Financial Times

Philanthropy as public-spirited ambition
By Nous
The surge in volunteerism that we witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the tsunami has put paid to the usual complaint about Sri Lankans that, due either to exhaustion or to insolence, the sight of misfortune and suffering often fail to induce pity in us.

It was, for sure, a defining moment for Sri Lankan volunteerism, even though largely due to bureaucratic inertia and bungling many of the tsunami’s most vulnerable victims continue to suffer the sordidness of refugee camps, among other misfortunes that happened to them. Yet the situation would have been even more wretched, nasty and terrifying without the volunteerism and the outpouring of generosity of those, both here and abroad, who felt deeply pained by the sight of suffering.

The frame of mind that leads men to pity is not hard to fathom. None of us would feel for the misfortunes of others if we ourselves were living in dire misery, feeling we have nothing more to suffer, and had indeed exhausted suffering.

Then there are also those who, feeling supremely confident in their good fortunes, give no thought to the possibility of future suffering and feel no pity. To this insolent frame of mind too belong those who would invoke the law of karma at the sight of deadly, painful, or commonplace misfortunes.

However, between those two extremes of wanton insolence and exhaustion, lie the majority of men who, at the sight undeserved suffering, are reminded of all that they fear for themselves and their friends and feel pity.

In a word, pity is intimately linked with the sense of anxious risk with which we hold the things that we call the goods of life – health, wealth, esteem, pleasure, family, friends, and the like - we are daily in danger of losing all on which our affections are set.

It is obviously a mark of good character to pity and sympathise with those who suffer undeservedly. Indeed such acts as volunteering and giving are truly tender and beautiful when they are done knowingly, liberally and from deliberate choice with a fine end in view. It is obviously a fine and noble end to aim at doing things to encourage the instrumentalities and institutions that work to lessen human miseries as well as to encourage those that work to increase human pleasures of liberal arts and the reflective life.

When done thus in the right way with pleasure or at least with no pain for a fine end in view, such public-spirited acts are also praiseworthy, if not honourable, i.e. “deserving of recognition.” Honour as Aristotle says is the greatest of external goods. It is “the prize appointed for the noblest deeds.”

It is customary to use the word philanthropy to describe public-spirited giving that involves largeness of scale. Since philanthropy is concerned with honour, and since honour is the prize of virtue, there will always be men who will seek to by-pass a virtuous life with philanthropy.

Philanthropy, however, is magnificent and deserving of recognition in the highest degree when practiced by men with nobility and goodness of character. Of such a magnanimous man, Aristotle says this, subjecting human conduct to logical analysis: To cite selectively: “at great honours bestowed by good men, he will feel pleasure, but only a moderate one, because he will feel that he is getting no more than his due, or rather less, since no honour can be enough for perfect excellence.

Nevertheless, he will accept such honours, on the ground that there is nothing greater that they can give him… Again, it is characteristic of the magnanimous man not to aim at things commonly held in honour, or things in which others excel; to be sluggish and hold back except where great honour or great work is at stake, and to be a man of few deeds, but of great and notable ones… [Moreover], “magnanimous man is like an artist; for he can see what is fitting and can spend large sums tastefully…; and he will do so gladly and lavishly; for nice calculation is a niggardly thing.”

Such in brief is the effect of public-spirited ambitions of men with nobility and goodness of character. Philanthropists who rush to the press or publish record cards of their philanthropy to gain praise and recognition have never heard of these solemn words: “For many are called, but few are chosen.”

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