Topics Ethics

Question Mother Theresa accepted donations for her work from all sources - regardless of the background of the donors. She said that once the money was in her possession, she would put it to good use - its origin was irrelevant. The same argument has also been put forward by academic institutions who accept large sums of money for capital works from, e.g., donors with a known history of arms dealing. Was Mother Theresa wrong to accept this money? Should universities not accept such donations?

Accepted:
June 5, 2008

Comments

The only reasons I can imagine for it being wrong are consequentialist ones (i.e., the wrongness resides in the consequences such acceptances produce), and they strike me as weak reasons at that. First. the acceptance might encourage illegal or immoral activity, by creating a demand or outlet for such activity. Second, the acceptance could be interpreted by some as an endorsement of the activity -- drug or arms dealing, gambling, prostitution, etc. But you'd have to show (1) that the acceptance really is being interpreted as endorsement, and (2) that the perceived endorsement is causing something bad to happen.

Now, in Mother Teresa's case, I'd have to say these reasons don't hold. Both of them constitute what Mother Teresa would have considered the serious sin of scandal, and I doubt that she would have willingly committed it. Most university administrations don't share those sensibilities, so whether (1) or (2) is a danger is something to consider.

Perhaps, though, I'm overlooking some features that would make accepting money from certain sources morally wrong. I'd be interested to hear what other panelists think.

If you look through papers in linguistics from the 1960s and '70s, you'll find many that were supported by Defense Department grants -- these include many papers by Noam Chomsky, a formidable critic of much of U.S. foreign policy. (The military believed that this research might lead to breakthroughs in machine translation, something of great interest to them.) Was Chomsky bothered? Not in the least. He maintained that every dollar he took was one less dollar used to manufacture bombs.