1. Social solidarity requires social justice. Both the State and the well-to-do have a moral obligation towards the needy and the less fortunate. In addition to providing basic public services, the State has to provide through appropriate legislation for the welfare of the retarded, disabled and deprived, particularly in poverty-stricken areas. Social charity funds and welfare societies must co- ordinate their efforts with those of the state to help alleviate the suffering and hardship of these citizens. Such efforts need not be confined to giving money, clothes and food. They are usually extended to health care, child care, education and career training. However, all aid programs should aim at organizing and distributing help resources in a fair and effective way.
2. Aspects of fairness and effectiveness in helping the needy are not entirely independent of each other. They are separate but overlapping. Help is fair if it restores a balance in the distribution of resources so that people receive what they deserve. It is effective if it enables the recipient to become more self-sustained and less in need of future help.
3. The donor ought to take these two aspects into consideration, because helpers' resources are limited rather than boundless. If we help someone, and our help is ineffective, it eventually becomes unfair to continue pouring resources into what seems like a bottomless hole. A recipient who does not benefit from our help, who needs perpetual help, requires that we devote endless resources to him or to her. It becomes unfair to give endlessly to such a person when other people also deserve goods, time or money. Therefore, if help is completely ineffective, it becomes unfair.
4. By the same reasoning, if the recipient already has all that he or she actually deserves, then helping is not only unfair but also ineffective. The help will not benefit that recipient as much as it benefits someone who has less than he or she deserves. For instance, a healthy, informed woman will not show as much improvement in her condition from prenatal health care as a woman who has never received medical attention or nutritional advice. The marginal benefits are potentially greater for the person who has further to go. If the person who needs more help has been deprived through no fault of his o r her own, then it is both more fair and more effective to help him or her.
5. In spite of the fact that fairness and effectiveness are interwined, there is also a paradoxical conflict between them. Their combined demands create what is called the dilemma of helping. The very conditions that make it fair to help someone also make it less likely for that help to be effective. We must not hold recipients responsible for their misfortune. If they were to blame, they would thereby deserve 'what they got', and not help. On the other hand, help will be most effective if it not only sustains the person, but also eventually makes him or her self-sustaining. The recipient then does not drain the donor and produces the "staff burnout" that human service workers sometimes experience. Therefore, it is most effective to help the needy who will be responsible for their own sustenance.
6. Thus, as you can see, most donors and welfare societies nowadays offer free help to those who need it with an eye to solving the poverty problem once and for all, or at least minimizing its volume, rather than perpetuating it. They hope to provide the needy with a practical spring board to enable them to move on their own towards independence and self-sustenance. They want the poor to be productive and to contribute to the welfare of their society at large. At the same time, while charities offer help to the deprived, they do not hold them accountable for the past, for the cause of their misery, but will certainly hold them responsible for the solution of their future problems.
[Based on "Fairness and Effectiveness: Competing goals?" in New Directions in Helping eds. Fisher, I.D Nadler and Depaulo. N.Y: Academic Press (1983) (pp. 19-20)].
2. Aspects of fairness and effectiveness in helping the needy are not entirely independent of each other. They are separate but overlapping. Help is fair if it restores a balance in the distribution of resources so that people receive what they deserve. It is effective if it enables the recipient to become more self-sustained and less in need of future help.
3. The donor ought to take these two aspects into consideration, because helpers' resources are limited rather than boundless. If we help someone, and our help is ineffective, it eventually becomes unfair to continue pouring resources into what seems like a bottomless hole. A recipient who does not benefit from our help, who needs perpetual help, requires that we devote endless resources to him or to her. It becomes unfair to give endlessly to such a person when other people also deserve goods, time or money. Therefore, if help is completely ineffective, it becomes unfair.
4. By the same reasoning, if the recipient already has all that he or she actually deserves, then helping is not only unfair but also ineffective. The help will not benefit that recipient as much as it benefits someone who has less than he or she deserves. For instance, a healthy, informed woman will not show as much improvement in her condition from prenatal health care as a woman who has never received medical attention or nutritional advice. The marginal benefits are potentially greater for the person who has further to go. If the person who needs more help has been deprived through no fault of his o r her own, then it is both more fair and more effective to help him or her.
5. In spite of the fact that fairness and effectiveness are interwined, there is also a paradoxical conflict between them. Their combined demands create what is called the dilemma of helping. The very conditions that make it fair to help someone also make it less likely for that help to be effective. We must not hold recipients responsible for their misfortune. If they were to blame, they would thereby deserve 'what they got', and not help. On the other hand, help will be most effective if it not only sustains the person, but also eventually makes him or her self-sustaining. The recipient then does not drain the donor and produces the "staff burnout" that human service workers sometimes experience. Therefore, it is most effective to help the needy who will be responsible for their own sustenance.
6. Thus, as you can see, most donors and welfare societies nowadays offer free help to those who need it with an eye to solving the poverty problem once and for all, or at least minimizing its volume, rather than perpetuating it. They hope to provide the needy with a practical spring board to enable them to move on their own towards independence and self-sustenance. They want the poor to be productive and to contribute to the welfare of their society at large. At the same time, while charities offer help to the deprived, they do not hold them accountable for the past, for the cause of their misery, but will certainly hold them responsible for the solution of their future problems.
[Based on "Fairness and Effectiveness: Competing goals?" in New Directions in Helping eds. Fisher, I.D Nadler and Depaulo. N.Y: Academic Press (1983) (pp. 19-20)].
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