Why we should help others: A philosophical motivation
We have been taught from young that we should help the less fortunate. We are told this is the right thing to do. For those less easily persuaded, we are asked to imagine ourselves in their shoes. Sympathy and empathy are usually sufficiently strong motivators.
The idea of helping others is not restricted to individuals, but companies as well. Corporate social responsibility has evolved from a public relations strategy to what some deem as a moral obligation. But based on what?
Before you get the wrong idea, I would like to sincerely assure you I am not advocating for not helping others. In fact, I have come to realise helping others is not only the right thing to do, but an obligation. Such a realization came about precisely because I sought to find a universal justification to help others, instead of relying on emotional guilt or simply believing what we’re told. I was unsatisfied with such fickle appeals as they are transient, easily overlooked and simply not strong enough as the basis of something as important as helping the less fortunate.
It turns out such a theory already exists.
In 1971, John Rawls, perhaps the most influential American political philosopher of the 20th century, published A Theory of Justice. In it, he articulated his two principles. The method of how he attained those principles — the veil of ignorance and the original position — has been hotly debated. And yet, these principles have endured, and I hope you can see why.
It is Rawls’ second principle, or the difference principle, which justifies why we should help others. The principle itself consists of two parts. The first part, and its basis, is what convinced me that helping others is morally necessary. (But the second part, which I will bring up later, is perhaps just as important.)
In the first part, Rawls argues that we should work to the help the least advantaged members of society, because existing inequalities are unjust. Why? Because they are the result of factors which are arbitrary, objectively speaking, so we cannot claim to deserve them.
Suppose you’re in the top 1%. What got you there? Perhaps you were fortunate enough to be born into the 1%. That seems unfair, since you had no doing in choosing the circumstances into which you were born.
But what if you worked hard into the top 1%? Rawls argues you still cannot claim to deserve the fruits of your labour. This is because there may be other external factors which led to your success. Supportive parents, good government policies, your intelligence, and even your propensity to work hard, are, in the same vein, not your own choosing (albeit to a lesser extent). What we are endowed with — both the good and the bad — are the result of accident; a natural lottery.
Rawls’ argument from moral arbitrariness is very appealing. Upon reflection, it is apparent it applies to so many factors, both positive and negative, that have resulted in your success (or lack thereof). Just as we can’t claim to deserve our endowments, so too we don’t really deserve our deficiencies, their unfavourable consequence, and the resultant inequalities. (Here, we must be careful not to abandon the idea of responsibility altogether, since it would have unfavourable societal implications.) Yet, this insight is the strongest justification for equality, and therefore, why we should help the less fortunate.
If so, does that mean we should impose perfect equality? No, but for a universally beneficial reason as well. To forcibly and artificially create an equal distribution, because of inherent deficiencies and limitations of the less fortunate (though it is not their own doing), would imply disabling the more well-endowed. But this doesn’t benefit anyone, since the more well-endowed can generate greater assets, which can then be enjoyed by the less fortunate also.
And this is where the second part of Rawls’ second principle, and its namesake, comes in: Inequalities (differences) are allowable, insofar as they help the least advantaged in society. If inequalities are necessary to incentivize the more fortunate, it could, coupled with appropriate redistributionist measures, still result in greater attainments for everyone, even if the distribution itself has less than perfect equality. As the failed experiment of Soviet communism illustrates, our human nature requires incentives. This ‘difference’ is what enables this principle to be plausibly applicable to the human condition.
We could argue the finer points of how to apply Rawls’ theory in the real world, or if Rawls’ method of deriving them is right, but the core of difference principle, and its justification, has remained compelling. It is, at least for me, the strongest justification, the most difficult to object, and what motivates me to help others, however little, to this day.
A National Treasure quote comes to mind: “Those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action”. Your ability to take action is the result of favourable endowments you cannot claim as truly your own. Shouldn’t you use it to help your fellow human beings who don’t have it?
