Ethics

Are we really obliged to help the poor? What is the main reason for helping them without a bias in religious beliefs?

Comments

Let's ask a simpler question: is it a good thing to help the poor? By and large, the answer seems to be yes. And it seem even more clearly to be yes when you think particular cases. If someone is poor because they're the child of poor parents, or because they're disabled, or elderly, or unemployed in spite of serious efforts to find a job, or employed and hard-working but not making enough money to make ends meet, then the answer seems even more clearly to be yes.

Now maybe there are some people who are poor entirely because of their own bad choices and who don't deserve our help. I'd guess that if so, there aren't nearly as many of them as is widely believed. But even if I'm wrong about that, there are many poor people whose poverty isn't their fault. Seems pretty clear that it would be good to help those people.

Why?

Because being poor is bad for your health. Because being poor can hurt your prospects for a better life. Because if you're poor, people look down on you. Because if you're poor, life is going to be harder in ways that those of us who aren't poor may not even be able to imagine. Because if you were poor, you'd probably be grateful if someone helped you.

There's a maxim you're no doubt familiar with: treat other people the way you'd like to be treated. That's a version of the Golden Rule, but what recommends it isn't that Jesus (among others) said it. What recommends it is that it seems right to most of when we think about it, whether or not we believe in a god.

All this said, the question of what we're obliged to do is a step beyond the question of what would be good to do. None of us has the time or the resources to do everything that would be good to do. But a good life will include doing good. And it's hard to see why helping the poor wouldn't count as one of the many ways we could choose to do good.

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