6 ms·

The concept of charity is arguably unethical, let alone noble.

• anm89 7y ago
  I'd love to hear this one.
  • newen 7y ago
    Society should be structured in such a way that charity is not needed. Given this, charity would be unethical because you are participating in, perpetuating, strengthening that system, and benefiting from that system from people worshipping you.
    • missedthecue 7y ago
      >Society should be structured in such a way that charity is not needed. This is only possible in a world where there is no bottom rung of the ladder. That's impossible.
      • joi_de_vivre 7y ago
        Why can't we make an effort to raise the height of the bottom rung of the ladder? In the case that we did, wouldn't charity then be unnecessary?
        • missedthecue 7y ago
          I didn't say it's not possible to raise the height. I said there always will be a bottom rung.
          • joi_de_vivre 7y ago
            But if the "bottom rung" got to a certain height (i.e. food, shelter, healthcare) wouldn't further charity be unnecessary?
    • Infinitesimus 7y ago
      > Society should be structured in such a way that charity is not needed. We are a few more millenia away from that one. It seems our very nature wires us for an us-vs-them mentality and until we can get past that, those patterns will appear in the social structures we set up; naturally creating a ladder of progression. The idea is nice but the incentives we have to create new products and wealth unfortunately also incentivizes us to hoard the wealth
      • JoeAltmaier 7y ago
        Not sure that's true at all. Would need some further argument to be convinced. Essentially, does that mean that all people are fundamentally mean? That's trivially false.
        • Infinitesimus 7y ago
          Nah I don't think all people are mean or that we're doomed to failure, I believe we just often focus on short-term interests/gains and can be comically bad at thinking through long term consequences on a global scale (see: pollution, government interference in nation states, surveillance, anti-vax movements, all those who intentionally create and share misinformation, etc.) I don't think we're fundamentally good/bad/anything. We have just have a set of learned/programmed biases and ways of thinking that can lead us to poor decision and the social programming takes several generations to change globally
          • newen 7y ago
            > I believe we just often focus on short-term interests/gains ... This is very narrow US-centric thinking. Just look at the Chinese government, who generally have a longer term view of just economic gain compared to the US. It's not hard to extrapolate from that. I think the idea that humans are naturally self-centered, short-term thinkers is flawed. One could easily make the argument that humans are social creatures and are long-term thinkers. Short-term profits are incentivized by the current economic, political, financial system in the US. Doesn't have to be some innate human aspect or whatever.
  • RobLach 7y ago
    Oscar Wilde is a good start https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Socialism https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Soul_of_Man_Under_Sociali...
  • hkai 7y ago
    Well people argue that having millionaires in the society is unethical, yet somehow they still like when millions are donated to charities.
• kmlx 7y ago
  the only time i heard anything like this was by Ayn Rand, but even she wasn't that inflexible: > My views on charity are very simple. I do not consider it a major virtue and, above all, I do not consider it a moral duty. There is nothing wrong in helping other people, if and when they are worthy of the help and you can afford to help them. I regard charity as a marginal issue. What I am fighting is the idea that charity is a moral duty and a primary virtue. Playboy, March 1964