Charity In Contemporary Ethical Life And Its Moral Foundation

In the past three decades,global poverty has been alleviated to some extent.At present,the problem of global poverty presents two prominent characteristics: first,it is predicted that the absolute poverty population will be mainly located in sub Saharan in the future;second,the global gap between the rich and the poor continues to widen,which made the relative poverty a most outstanding problem in the issue of contemporary poverty.It is of great practical significance to explore the project of "how to do charitable acts”,if considering the role that individual philanthropy plays on alleviating poverty.It is a general requirement for human beings to undertake the duty of beneficence to help others in terms of common-sense morality and normative theories.In the normative theory,utilitarianism,based on a moral standpoint of impartiality,gives an equal consideration to everyone's interests and well-being.On the one hand,it provides sufficient moral reasons for individuals to take charitable acts.On the other hand,however,the utilitarian principle of individual charity faces the criticism on the problem of over-demandingness and the neglect of individual uniqueness.The theory of deontology that developed from Kantian ethics takes the principle of “no harm” as the minimal requirements of morality.Although,to some extent,it limits the requirement for the individual to promote the good,it seems that the duty of beneficence put forward by deontology couldn't fully explain why people have the obligation to alleviate the relative poverty.Inspired by Sidgwick's "dualism of practical rational",firstly,it is supposed to reflect on the traditional moral standpoint of impartiality and then investigate the nature and principles of charity.To further explaining the relationship between partiality and impartiality in moral standpoint,this paper first investigates the moral significace of partiality.Based on the “comprehensive argument”,this paper defines reasonable partiality.What's more,with the help of "functional stragegy",this paper makes a revision of the traditional moral standpoint of impartiality,which concludes:(1)the first-order morality allows people to take partial acts,but in the second-order sense,morality still requires people to act on impartiality in order to promote a better life for everyone.(2)the first-order moral standpoint of partilality is limited by the second-order moral standpoint of impartiality.This revision of moral standpoint gives a light on the principle of beneficent acts,which includes:(1)taking the basic conditions of a good life as the basic limits of charity,and(2)extending the conclusions of charity in morality to the field of politics.Based on the revised moral standpoint and its enlightenment on charity,this paper raises the “dependence argument” and proposes that the basic conditions of a good life are founded on the nature of human vulnerability and human agency.Firstly,in order to achieve a better life,people should form a kind of “reciprocity dependence”,that is,on the one hand,to interact with each other positively in order to cultivate and develop their agency,and,on the other,to benefit mutually in order to avoid their vulnerability and reduce the the damage of their agency.Secondly,this paper analyzes the normativity of “reciprocity dependence” so as to explaine the motivation of individual charity.Thirdly,this paper extends the requirement of charity to political life,and finally puts forward five principles of charity based on the new moral position.