How to Give

Charity has become a fad. For the rich it is a hobby: something they do in their spare time to “help the world”. From tax cuts to better grades, the many artificial incentives our society has created in order to stimulate people to become more openhearted have distorted the ethics of our world. Why would anyone need any other incentive to participate in charitable acts, save the real incentive: help someone? Artificial incentives are meant to motivate members of society to become more humane, however, all that they do is dehumanize the act of good will and strip the humane ones of their initial will to help. Thus, offering incentives for charitable acts is unethical because the main incentive to perform acts of charity should not come from an alterior motive, but from our genuine desire to help someone.

Currently, through school community service programs young students are trained in the art of selflessness. Driven by the motivation to increase their number of community service hours in order to complete that indispensible part of their college application, our youth’s perception of aid is distorted. The argument that some people require a little motivation to help and consequently students should be motivated is a fallacy, since school rewards programs solely encourage students to participate in charity acts for their own benefit. Although it is truly beneficial to the community as a whole for its individuals to participate actively in its creation, recently, community service has become more about the individual than about the community. Amidst all the fervor it has created, in the pursuit of quantity, students often lose the main impetus as for why to partake in this activity—good will. Let us not forget: charity is not meant to provide the donor with benefits, rather, it is meant to help those receiving the aid.

From firsthand experience, I know that motivating students rebukes the whole purpose of charity. In my former school, students were awarded honor roll status if they completed 75 hours of community service. Many of my peers were driven to complete the hours solely for the purpose of receiving the distinction. Some even went so far as to forge their hours! Thus, instead of looking to help others, they followed an alterior (selfish) motive. In my opinion, it would have been better for them to complete less hours rather than have completed the 75 “hard earned” hours in vain with a false incentive. In fact, this is the failure of alterior incentives; they not only rebuke the purpose of goodwill, but also encourage donors to become entrenched in the lie that they are honestly helping someone.

The individualistic motives imposed by our society to partake in charitable acts continue in the business world. Through tax cuts for big businesses that choose to donate a small part of their immense profits to charity, the needy are cheated again. Once again, such alterior motives as tax cuts rebuke the purpose of aid, as money is solely thrashed upon the needy. Those big businesses that “truly wish to help”, do not even come in contact with the individuals they “seek” to help. I cannot help but wonder: would those same businesses be eager to donate money if they did not receive the tax cuts? In truth, we shall never know, since our society’s ethical incentives are distorted by greed.

Creating alterior motives in order to persuade people to become more humane perverts our humanity and rips us off our genuine desire to help others. If people give in order to get something back in return, they are not only deceiving those who they claim to be helping, but they are also deceiving themselves. Hence, it does not matter how much you give, but WHY you give, and that is why our society must revaluate its ethics.