Welcome to Gaia! ::

frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
Do you think that it is ethical to reward/incentivize donating to a charity?

Does rewarding charitable behavior have any adverse effects on the person later in life? (EX. Does it cause the person to develop a skewed since of self-entitlement, or other issues?)

Does it take away from other charities that are unable to offer incentives?

Does the government have any business getting involved in charities by offering tax deduction or other rewards?


My opinion: I feel that rewarding charitable behavior does cause a person to develop a sense that they should be rewarded for all acts- even those meant to help others- and in turn removes any charity from the act. I also feel that it disrupts the ability of genuine charities-which have little to no ability to reward those who donate because they won’t ever have enough to give back to those who gave to them-that’s why they rely on donations. Finally, I feel the government has no business getting involved in charities, period.
i feel as you have no social connection at all with anyone.
catspook's avatar
  • 200
  • 100
  • 100
The warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping is an incentive, and trust me, every charity worth its salt milks that feeling for all it can; where would you draw the line? I'm rather of the opinion that no act is entirely altruistic, so I'm not really seeing the moral problem with this practice; my question would be if this practice increases or decreases charitable giving, and that's an empirical question; do you have any data on this?
frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
i feel as you have no social connection at all with anyone.
Wow, on-topic, meaningful, and completely founded! That's a triple wha--oh, wait.
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
i feel as you have no social connection at all with anyone.
Wow, on-topic, meaningful, and completely founded! That's a triple wha--oh, wait.

i would fully explain myself but i feel no need, sorry.
frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
catspook
The warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping is an incentive, and trust me, every charity worth its salt milks that feeling for all it can; where would you draw the line? I'm rather of the opinion that no act is entirely altruistic, so I'm not really seeing the moral problem with this practice; my question would be if this practice increases or decreases charitable giving, and that's an empirical question; do you have any data on this?
I'm talking about tanigble rewards, a warm fuzzy feeling is not what I'm reffering to, I'm talking about tax deductions from the Govn't, or Extra credit from a teacher.

And I am also of the feeling that no act is entirely altruistic but that does not mean we should incentivize things without paying caution to the risks.
frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
i feel as you have no social connection at all with anyone.
Wow, on-topic, meaningful, and completely founded! That's a triple wha--oh, wait.

i would fully explain myself but i feel no need, sorry.
And yet you felt the need to post such a completely irrelevant post where it did not belong? Interesting.
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
i feel as you have no social connection at all with anyone.
Wow, on-topic, meaningful, and completely founded! That's a triple wha--oh, wait.

i would fully explain myself but i feel no need, sorry.
And yet you felt the need to post such a completely irrelevant post where it did not belong? Interesting.

why do feel its irrelevant?
catspook's avatar
  • 200
  • 100
  • 100
frozen_water
catspook
The warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping is an incentive, and trust me, every charity worth its salt milks that feeling for all it can; where would you draw the line? I'm rather of the opinion that no act is entirely altruistic, so I'm not really seeing the moral problem with this practice; my question would be if this practice increases or decreases charitable giving, and that's an empirical question; do you have any data on this?
I'm talking about tanigble rewards, a warm fuzzy feeling is not what I'm reffering to, I'm talking about tax deductions from the Govn't, or Extra credit from a teacher.

And I am also of the feeling that no act is entirely altruistic but that does not mean we should incentivize things without paying caution to the risks.


But why are "tangible" rewards different? The main reason we like having so much stuff is that it makes us feel good. Basically, I need to some data; does this practice increase or decrease charitable giving? I can't decide until I have that data if it's a good idea or not.
frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
i feel as you have no social connection at all with anyone.
Wow, on-topic, meaningful, and completely founded! That's a triple wha--oh, wait.

i would fully explain myself but i feel no need, sorry.
And yet you felt the need to post such a completely irrelevant post where it did not belong? Interesting.

why do feel its irrelevant?
Because it is. There is no correlation between my amount of social activity and the morals of incentivizing charities.
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
i feel as you have no social connection at all with anyone.
Wow, on-topic, meaningful, and completely founded! That's a triple wha--oh, wait.

i would fully explain myself but i feel no need, sorry.
And yet you felt the need to post such a completely irrelevant post where it did not belong? Interesting.

why do feel its irrelevant?
Because it is. There is no correlation between my amount of social activity and the morals of incentivizing charities.

Can't think of one way it might be relevant?
frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
catspook
frozen_water
catspook
The warm fuzzy feeling you get from helping is an incentive, and trust me, every charity worth its salt milks that feeling for all it can; where would you draw the line? I'm rather of the opinion that no act is entirely altruistic, so I'm not really seeing the moral problem with this practice; my question would be if this practice increases or decreases charitable giving, and that's an empirical question; do you have any data on this?
I'm talking about tanigble rewards, a warm fuzzy feeling is not what I'm reffering to, I'm talking about tax deductions from the Govn't, or Extra credit from a teacher.

And I am also of the feeling that no act is entirely altruistic but that does not mean we should incentivize things without paying caution to the risks.


But why are "tangible" rewards different? The main reason we like having so much stuff is that it makes us feel good. Basically, I need to some data; does this practice increase or decrease charitable giving? I can't decide until I have that data if it's a good idea or not.
I have no data on the amount of people who donated when offered a tangible reward as compared to those who weren't (or anything along those lines) but hypothetically would it matter if it increased charitiable giving? (For argument's sake let's say it does) Does it matter if the charity is more profitable if the action is immoral?

I don't see how the monatary gain of the charity affects the morality of the situation, as good behavior is not always shown by an increase in profit/productivity.

And tangible matters because donating to any charity could potentially lead to that "warm fuzzy feeling" and therefor would not take away form those charities that were less profitable, but offering grades for one charity and not the other causes the charity without the incentives to lose propective donators, and at the same time takes away from the act being selfless (and while the act may not have been entire selfless to begin with such incentives remove the charitible motives to a greater degree and replace it with a material motivation).
frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX
frozen_water
XxX_HellCaster_XxX

i would fully explain myself but i feel no need, sorry.
And yet you felt the need to post such a completely irrelevant post where it did not belong? Interesting.

why do feel its irrelevant?
Because it is. There is no correlation between my amount of social activity and the morals of incentivizing charities.

Can't think of one way it might be relevant?
Not in any way that it would impact the discussion at hand, because despite what I'm sure you feel is an excellenct generalization, you cannot accuratley determine anything about the morals or incentivizing charities through what you presume to be my level of social activity. (Which you have no way of knowing to begin with, so it's already a baseless conclusion.)
frozen_water
I'm talking about tanigble rewards, a warm fuzzy feeling is not what I'm reffering to, I'm talking about tax deductions from the Govn't, or Extra credit from a teacher.

And I am also of the feeling that no act is entirely altruistic but that does not mean we should incentivize things without paying caution to the risks.



Lets say for instance a teacher offers extra credit for bringing in canned food. Do you think the beneficiaries of the food really care what the motives of the people who donated it were? I'd be willing to guess they'd be thrilled regardless of whether or not the kids who donated it gave two shits about them. If it takes incentives for people to do the right thing, where otherwise they may not, I don't see the harm.
frozen_water's avatar
  • 100
  • 100
  • 100
Fogojam
frozen_water
I'm talking about tanigble rewards, a warm fuzzy feeling is not what I'm reffering to, I'm talking about tax deductions from the Govn't, or Extra credit from a teacher.

And I am also of the feeling that no act is entirely altruistic but that does not mean we should incentivize things without paying caution to the risks.



Lets say for instance a teacher offers extra credit for bringing in canned food. Do you think the beneficiaries of the food really care what the motives of the people who donated it were? I'd be willing to guess they'd be thrilled regardless of whether or not the kids who donated it gave two shits about them. If it takes incentives for people to do the right thing, where otherwise they may not, I don't see the harm.
!) I;m not saying that it doesn't increase the productivity of the charity

2) I'm not saying that just because incentivizing charities might be unethical it should stop.

Quick Reply

Submit
Manage Your Items
Other Stuff
Get Items
Get Gaia Cash
Where Everyone Hangs Out
Other Community Areas
Virtual Spaces
Fun Stuff