Topics Ethics

Question I'm willing to donate about $100 a year, out of my pocket, to help relieve worldwide hunger. But, If I had the opportunity to vote on a proposed new tax in my country that would collect an average of $1000 from each citizen (based on their income) and use all that money to relieve world hunger, I would be happy to vote for this new law. My family income is above average so I'd end up paying more than $1000. But this seems strange, ethically. I'm willing to have myself and my fellow citizens coerced by the state to pay far more towards a good cause than I'm willing to just pay on my own. Is my position defensible in a moral sense?

Accepted:
May 2, 2013

Comments

This is a very interesting question, one I have struggled with myself, because I feel the same way you do, and I suspect many people feel the exact opposite (they much prefer voluntary donations to coercive taxation). I can think of two explanations for why we have the view we do, one more psychological, the other perhaps more "defensible in a moral sense".

First, I am weak-willed. I believe I should give much more of my disposable income to reliable organizations who will use it to relieve significant suffering. But getting myself to do so is hard and at tax time each year I find I haven't given as much as I think I should. So, I'd prefer to be forced to do it (the problem is that I do not like being forced to "donate" so much money to, e.g., defense contractors, so it is unfair to use my weakness as a reason to coerce everyone to do what only some of them think is justified).

So, the second explanation for why we might hold our view is that we are justified in thinking that (a) our government should spend much more on relieving suffering around the world (perhaps instead of spending so much on other programs), and (b) we believe (plausibly) that coordinated efforts with much more money will be much more effective that the more scattered efforts by the charities we'd give to individually. Perhaps also © we believe (implausibly) that our duty to give is lessened when most people don't act on their respective duty to give.

But I'm not sure how points (a) or (b) could be used to mount a sound argument with the conclusion that we are justified in choosing to give less than we would be willing to be coerced to give.