What Are Your Reasons for Not Helping the Poor?

There's No Judgment Here!

Here is the highly common situation, call it TYPICAL, I want to focus on, which applies to many people I know.

1. They spend a large amount of money on things such as these: concert tickets, comedy shows, and similar entertainment items; extra shoes and other clothes; movies; sporting events; many decorations in the home; extra furniture; extra kitchen supplies; restaurants; collections of books or art or jewelry or watches or similar items; Spotify or something similar; streaming services such as ESPN, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+; video or virtual reality games; bathroom or basement remodels, room expansions, and similar large projects in the home; extra cosmetics and similar items; vacations; gym memberships, fitness classes, personal trainers, and related items; new phones, headphones, and other tech; cleaning services; and so on.

2. They know that spending money in that way has benefits for themselves and their loved ones.

3. Because they’re smart and well-informed, they know that they could use that money to benefit strangers who are much poorer or otherwise much less fortunate than they are.

4. Because they’re smart and well-informed, they know that the strangers in question would benefit from that money much, much more than they and their loved ones do. For instance, giving the gift of sight is actually quite cheap in many cases, and it would be child’s play for many of us to pay for it for literally dozens of people. Of course, this is just one illustration; there is a great variety and number of ways to donate money to do amazing good for strangers.

5. They plan on continuing to spend the money in (1) instead of using it to help the poor.

There is absolutely no accusation here, either moral or psychological. In no place am I going to argue or even faintly suggest that you should, morally, give up most of the category (1) expenses and use that money to help the poor. Instead, the TYPICAL situation merely invites the Reasons Question, RQ, “What are your reasons for spending money on the things listed in (1) instead of helping the poor?”.

The point of answering RQ is to increase one’s knowledge. That’s all.

For instance, some of us are guilty of moral hypocrisy: we say and believe principles that obviously require us to not spend all that money on category (1) stuff, but we do it anyway, year after year. Or, maybe we realize, after doing this exercise, that our moral principles are quite different from what we thought they were. Or, maybe we see that some of our loved ones are moral hypocrites, or have moral principles quite different from our own. Or, maybe we learn that when it comes to big questions regarding morality and the poor, we have been sleepwalking through life, doing things in a clueless, unreflective manner.

In any case, it’s been instructive for me to go through the exercise, and I recommend it for others.

Typical Responses & Their Evaluation

You don’t have to have much life experience to know full well that most people in TYPICAL will react in a defensive manner to RQ. That usually comes from an implicit assumption they have that the “right” thing to do in TYPICAL is spend a lot less money on the items in (1) and use that saved money to help the poor.

Again, I’m not saying that that’s actually the right thing to do. On the contrary, just because someone feels guilty for something doesn’t mean that they are actually guilty for that thing. For what it’s worth, my own moral views are weird and, because they are of course so incredibly subtle and sophisticated, resist summary (joke).

Let’s articulate 16 of the usual responses to the RQ, with short evaluative remarks.

1: “Ethics is all about taking care of your own tribes, not total strangers”.

A reasonable response to the RQ. I know most people will object to it, but I won’t. If that’s one’s view, then one isn’t guilty of any moral hypocrisy in this situation.

2: “We should spend the money on other issues, such as climate change, factory farming, education, healthcare, or something else”.

Fair enough. As with the previous response, I know some people will object to it, but I won’t. If you give up most of the category (1) expenses and devote that money to these other causes, you’re amazing. You’re also incredibly rare.

3: “Ummm, I’m poor too. Seriously, I live in a shit apartment and I barely make ends meet. The vast majority of stuff in (1) is a joke to me, as I can’t afford it”.

Yet another reasonable response to the RQ. You have my sympathy too, as I’ve been in those circumstances multiple times in my life. Most people who read this aren’t anywhere near that poor: they spend a lot of money on category (1) items.

4: “This is old news. People have been badgering us to give to the poor forever”.

True enough. One reason RQ doesn’t go away is that it makes so many of us think we aren’t doing near enough to help the poor. The RQ might not be trendy right now, depending what social circles you’re in, but if you allow trends to dictate your moral code, then you’ve got other problems.

5: “But when does it end? How much am I supposed to give away? Am I supposed to give until I’m practically homeless?”

On the one hand, this is a deep, difficult question: how much does morality demand of us, when it comes to helping those in much less fortunate circumstances? But we need to keep in mind what RQ is actually saying.

It’s asking why you spend money on the things listed in (1) only. That’s it. It says nothing about your rent or mortgage payment for instance. Or your support to your financially strapped mother, brother-in-law, or other relative. It doesn’t say anything about the college expenses for your kids. Or your car payment. It’s actually quite limited in scope.

It targets expenses that, roughly put, (a) you can end pretty easily and (b) are for items that are clearly non-essential. For instance, it’s hard to get rid of your mortgage payment. You can do so of course, by selling your home and finding a less expensive housing situation, but that’s a big deal. In contrast, cancelling Netflix or Spotify, not going through with the bathroom remodel, forgoing new clothes, not buying a new phone, skipping your next vacation, going to restaurants only on very special occasions, and so on, are easy to do and concern obvious non-essentials. RQ is asking why you don’t stop those expenses and use the money to help others who are far, far less fortunate.

Giving up those expenses isn’t going make you destitute, homeless, or anything remotely like that.

Regarding the more philosophical question raised by the response—“How much should we give?”—the person in TYPICAL agrees that they are morally obligated to support their family members, even though there’s no easily known answer to “How much am I obligated to give them?” Even without that answer, they admit that they have moral obligations to do at least some things for their family members. So, just because we don’t know the answer to “How far am I supposed to go in my support?” doesn’t prevent us from knowing that you have to give some support.

6: “So, what do you do, Bryan Frances? Do you practice what you preach? Probably not!”

It would be easy to pass over this response to RQ as irrelevant, but pursuing it does lead to an important wrinkle.

First, I’m not preaching anything. Again, there’s no moral accusation here. In fact, I’ve already allowed that one might not be guilty of anything in continuing to not give to the poor—provided the responses in 1-3 apply to you. All we have in this post is a request for an answer to a question—and I’ve already granted that some answers are fine and indicate nothing like moral hypocrisy, other moral fault, or anything else bad.

Second, this reaction to RQ is clearly just a diversion in almost all cases. The person faced with the RQ feels attacked, realizes that the attack is serious, and so they react in such a way as to avoid the issue entirely. This will be true for most of the responses I examine below too.

Third, we have the wrinkle I promised. On the one hand, I do pay for Spotify, the New York Times, and Netflix. I also often have a gym membership, and I go to maybe three or four movies a year. So, yeah: I have some of the category (1) expenses. But on the other hand, I don’t live anywhere or own much of anything anymore (e.g., no house, apartment, car, furniture, and so on). So, I have no rent or mortgage payment, no car payment, no home improvement projects, and basically no room for acquiring material possessions, since I have no home at all. To a certain extent, I justify my Spotify and other category (1) expenses by not having any of the much bigger expenses so many others have.

7: “Poor people won’t use the money well”.

First off, neither will you. If the poor people want to use some of your money to smoke weed and get a PlayStation, so what? You smoke weed and have a PlayStation! Or something similar anyway. You spend money on plenty of stupid shit. So, that’s not exactly a great excuse for not helping the poor.

Second and more importantly, for the most part, the poor will use the money to pay for essential bills.

Third, this reaction to RQ usually is just another diversionary tactic. Often enough, the person in TYPICAL searches for an excuse, no matter how weak, to avoid the issue. Saying that poor people will just use the money for drugs or alcohol or similar items is a classic case of diversion. Again, most poor people won’t do that.

Fourth, you can use your monetary contribution as you see fit, at least sometimes. I recently did that with someone. It wasn’t that hard. It’s easier to control your contributions when they are in your own community.

8: “Poor people need to pull themselves up. There are plenty of opportunities for them to do so. If you remain poor for years and years, it’s your own fault”.

Well, this is false for a great many poor people. Yes, it is true for some, but it’s false for zillions. We can argue all day about the percentages, but it’s obvious that an enormous number of poor people are not guilty of laziness or anything similar.

9: “The government and rich people should do it, not me”.

The idea behind this response is that the government of wealthy countries and rich people should, morally, do a lot but people in my situation need not, even though we do spend a fair amount of money on the items in (1).

Maybe the first part is true: richer governments and people have a moral obligation to do quite a bit. Let’s assume it is. That hardly means the people in TYPICAL are off the hook. On the face of it, a part of the reason rich people should do something for the poor is because it’s so easy for them that they won’t miss the money that much, and they know how to go about it too. But that’s true for you too, with your streaming services, restaurants, vacations, yoga classes, and similar expenses.

Oddly enough, if the rich person has the moral obligation, then those of us who have a lot of the expenses in (1) have the moral obligation too—and for the very same reason.

By the way, I know that people like to raise some of these moral issues with the drowning-child-in-a-pond thought experiment. I am against that technique. It encourages people to just debate things purely philosophically instead of taking action or evaluating their actual behavior. You probably haven’t actually encountered the drowning child case but you know all about the very real plight of the poor, both in distant countries and in your own community. You are probably spending money on category (1) stuff nearly every day, and yet you also know of the poor. The TYPICAL situation is about as real as it can get; the drowning child thing is a mere thought experiment.

10: “There are always going to be millions of poor people. My money will never make the slightest dent in that problem”.

The person in TYPICAL isn’t supposed to put a dent in the global problem of poverty. That’s silly. You can literally choose just one family to support. It’s not hard. This response is just diversion again.

11: “Giving money to the poor almost always involves putting money in the pockets of politicians, warlords, or other people who don’t need it”.

12: “Giving money to charitable organizations is often counterproductive, as it ends up not making poor people better off, collectively and in the long run”.

13: “Giving money to places in poor areas of Africa or wherever is totally uncertain. We have no real way of knowing where that money goes or how it’s actually spent”.

You can bypass politicians, warlords, and others by supporting people in your own community, or nearby communities. And you can specify how the money is used. I’ve done it multiple times. Problem solved.

But let’s suppose for a moment that you live in the USA, UK, or continental Europe and decide you want to give money to a charity organization somewhere in Africa, where you have no ties whatsoever. Let’s also suppose that a portion of your money ends up in the pockets of obviously rich or corrupt people.

So what? If $1000 of my contribution ends up in some scumbag’s hands, probably $4000 ends up in the hands of poor people. The extra money isn’t going to keep the scumbag afloat. But the extra money for the poor people can be a really big, life changing deal.

It might take you a week to work out some efficient ways to use that money to do good in Africa, but it’s not as though you need to find the best or error-free way to do it. Forget finding the best or error-free way of doing almost anything in life! It wouldn’t be difficult to use the extra money in a way that produces a stunning increase in well-being of the poor compared to how you would use it on yourself or loved ones.

But as I said above, one simple solution here, if you’re bothered by the issues raised in 11-13, is to direct your money in other ways.

14: “Some of those expenditures are actually crucial for my career, my most important projects in life, or my mental health”.

Really? Netflix? ESPN? A personal trainer? A vacation? Seriously?

Even if for some reason some of the category (1) expenses are super important for you (e.g., your profession requires you to be in amazing physical condition, so a gym membership and personal trainer are needed), the vast majority of them aren’t. If you think you “need” another vacation, regular trips to restaurants, or new pairs of shoes, then you’re just wrong. Grow up; stop deluding yourself.

15: “I already give 10% of my income, which is quite a bit more than what most people do”.

16: “If I gave away that money, it would be unfair, since almost no one else in my position will do so”.

What’s important here? (i) The unfairness of different contributions or (ii) the lives of the poor? If you forgo most of the expenses in (1) in favor of giving that money to the poor, then yeah: there’s a new unfairness in the world, since you’re giving up more than most people. Then again, you will be making a colossal difference to some people’s lives. Consider which is more significant.

*****

For what it’s worth, I think most of us in TYPICAL are tempted to endorse moral ideas that say we are being seriously immoral by sticking with TYPICAL. One response is to just admit the hypocrisy and continue to live with it. Another is to change one’s ways. Yet another is to conclude that morality isn’t at all what you thought it was, and you really aren’t under any obligation to help the poor.

So, what’s the upshot?

There isn’t one. Again, the point of the exercise is to see what your response to RQ is—and what it says about you, your character, moral code, and so on.