Ethics of giving to charity (RE: Flamefests in the Lounge)

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http://www.philosophersmag.com/cgi-bin/morality_play.cgi

This was posted to DU sometime last year, or early this year.

It's a series of questions about ethics and morality to determine how consistent you are, and how many factors (family, scale, locality, etc) go into your moral code.

Of particular interest, after a few flamefest threads posted here of late, is question 6:

A charity collection takes place in your office. For every UK£10.00 given, a blind person's sight is restored. Instead of donating UK£10.00, you use the money to treat yourself to a cocktail after work. Are you morally responsible for the continued blindness of the person who would have been treated had you made the donation?

If you answer "yes" to this question, and you're not a pauper living under a bridge because you gave up all your earthly possessions to help the poor, then you're a hypocrite.

Likewise, unless you're a pauper, having given all your possessions to charity, lay off people who've worked their asses off, scraped and saved, so they could treat themselves (and possible friends or family) to something nice, be it an expensive toy (car, stereo, telescope, whatever), a lavish dinner out, or the vacation of a lifetime.

Recognise that most people, given wealth, will spend some on themselves, regardless of how much they use for others' sake.

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On the flip side, however, those who wish to share these events with us here on DU might want to consider leaving off the price tag. There are many people here who have hit on very hard times, and use DU as a support group. They (understandably) are having a difficult time, at the moment, in sharing your joy.

By all means, tell us about the amazing vacation you just took. We just don't need to know how much it cost.

On Edit:

Just noticed a similar thread, supporting my "flip side" comments:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=110594