We all have a moral obligation to use our surplus wealth to help those in need, but ...

Charity with a Conscience 

by Christopher O. Tollefsen

We all have a moral obligation to use our surplus wealth to help those in need, but we should do so in a way that is effective, fair, and in accordance with our own vocations.

I disagree with Peter Singer, the well-known Princeton bioethicist, about many things: the permissibility of euthanasia and abortion, the nature of personhood, and the correct treatment of non-human animals, to name just a few. But I agree with him about this: we should think carefully about what obligations we have to provide charitable aid to others and about how we should satisfy those obligations.

In regard to the first of these questions, I have argued here at Public Discourse that we have an obligation to come the aid of others who are in need if we can help them without disproportionate difficulty. This obligation translates into a general obligation to give of our surplus wealth--that wealth that is necessary neither to the satisfaction of our basic needs nor to the pursuit of our vocation, including our vocation to care for, educate, and raise our children. We are obliged to use such wealth to serve human needs that would otherwise go unsatisfied.

A recent New York Times column by Professor Singer is devoted to the second of these questions--that of how best to fulfill our obligation to help those in need. Singer notes that philanthropic service organizations are reluctant to say that one charitable option is better than another. Could it be that there is no objective right answer to this question? "I don't think so," says Singer, before mounting an argument for two important claims.

The first is that we should support organizations that serve basic needs and prevent significant evils over supporting, to use his example, "arts, culture, and heritage." The second claim is that when deciding amongst welfare-oriented agencies, we should, in effect, do our homework, and prefer those that most effectively use their resources over the wasteful and inefficient.

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