Ethics

How much do I need to give to charity before I can splurge on a new iPod and not feel guilty?

Comments

With respect to your feeling guilty or not, my first response is that you need to find a way to evaluate the regard that you show or don't show for others in a more holistic and comprehensive way -- all things considered, and in light of whatever obligations you think you have to assist those who are less fortunate than you are, have you lived your life in a way that you believe fulfills the obligations to those who need the assistance of charity? No matter how you treat this individual purchase, if (1) you recognize that you have a substantive obligation to help others and (2) you believe that you are not living your life in a way that meets that obligation, then you will probably experience guilt or shame or other significant discord about the way you are living your life.

But, of course, all this is mute on the question of whether you properly understand the obligations to those who are less fortunate -- if it turns out that your own feelings of guilt are unreliable guides, then in the worst case you could turn out to be living in your life in ways that do not meet your actual obligations to the least fortunate and so are acting both unjustly and callously.

Philosophers have spent a lot of time trying to understand these obligations, and if you are up to reading three wonderful but challenging works of political philosophy, John Rawls (A THEORY OF JUSTICE), Robert Nozick (ANARCHY, STATE, AND UTOPIA), and Gerry Cohen (RESCUING JUSTICE AND EQUALITY) have extremely insightful things to say about three different perspectives on those obligations. Also of note (I've not read it yet -- but I think it does address your question directly) is Peter Singer's THE LIFE YOU CAN SAVE: ACTING NOW TO END WORLD POVERTY.

Finally, I'm happy that you raise this question and that you feel conflicted about luxury splurges -- lots of people do not feel that conflict or any guilt and this disregard for others makes it all the more difficult for activists to push our society towards greater social justice. So, some anxiety of the type you express strikes me as a very good thing. Even this, however, can be taken to an extreme. I think there there is no ethical obligation to engage in ceaseless sacrifice in order to help out those who are less advantaged than you; as Cohen puts it in RESCUING JUSTICE AND EQUALITY, there exists a "legitimate personal prerogative...[granting to] each person the right to be something other than an engine for the social welfare of other people: we are not nothing but slaves to social justice" (p. 10).

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