Gospel commit us not only to particular ethical positions (eg “One should help the poor”) but also particular ethical methodologies (eg “The Gospel is inconsistent with utilitarianism”).
I think that the root cause of AA’s ambivalence is actually not some sort of conservative self-justification. Rather, I think that below it lurks the assumption that the Gospel commits us to an aretaic ethics. Aretaic ethics assumes that ethical questions should be resolved by reference to virtues and character. Ethics consists, on this view, in the perfection of the human character, the achievement of some human excellence. The theoretical progenitor of aretaic ethics, of course, is Aristotle, and give the fact that AA seems to be an ethusiastic Thomist his aretaic turn is understandable.
There are, of course, elements of Mormon theology that point strongly toward an aretaic stance. Most powerfully, the notion of eternal progression and exaltation suggests an incredibly powerful and expansive belief in human perfectability and a strong notion of human excellence.
There are other strands that we should consider, however. The concept of Zion suggests that our ethics should be communitarian. If salvation consists of a certain kind of community, then one might naturally suppose that ethics is a matter of identifying those behaviors that maintain and perfect that community.
Finally, Mormon articulations of the atonement in particular suggest a powerful notion of justice. Generally, justice gets conceptualized in largely negative and punitive terms. It is something from which Christ’s sacrifice saves us. However, within this narrative there is also a positive view of justice. It seems possible that this concern with justice could be expanded beyond simply retributive notions to include distributive and restoritive notions as well.
As should be clear, communitarianism and distributive justice provide alternative justifications for alms giving beyond the aretaic ones at the heart of AA’s discomfort. I don’t want to suggest that one can move in some simple and easy way from a Christian (and specifically Mormon) version of communitarianism or distributive justice to the modern welfare state. One the other hand, both of these approaches down play the aretaic objection to state largess. More interesting to me, they suggest the importance of working out the relationship of one’s religious commitments to issues of metaethics, and suggest an interesting conversation that Mormons have yet to fully engage in.
I believe that Auroch is the Hebrew pronunciation of Auro.
Or, if you’d simply like some biblical and theological reasons for being suspicious of the leave-it-to-charity approach to helping the poor, consider Susan Pace Hamill’s divinity school thesis, “The Least of These: Fair Taxes and the Moral Duty of Christians,” which inspired Alabama’s conservative Republican Gov. Bob Riley to try reforming that state’s steeply regressive tax laws. (The “pro-charity” forces — a combination of major land-owning corporations and the state Christian Coalition, but not the national Christian Coalition — defeated the governor’s proposal. The state continues to enjoy widespread poverty and one of the most underfunded school systems in the country.) This interview with Hamill in the Christian Century is very definitely worth reading. Here’s how she describes her motivation in writing her thesis:
She argues that charity can’t be expected to make up the difference if the basic rules of the game are unjust:
A fascinating question is whether greed represents a purely personal vice that should be left to the churches to restrain or whether it requires some involvement from the state. (And is greed problematic only because the greedy person’s motivation is “sinful,” or is it problematic because of the impact it has on others?) Since greedy people (or let’s just say lucky people who are looking out for their own interests) have a tremendous amount of political power when they put some of their disposable income to work in the political sphere, one is led to wonder whether the church’s talents in moral persuasion are adequate to the task. Left to their own devices, how much do the wealthy really invest in helping the poor? And how interested are the wealthy in listening to the church?
An interesting Old Testament interpretation question is why the prophets directed their criticism of Israel’s lack of concern for the poor not just to the people but especially to their rulers. Especially in a liberal democracy, asking people to behave morally while the laws are unjust is to neglect our democratic responsibility to demand just laws. Laws that unjustly empower the greedy at the expense of the poor need to be changed.
(Not being a philosopher, I apologize for skirting the question of aretaic ethics vs. utilitarian ethics vs. communitarian ethics. But I think these comments are related to your questions!)
That’s one reason I’m deeply ambivalent toward the modern welfare state: by bureaucratizing charity, we disconnect ourselves from it and make it somebody else’s job. I very much doubt that we get any of the spiritual fruit that accompanies almsgiving from those automatic IRS deductions that come out of our paychecks.
Interesting quote you were commenting on Nate. As I read this quote I thought it could be applied as a criticism to the Church’s system of fast offerings. After all, I write a check for fast offering, give it to the bishop and then he (or the Church) distributes to the poor. Thus, unless I am making some kind of additional efforts on my own, I am disconnected from the poor and am not directly participating in caring for the poor. The Church’s bureaucracy takes over.
Yet there are definitely benefits to having a specific person (the bishop) appointed to care for those who are in need. Those who are in need know who they can appeal to and they have an institutional guarantee of privacy. Also, the Church can rely on its long experience and make sure that funds are distributed fairly and according to some kind of regulation. I believe to an extent the government can play a similar role — if it’s done right, having specific people who are appointed to care for the poor using funds from a tax base could be very beneficial.
But perhaps (as the quote suggests) we need to think about the disconnect that could occur and how we can find ways to be personally involved in caring for people. I suppose for many, being a good hometeacher will fill the bill. Or taking care of a widowed grandmother or widower grandfather. No doubt there are many other possibilities.
Now I’m off to the dictionary to look up aretaic.
Couldn’t find aretaic in the dictionary but a google-search on the term brought up a reference that stated the following:
“Aretaic is from the Greek arete, meaning excellence or virtue. Aretaic thus means of or pertaining to virtue or excellence.”
Loosely translated, aurochs: Sacred cows.
The Worship of Aurochs
Aurochs are depicted in many Paleolithic European cave paintings such as those found at Lascaux and Livernon in France. Their life force may have been attributed with magical qualities, for early carvings of the aurochs have also been found. The impressive and dangerous aurochs survived into the Iron Age in Anatolia and the Near East, and was worshiped throughout that area as a sacred animal, the Lunar Bull, associated with the Great Goddess and later with Mithras.
A 1999 archaeological dig in Peterborough, England, uncovered the skull of an aurochs. The front part of the skull had been removed but the horns remained attached. The supposition is that the killing of the aurochs in this instance was a sacrificial act.
The Aurochs were also the symbol of Moldavia; nowadays they can be found in the coat of arms of both Romania and Moldova.
(from Wilkopedia)
Nate,
Are there scriptures you are thinking of as implying a state role for communitarian or distributive justice? The individual responsibility for giving is explicitly laid out by King Benjamin. I am just curious if you had something in the back of your head related to the state responsibility.
As I recall there was at least one BoM leader that commanded people to care for widows. But I don’t recall if the leader was purely political. This is the problem, of course, because government in the scriptures is typically a mix of religious and secular.
The statement on government in the D&C does not, as best I can recall, say much about the state having or not having a role in charitable giving, unless you want to stretch the “constrain conscience” language to imply that forced giving is wrong under some idea that one should not “legislate morality.” I find that reasoning strained, though.
We know that the true Zion is characterized by having no poor, but this occurs under any of the views discussed, since Zion is made of individually virtuous people who help others even without the state. At which point, it isn’t important if the giving is through the state or not because we are “of one heart and one mind”. The purpose of taxation in a non-Zion society is generally to force people to give who would rather not. In a truly Zion society, the unity of purpose among the people means that taxation could be replaced by voluntary consecration to the Bishop.
Lastly, you comment that a non-statist view of charitable giving may sometimes be a salve to the conscience of those who don’t like to give. This is surely the case for someone out there. But the particular line of reasoning involved seems exceptionally incoherent. One is arguing against state giving because it removes one from the purifying power of voluntary contribution; but if voluntary gifts are purifying and part of being saved, not doing them is damning. That seems like a poor salve.
Philocrites,
I think you are right about the value in being involved personally. This is the idea behind the helping out at the welfare orchards or food distribution centers or whatever is available from the Church or others in our area.
Of course, we can give money too…
Frank: I don’t have any particular scriptures in mind, although various Old Testament prophets rebuke kings and a common indictment is that they grind the poor, and a common command is that they show mercy to the poor. However, most of the scriptures are written in the context of the ancient world in which our modern concepts of government and market, private and public are quite foreign. I don’t think that you can read too much into the absence of calls for the welfare state in the scriptures. (Also, there are numerous legal provisions in the Torah designed for the benefit of the poor, e.g. limits on creditors’ rights, required forgiveness of debts, prohibitions on gleaning one’s own fields, etc.)
Philocrites: It seems that the extent of voluntary support by the rich and the greedy need not be thrown out as a rhetorical question. There is fairly accurate data on the level of private giving in the United States. You have to control for donations to the local opera company, which don’t seem to directly benefit the poor, but still why not look it up and have some facts. I suspect that you would find three things (1) charitable giving is quite substantial in real terms and increases with income levels; and, (2) giving as a percentage of income is fairly modest but also increases with income levels. Both of theses seem like fairly straight forward implications of a very reasonable assumption of diminishing marginal utility to wealth. However, I haven’t actually looked at the data.
One thing that I find interesting also about your response was the immediate move to justice as the metaethical stance. Obviously, justice is the key value for liberalism, and I wonder to what extent liberal versions of Christianity (e.g. Unitarians) are attracted to the discourse of justice for that reason. One might use other metaethical approaches as well. I suspect that we all end up using some mix of virtue, community, justice, and welfare. The interesting question is what mix we use.
I think we are also missing an important element of this formulation, namely, that charitable giving is voluntary (for the most part), while governmental redistribution is coercive. If I do not give to a local soup kitchen, that is between God and myself. If I do not pay my taxes in full, the men with guns will eventually knock at my door to take me to jail or perhaps shoot me if I resist enough.
For me this is a greater source of ambivalence than the disconnectedness mentioned above. I know people on the WIC program, who have received government scholarships, who are on welfare, etc. and I have benefited from a government program or two (at least). The thought that people are forced, at pains of taking away liberty and perhaps life, to pay for government sponsored charity does not seem completely correct to me.
Nathan Tolman: “The thought that people are forced, at pains of taking away liberty and perhaps life, to pay for government sponsored charity does not seem completely correct to me.”
Why not?
What you are really talking about here is not a theory of coercion but a theory of property. Suppose that I come a take your property. Men with guns will stop me (if they can). Presumeably you view this as legitimate. Hence we have a somewhat symetrical problem. Both the property holder and the taxer need to justify the resort to collective force. It gets even better when you figure that the protection of your property is massively subsidized by the state.
I actually subscribe to strong property rights, and am not a huge fan of government taxation, but these hardly seem like self-evident positions or ones that can be easily justified by appeals to liberty and coercion.
For example, the argument is often made that property is justified because it provides a sphere of autonomy in which one is free of the coercion and pressure of others. Hence, one would argue that the use of collective coercion to defend property is justified in order to achieve greater freedom on the part of property holders. Why wouldn’t the use of collective coercion also be justified to achieve greater freedom for the poor by giving them more property?
Certainly I don’t require that all government action be justified by explicit scriptural blessing. I was just curious whether you were were familiar with any passages that might be useful.
The Torah, as you note, is set in a context where the state is the religion, and so is not immediately useful.
The Doctrine and Covenants is set in a comparable setting to our own. It spends a great deal of time dealing with temporal issues. It also contains a section on good government. So it would seem like a good place to look for endorsements or rebukes. But I don’t know of any off-hand. One is admonished to provide for the poor, but I never see any scriptural sanction for taxing the rich to give to the poor, which is the point of dispute.
Frank: I wouldn’t want to infer too much from silence. The Word of Wisdom doesn’t mention heroin or other recreational drugs, but it is generally recognized that it forbids such things.
Nate –
I am talking in metaphysical terms, not legal. For me it takes something from the act of giving if I am coerced to give.
Plus it seems your argument could be used to justify any type of government coercive force. For example, a decline in population in overpopulated countries would surely be said to “achieve greater freedom” for the people involved, so should people in overpopulated countries be coerced to have abortions? I would think not.
The point with coercion and freedom is that there is a certain point where the government should limit its coercion. Coercive charity is a gray area for me for reasons I have stated above.
Once again, I am not interested in making a huge argument from silence. If God wants transfer payments, I am fine with that. But I get the feeling that some people feel that the scriptural call to help the poor somehow entails a call for state coercion. So I wanted to hear what, if any, scriptural justification is available for such a view. If there is no justification, then, for example, when the fellow in Church said that we could help the poor by funding state welfare programs, I am free to note that the scriptures do not address the point, and so he is welcome to his view but it is non-canonical.
Your WoW argument seems rather weak. We believe we shouldn’t consume heroin because of later clarifying comments from Church leaders. I don’t think that Church leader comments on state-run welfare programs are, taken as a whole, particularly supportive.
Is taxing the rich to pay for education for the poor (whether through free public schools or through school-choice vouchers) the type of “coercive charity” with which conservatives should be uncomfortable? How about taxing the rich to pay for fire and police protection and roads for the poor? To pay or assist in paying for health care for the children of the poor? Housing? Food?
Nathan: My point is that you have no more offered a reason against state transfer payments than you have offered a reason in favor of state protection of property. The fundamental question is WHY DO YOU OWN YOUR STUFF. Until you have an aswer to that question I have no idea who is taking what from whom. I have no way of understanding why the government taking your stuff is questionable, but having the government keep me from taking your stuff is not.
Let me offer another argument: Private ownership is valuable because in the absence of private ownership we face a commons problem. Everyone gets the benefits of some resource and no one bears the costs. The result is overuse, underinvestment, and depletion. In order to preserve valuable resources, we give someone a property right in them. Notice, that here the justification for property is purely utilitarian. We increase aggregate levels of social welfare if we institute a regime of property rights. However, I can also increase aggregate levels of social welfare by taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor so long as I assume that everyone has a diminishing marginal utility for wealth. Notice that again the arguments in favor of property also support arguments in favor of redistribution.
You can’t simply assume that you own your stuff and then argue that taking it away is coercive. In this context coercion is not a concept that we use to evaluate different outcomes. Rather it is a statement of conclusions about those outcomes. Some other set of concepts is being used to evaluate them.
David,
The argument is not about whether or not it is right to help the poor, but whether it is right to force someone to help the poor in a way that removes the giver from the decision and the process. And so it doesn’t matter all that much whether one is referring to money or goods. There are other issues about whether money vs. goods might be preferable. But they are seperate from this issue.
This is also separate from the fact that the government taxes people for public services and utilities. Exchange of services is more straightforward than the issues revolving around giving. This is because the benefits of giving (to the giver) are tied up in the voluntariness of it.
Nate,
Presumably any useful mormon theory of property rights would revolve around the rights of stewardship from God (articulated by Jacob). We are stewards over that which God has given us. Obviously, this is only a starting point, but I think any useful theory of property rights would be based on this.
Maybe Nate thinks the heroin prohibition arises naturally from “penumbras, formed by emanations” from D&C 89. I’m a little surprised.
Nate,
This is precisely one of the reasons why often I do not like talking with the lawyers on this thread. The legal type of reasoning often seems alien to me and often the layers on the page seem to miss the point of what I am saying. Again, I was talking, not in a legal sense, but in terms of my personal morality and thoughts. If you think I somehow support what you seem to imply I am supporting, then you are wrong. Again, your reasoning would support all coercive actions by the state, including forced abortions, after all, if one does not own his or her property, one can very well not own one’s self.
I will again state what I said before. This is a questions for assumptions, cultural values if you will, not logic, meaning what presuppositions you bring to the argument will largely determine the outcome of your reasoning. I am saying from my presuppositions, this seems to be a gray area for me. I spoke to this even before you said “Some other set of concepts is being used to evaluate them.”
Nevertheless, I am compelled to answer you in part. Why do I own my stuff? I have two answers. The immediate one for Americans is that the right to property is a natural right, a God given one to our founders, and thus does not derive from government, but is extra governmental and should not be taken away. Secondly, from another point of view, private property is traditional. One might think these two propositions are contradictory in some sense, but then again, so are cultural systems.
Nathan: I wasn’t making legal arguments. In fact the arguments that I was making would not be recognizable as legal arguments were I to use them in a court room. I was asking instead for moral arguments, which you finally got around to supplying, namely natural rights and tradition. Furthermore, neither of the arguments that I put forward liscensed unlimited state coercion. Suggesting that property requires a moral justification does not mean that there is not such moral justification. Furthermore, neither the property as a solution to the commons probem argument nor the property as a protected sphere of autonomy argument clearly justify anything like forced abortions. Indeed, abortion and the like create tricky (or not so tricky) issues precisely because they implicate the notion of self-ownership. Self-ownership, however, is not really the same thing as ownership of stuff in the world, although one might argue a la Locke that ownership of objects is a necessary implication of owning oneself.
A final thought: Ownership tells us about our entitlements to things. However, we can’t clearly get from the bare concept of ownership to the idea of a right to state enforcement of property rights. State protection of property is not costless. It is not clear why my entitlement to some set of stuff also entitles me to have the state take some of someone elses stuff in order to protect my stuff. Afterall, the owner of the stuff taxed to pay for my property-rights protection can presumeably object that his stuff is being coercively taken by the state.
Again, none of these arguments are legal arguments. I am talking about the issue of one’s moral entitlement to property.
Frank,
Is it “right to force someone to help the poor in a way that removes the giver from the decision and the process” by taxing the rich to pay for schools (or school vouchers) for the children of poor people (who may pay no taxes)? Would it be preferable to end all public tax subsidies of education, and rely entirely on voluntary contributions, say an expanded PEF, to provide schooling for the poor? Why isn’t the taxation to pay for schools of other peoples’ children a form of “coercive charity”?
Nathan,
You may “own your stuff” because God gave you a natural right to “own stuff”, but why should I be taxed to help you protect your stuff through police and fire protection? I understand that in the old days, only people who bought private fire insurance had a right to protection from private firefighters, and in some places, arrests were made only if the constable received a “user fee” of some type (I am not speaking of a bribe). (I am confident about the fire fighting assertion (I learned it at a history of firefighting museum in my community), but less certain about the second).
Frank: I would agree with you that in a perfect Zion society one might not see any taxation. Here is my issue. Suppose that part of what makes Zion the sort of community it is is its economic egalatarianism. Now, one might simply conceptialize this as a side effect of the the virtuous character of the people in Zion. On the other hand, one might conceptualize the egalatarianism as part of what constitutes Zion. Put another way, one might think that economic egalatarianism is part of what creates Zion rather than vice versa. If this is the case, then might one construct an argument for state redistribution on the basis of improving one’s community. The idea here is not that one can use the government to create Zion, but that one can use the government to create a society which is more like Zion than the current one. (For example, I suspect that a similar line of argument would appeal to Latter-day Saints who support legal prohibitions on pornography.)
Also, one might think of poverty and charity less in terms of the virtue of the giver than of the need of the recipient. If the need justifies giving, might it also justify reditribution? Again, the scriptures DO contain examples of righteous laws that had precisely this effect, for example the forgiveness of debts in jubilee years.
David,
I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. The issues with education are fundamentally the same as the issues with money. The form of the resource transfer is not particularly relevant to the issue of removing the giver from the giving.
Nate,
As I said above, in a Zion society, it wouldn’t matter if you taxed the money or it was given freely because the taxes would presumably not be coercive. You compare inequality abatement and pornography abatement. Certainly opposition to pornography is centered around a belief that less pornography causally makes things better. Similar ideas justify other sorts of “morality laws.”
So is inequality the cause or the effect of iniquity? Should we use taxation as a form of morality law? If I tax a rich man will he no have learned to love the poor? I don’t think so. Especially if that taxation crowds out voluntary efforts he would be willing to experiment with. He won’t learn to give. And learning to give and serve is why God gives us our time, talents and everything with which we are blessed.
Obviously, if God urges charity principally to help the receiver, then this argument is a side-show. But I claim that:
1. Giving is part of being saved and so we give to make us like more like Christ and as a sign of our repentance (King Benjamin).
2. Coercive giving is not going to achieve 1.
3. If the principal object were to help the receiver, God has many resources for doing that. The principal one is the atonement, which pays for all the shortcomings of others in relation to us.
4. We can be agents of God and the atonement when we help the poor, but “being generous with another man’s money” does not qualify. Nor does coerced giving.
David,
“but why should I be taxed to help you protect your stuff through police and fire protection?”
Presumably, you are taxed to protect your stuff, not Nathan’s. This is the provision of public services argument for things like firefighting and police services or the military. Many of those services could be provided privately, but there may be large efficiency losses to doing it that way.
Similarly helping the poor can be thought of as a public service. But in this case, the service (giving to the poor) is degraded precisely because it is compulsory. The other public services are not so degraded.
Frank,
I apologize for still not understanding. I am trying to figure out how you would classify the provision of education (or school vouchers). Is the provision of education to the children of the poor degraded precisely because it is compulsory?
Frank:
I follow your argument in 1 and 2 above. It seems like a solid restatement of the aretaic position. (I just love using Greek words!)
I am a lot less clear about 3 and 4. Certainly, I don’t see why 4 would follow from 5. Why couldn’t government transfer payments be one of “the other means” by which God would help the poor? Assuming — not unreasonably I would say — that God is genuinely interested in the material condition of the poor and not simply the state of the souls of those who might potentially give to them.
Frank,
I’m not so sure I agree with your premise 2, depending on what you mean by it. Surely I can pay taxes and still develop the charity to be saved. And why should we judge this particular state action based on its prospects of helping individuals toward salvation? Couldn’t the state’s forced removal of “excess” assets actual deepen the significance of any voluntary giving? That is, it would seem more of a virtuous, godly sacrifice to give to charity when it is harder to do so (widow’s mite, and all that) as a result of taxation.
In any event, I would think that the command to lift up the poor is not tangentially related to God’s desire to actually have the poor, uh, lifted up. Which, as you say, somewhat relegates the argument to “sideshow” status.
By the way, with all the characterizations of taxation as “coerced charity”, I’m curious — what percentage of the federal budget goes toward means-based entitlements? I have heard that welfare and food stamps together amount to about 3 percent of the budget, but if anyone has more definite numbers, I’d be curious to see them. I would guess that the lions share of the federal budget is for military, regulatory, educational, physical infrastructure, social security and debt service costs.
Greg: Medicaid does account for a substantial percentage of government revenues. If you think of Medicare as an imperfectly targeted means-based program on the theory that elderly people are on average poorer than the rest of us, then that too is a large portion of government spending.
Suppose that we say that God does care about the status of the poor. Why? The question is interesting because the answer may commit us to a particular stance that might have other interesting ethical implications. For example, if we assume (as I think Russell probably would) that God cares about social and economic inequality because of the kind of community it creates we may also need to jettison (as I think Russell probably would) much of our thinking about individual rights. On the other hand, if helping the poor is a matter of distributive justice, then we may have religious support for thinking in terms of rights on other subjects.
Nate, the data actually show that the rich give a much smaller percentage of their disposable income to charitable causes than do the poor. Consider:
Julia Duin, who covers religion for the conservative Washington Times, reported in Philathrophy Magazine back in 2001 that a study of church giving “suggests that as people grow richer, they give less.” The number of dollars given to churches went up over the last thirty years, but as a percentage of people’s income, it dropped. “[W]hile giving increased 55 percent from 1968 to 1998, disposable income in the United States went up 91 percent, adjusting for inflation.” Duin also writes that “direct charitable donations by churchgoers to the needy are down in recent years.”
The Chronicle of Philathrophy last year reported on giving by people making more than $50,000 a year (so we’re talking middle-class and up here). Among the findings:
So my non-comprehensive sleuthing shows a couple of things: The poor are more disposed to giving, and give a higher proportion of their disposable income to charitable causes. The wealthy give larger total amounts, but at a much lower cost to themselves than earlier generations. Religious organizations clearly absorb the bulk of charitable contributions — and religious affiliation clearly influences a person’s generosity.
But I think my sleuthing also suggests that there are reasons to doubt Nate Oman’s assumption that the more money you have, the more likely you are to give it to those in need. Questions of personal morality still don’t answer the problems of political or economic injustice, however.
As for the metaethical question, I’d say that my version of liberalism assumes that human beings depend on human communities, and that a society has obligations to its members. (There’s an African proverb that says, “When the foot has a thorn, the whole body bends to remove it.”) I’m actually fairly politically moderate, and happen to think that the best way for a state to meet its obligations is to ensure that the rules of the game are truly fair. But you’re right that this emphasis on justice displays a liberal preference. I also happen to think that the ethical models in the Bible overwhelmingly display a similar preference. Liberal Christians are inclined to think that societies and states, and not just individuals, will be judged on their treatment of “the least of these.”
Oh, I accidentally left out a link to a June 2004 study by a British philanthropic group (different culture, but I’d be amazed if the Brits turned out all that different): The Charity Finance Directors Group found that “poorer people more frequently give to charity than the rich. The research has found that charitable giving is most prevalent amongst those who live in council houses, and least prevalent amongst high earners and affluent households.”
David,
Short answer, Yes.
But I should note that public education is paid for by everyone (rich and poor) for all the children. There are public service aspects to education apart from the giving. But the giving part (wherein the rich subsidize the poor) is, naturally, degraded when the gift is forced.
Or you could think of education as a monopolist charging each person their marginal benefit for education, in which case the issue is more one of the monopolist exploiting the wealthy. Monopolists, of course, lack guns, and so they can never be as exploitive as the government can.
Nate,
In 4 I am adapting a quote used by George Albert Smith:
“President George Albert Smith taught a very important lesson on the disposition of tithes. He told of inviting a boyhood friend, whom he had not seen for some time, to accompany him to a stake conference. This friend had achieved success in the financial world. As they were driving home from the conference, he told President Smith about his method of paying tithing. He said that if he made ten thousand dollars, he would put one thousand dollars in the bank for tithing. Then, he said, when someone needed money for a worthwhile cause, he would write a check. “Little by little I exhaust the thousand dollars,â€? he said, “and every dollar of it has gone where I know it has done good.â€? Then he asked President Smith what he thought of that plan.
President Smith replied: “I think you are a very generous man with someone else’s property. You have not paid any tithing. You have told me what you have done with the Lord’s money, but you have not told me that you have given anyone a penny of your own. ”
The quote about being generous with another’s money seems to me to cover the case of voting to take someone else’s property to do one’s good deeds. Certainly government transfers might be God’s tool. But if God wanted coercive giving, why the whole business about moral agency and the importance of choosing the good of our own accord? God’s tools are “persuasion and long-suffering” right? I wish I had more time for this argument, maybe tomorrow.
Greg,
The idea I have in mind is along the lines of people who would learn to give but don’t because the government takes care of their giving for them (in their minds). The government action crowds out their own actions but without the voluntary giving aspect. Certainly taxation does not stop a truly virtuous person from giving even more. I am more concerned with the only sort of good people than the already exalted.
It is true that taking away money makes the remaining funds more important, but this is a seperate argument as it does not depend on actually doing anything good with the money. It’s just about taking away.
You ask why the government should be concerned about the salvation of man. It needn’t be, but I, as a voter, am. Presumably you are also. And so is everyone else on this discussion.
In 2002 the federal budget was 1.8 Trillion.
Defense was 350B
Social Security (part of which is coercive giving and part of which isn’t) was 450B
Medicare (which is sort of but not really a welfare program) was 250B
Medicaid (for the poor) 150B
Other programs given to poor people, like EITC, SSI, food stamps, were 140B
Putting this together, we spent about a sixth on programs for the poor, another third on transfers between groups (Medicare and Social Security), a sixth on defense, and then the rest on other stuff. Here is the source
http://waysandmeans.house.gov/media/pdf/greenbook2003/AppendixI.pdf
Frank asked, rhetorically:
So is inequality the cause or the effect of iniquity?
D&C 49: 20 But it is not given that one man should possess that which is above another, wherefore the world lieth in sin.
This verse seems to imply that inequality is the cause. I’m waiting for a general conference talk on this subject.
Thanks for the numbers, Frank. I admit I haven’t thought about this too much, but I’m basically an unreconstructed New Deal-er who thinks that that government programs are the price we pay for a stable, mostly-free-enterprise society, rather than forced charity. And I certainly am not trying to keep religious or moral arguments out of the public sphere. My previous comment was merely questioning why this one particular government policy (taxation to benefit the poor) was being primarily judged by whether or not it helped the taxee acquire the requisitie level of generosity to be saved.
A fascinating discussion. I want to make two points:
1. When we say there will be no poor in Zion, I don’t think we can assume that means Zion will be egalitarian, in the material sense. For instance, my wife requires probably about three times as much stuff as I do to have a sense of well-being. I assume those differences will continue to exist in Zion.
2. My experience has been that it is really, really hard to help the poor, over the long term. Money is the easy part. I have struggled with this question with family members and people I home teach, and still don’t have any good answers. But it would be a mistake to think that simply allocating money, via taxes or private charity, is sufficient. Personal engagement is absolutely necessary.
Mark,
Thanks for the scripture, this is what I was curious about. Of course, this passage is equivalent to people don’t give to each other, and so the whole world lieth in sin. I’m not sure that inequality is the real crime, rather it is the lack of giving that must exist in order for there to be inequality. For example, look at the references in 49:20 and you find D&C 70:14:
14 Nevertheless, in your temporal things you shall be equal, and this not grudgingly, otherwise the abundance of the manifestations of the Spirit shall be withheld.
Being equal grudgingly fails the condition to have the blessing. From this I infer that the issue is not the inequality, but the attitude it implies of greed. Which is what voluntary consecration is supposed to solve.
Couldn’t there be an aretaic argument for some kinds of coercive distribution?
For example, tax credits for charitable giving. They are coercive–people are mildly penalized for not giving to charity–but they encourage individual virtue.
Or what about the notion that a certain level of government interest in the poor is necessary to give legal sanction to the idea of charity, on the theory that people’s personal morals are influenced by the values enshrined in law
Frank,
Thanks for clarifying. Does this mean that you would vote to eliminate all public taxation for schools (and school vouchers)? Would you also eliminate compulsory education?
Frank,
I’m a little confused by the assumption that all of the money an individual makes belongs solely to that person and God. Perhaps in a state of nature that would be true (though I doubt that in a state of nature we would have money), but our modern world is so interconnected that that seems like an odd idea. Personally, I don’t know a single soul who is successful in life and hasn’t benefited greatly from government programs, government loans, government-funded schools, government grants, government assistance given to the companies they work for or patronize, etc. Therefore, I think it’s inaccurate to assume that none of the money we make is due to our society.
Also, I don’t see it as self-evident that taxation is coercive–the individual still has choices. I have no idea how many people and companies cheat on their taxes, but I believe it’s far more than are ever prosecuted. And there are plenty who find morally questionable but legal loopholes in tax law. Plus–and this has to be said, though I don’t support the feeling behind it–if you don’t like the taxes of a country, you can always leave.
David,
No, probably not. I am not opposed to some taxation. I have been pointing out a cost of taxation. That does not mean that taxation doesn’t have benefits. It certainly does. But we shouldn’t be blind to its costs.
Carrie,
Certainly, as you point out, taxation could be far more coercive than it is. But I think the relevant issue is, when I vote for more welfare payments, is it right of me to try to impose giving on my neighbor? How does it help them? How does it hurt them? How does it help or hurt those that get the welfare? The effects of welfare on the recipients is a topic well-explored for hundreds of years. The effects on the forced giver are, in an eternal sense, worth thinking about too.
You point out that the government is enmeshed in our lives. We do get many benefits from society. But this is like saying that because you buy a snickers bar from me, you owe your happiness to me and so I am part owner of all that you have.
You (or your parents) fund services from the government. From that you get benefits (like schooling). But that does not mean that the government is now the owner of your labor. It means that you and the government have entered into a trade.
I should say more, but I need to get home. I think it is clear that the prophets speak of us as being stewards over our possesions. Thus some notion of private property, as a stewardship from God, seems correct.
Adam,
I sort of like the charitable contribution exemption for the reason you cite. I also sort of like the fact that income taxes penalize rich two-earner families.
Frank,
The person who sells me a candy bar would be part owner of all that I have–granted, only about 50 cents of all that I have (except at my school, where the vending machines charge a shameful 75 cents, or my work, where they charge 65), but part nonetheless. Likewise, by entering into a trade with the government, shouldn’t we be expected to give something in return? A portion of our earnings seems reasonable to me.
If we were all charitable enough to guarantee that without welfare, there would be no poor, I would advocate doing away with welfare. If our society were structured so that anyone who wanted to work had a job and anyone who did their job earned a living wage, I would say to heck with welfare. Until that day, I’d rather have a safety net in place for people who really need it and live with the potential harm that some welfare policies may cause some recipients or givers. (This is not to say that welfare policies shouldn’t constantly be evaluated to find ways that they can be made more effective and less harmful.)
Btw, I’ve been lucky enough to have parents who have funded a large portion of my education. (Full disclosure: David is my dad–hi Dad!) I shudder to think of where I would be if they hadn’t been able or willing to provide support for me after I turned 18, something that frequently happens in our society, especially to foster kids. I wish that everyone could have the support structure that I’ve had, and if it takes the government’s policies to approximate one for people who don’t have one, then I’m fine with that.
l that it really Frank,
I can’t tell if you oppose government redistribution based on abstract libertarian principles, or if you oppose it on utilitarian grounds based on skepticism about its ability to achieve good effects. You seem to be arguing a little of both.
If you are using utilitarian arguments, I probably largely agree with you. But to the extent that you are trying to locate a system of libertarian property rights in the Gospel, you’ve lost me. Property rights can’t be absolute, and I’m not sure the scriptures give us much insight into where the boundaries should be.
I don’t believe you’ve come out against public funding of schools yet. Or progressive taxation, as far as I can tell.
I strongly agree with you that things like King Benjamin’s speech or the law of consecration don’t imply that a welfare state is a good idea. But I don’t think they imply the opposite either.
Nevertheless, I am compelled to answer you in part. Why do I own my stuff? I
More important, how did you get your stuff, how did you get so much stuff, and why is your stuff valuable?
Not as obvious as they seem, these questions are important to answer before you get to the question of what you own when you own stuff, and why you own it.
Much of the value in the United States comes from government created and nurtured markets, both in size and in trustworthiness, and in the establishment and sustaining of the economy (including money — a valuable invention, educated workers, roads, etc.) — things with vast economies of scale.
Nice to see people starting to think on important things, all of which lead to the question “What should I do with my stuff” which can’t be really thought of without understanding what “stuff” is and why it is “mine.”
Now, if I can just get my computer fixed.
I should note that I think that we have duties that go with economies of scale and institutions.
Frank,
If your point is that there are costs (including spiritual ones) associated with taxing people to provide benefits to others, and that such “coercive charity” should not be done lightly, I fully agree. Just as the Council on the Disposition of Tithes (D&C 120) has a sacred obligation to allocate judiciously (with study, prayer, and inspiration) other peoples’ money (i.e., God’s, but set apart to Him voluntarily by rich and poor alike), so the legislative and executive branches have a sacred obligation to allocate other peoples’ money (ours) wisely.
I believe my beautiful, intelligent and multi-talented daughter (Hi Carrie!) makes a persuasive case (with which I, of course, agree) why even tax-supported “charity”, including a societal “safety net” is important, it is not always an easy call which programs or services (or income transfers) are worth the “cost”, spiritual and otherwise, of being funded by taxation. I also agree with you, Frank, that governmental assistance should not crowd out substantially all opportunities of voluntary giving to help those in need, but I don’t think there is much danger of that happening in this country any time soon, even if those of my new party affiliation prevail in November.
We’ve all moved on but looking over my posts I thought I should make clear that I don’t oppose taxation and never have. I just think people treat it too glibly. David makes a nice point about how carefully tithing funds are spent. Even more care is called for when those funds are extracted coercively! As for the safety net justification of welfare as a cost of a free society brought up by Carrie, we can hopefully flesh out that discussion on some future thread.
I prefer utilitarian arguments to libertarian ones, and don’t believe in an absolute right to private property. But I do believe in a right to a property that is more personal than communal.
There were a bunch of other comments that I would have liked to address, but there’s will always be another welfare thread to hash those out.
Regarding Nate Oman’s Telos of Charity:
While most philosophy begins with the beginning, I find it best to begin with the end. Both Peirce and James agreed on one thing at least: telos was the open question and love the immediate reality. Peirce leaned toward a telos of loving peace that might be one unifiying ideal state of Being. James leaned toward a telos of loving desire that might be a pluralistic expansion of beings. Neither felt there was a higher purpose than the experiencing of love. That is VERY interesting. The Platonic notion from the Symposium that love was an instrumental ladder toward true beauty and true good was rejected by the pragmatists (and one could argue by Christians). Beauty and Goodness are intrumental in experiencing Love. The highest telos is Love. Thus, John could say, God is love. Love is a continuing revelation of what the God who is love does next. It is a telos that is both now and future. It has no measure other than “more”. More love is the telos of eternal life. MORE, as James called God, is both qualitative and quantitative. It implies creativity and surprise in eternal lives of abundance. Ironcially, it requires LESS to grasp MORE. Thus, we are diminished in this world to enjoy more in the next. As Christians especially, most of our philosophy should be based on an attempt to grasp the telos of love, and how we might sustain it in everlasting lives.