Dissense

While I salute the clarity A employs above, he seems blind to the pitfalls of his proposition. A blithely assumes that putting a penny in the old man’s hat (to get into the spirit of the season) is a good act in his very defense of it.

[L]et’s accept, for the sake of argument, that an individual actually will otherwise donate the money to a worthy charity (Oxfam, say). To then claim that giving to beggars is either valueless or wrong simply in virtue of there being better options would have absurd ethical ramifications. By that logic, any charitable act would be morally suspect so long as a better option existed, a ridiculous prospect. Donating to Toys for Tots is not immoral or amoral simply because that money could also go towards food or medicine for needy children. Moreover, there is no reason to believe that the respective values of good acts are commensurable with one another.

Unfortunately, as the latter point A raises clearly demonstrates, it’s far from clear that this choice is one between better or even neutral options. An anecdote might perhaps illumine the point. During my undergrad days, I ran into a typical plaintiff in a parking lot near a grocery store. It was a frosty winter evening (by LA standards, that is, so somewhere around 60 degrees) and my face wore the beatific smile that can only come when your scholarship money has come in and a guilt-free surplus exists. Magnanimity being cheap, I rounded out my sense of well being by emptying my pockets of change and depositing 93 cents in the hands of the boon-seeker. My bubble of complacency was almost immediately shattered when I found the same man in front of me in line, using his begging wages to purchases a small mountain of Buck Shots, shots of hard alcohol that cost a dollar apiece.

In that case, my change became another spot of scar tissue on his engorged liver. I had provided the means for this fellow to continue his self-abuse. Without my change, he would have purchased one less Buck Shot. In that case, which choice is more morally salutary: a cheery refusal or a thoughtless handout? After all, there’s a reason for the term enablers.