In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, many companies have shown their
good will and support through donations. Often, a company?s
spokesperson will appear on a TV show such as Oprah, Ellen Degeneres,
etc to make a grandiose, public speech of their organization?s
contributions towards the victims of this hurricane. Do you feel that
these organizations are acting with genuine sincerity or are they
simply looking for a good public relations piece? Do you think that
society has become so jaded that we don?t even accept these donations
as something positive any longer, but more as an effort to further the
efforts of the organization and to get their name more recognized in
the marketplace? What are your thoughts on this matter, ethically
speaking? Is it necessary for such grand gestures to be made so
formally and so publicly or can the same message be made on a less
public scale, without so much media attention?

Hello tiff1,

Thank you for the interesting question.  This is a very multifaceted
issue of course with positives and negatives on both sides of the
table.  I will address your question point by point.

Are companies that turn their donations into a public relations
campaign in any way sincere?

I would answer this with a qualified yes.  Firstly, it is in my
opinion that an act of kindness is not necessarily negated by the
grandstanding of the individual who brought it about.  If we judged
the act only under the terms of whether or not the person who brought
about the act was altruistic in his/her intentions, we would be
missing the very real impact the act had upon its intended
receipient(s).  The immediacy of the need to me outweighs the possible
negatives a dishonest act of kindness brings to the table.  So, if you
look at it in that context, yes there is some sincerity involved,
because at the least, someone sincerely needed help and did receive
it, no matter what the intentions of the donor.

I believe that most corporations will see doing the public good as a
way to improve their image.  I do not entirely believe though that
this is the only motivation behind it.  I think it mostly depends on
the Corporate Culture of the company involved, and therefore the issue
would need to be examined on a case by case basis to make a more
definitive determination.  In general I think that these ideas start
with individuals, who probably have an actual emotion abot the issue,
and then that idea must pass through many filters and considerations
which can dehumanize it.

First, to spend the money the idea most be approved by a number of
self-interested people and also weighed against other considerations
that impact the bottom line such as shareholder perception.  There are
legal implications to be considered.  A corporations image is among
its mostly carefully guarded treasures.  Every move it makes in public
is carefully evaluated to conform to certain standards of conduct it
has set for itself.  This could be seen as a set of ethics, in a way. 
However, though corporations are made of people I do not think it is a
very large leap to say that the bottom line is the ultimate yardstick
of how it conducts itself.  It may be impossible for a company without
a really strong CEO, personality wise, to do anything totally
altruistic as there are so many self-interested hands in the pie.

Are we too jaded as a society to accept acts of kindness?

It certainly does seem that way.  We have been bombarded our entire
lives with information designed specifically to sway our opinions and
desires, to program us even in secret, unconscious ways.  This can
make it difficult to trust anything which comes out of the medialand
circus.  However, it is interesting to note that we generally have no
problem believing in the negatives that we see and hear about. 
Personally, I believe in the fundemental goodness of huamnity.  It may
not always be apparent, but I can see it in the eyes of the people
that I meet.  So I do not believe that we must dissect every act of
kindness for whatever sincerity we find so to give it a relevence; 
that it has its own merits by virtue of the general goodness of
mankind itself.

So while I can see that many things are done in the name of greed
alone, I do believe that the people involved can't really be all bad. 
There always seems to be this sensationalism about everything in
general, especially on a national level, that can drown out any
sincerity.  We get it from our media, from our government, from the
myriad of people who want to influence us for their own purposes.  So
this just makes us wary in general.  Though to me when you tear off
the shiny wrapping and get down to the heart of this issue, it really
comes down to people helping people.  Though we may be inundated with
negativity I feel we still believe as a society that the good is real
and relevent in our lives, and therefore acts of kindness for whatever
purpose have a value all of their own.

What kind of ethical considerations come into play?

The ethical considerations seem to boil down to the question of the
possibility of altruism and what that means for individuals and
society.  There are two main branches to this. The first branch is
called Ethical Egoism which states that altruism is actually a bad
thing.  The main thrust of the argument is that however well
intentioned you may be, the person you are trying to help knows what
is best for themselves.  That you are basically saying "This is what
you need to live your life."  This is generally supported by examples
in history where a country would impose its values on another under
the guise of altruism, totally ignoring the culture already in place,
or seeing it as primitive and something needing to be liberated.  The
other argument is that by being altruistic you are actually making the
person you are helping more dependant, and therefore less able to help
themselves, and that this in the long run harms both the individual
and society.  Basically the whole concept revolves around the fact
that everything humans do is selfish and that ignoring this fact does
us great harm.

The second branch is Ethical Altruism which basically states that
something is morally good if it done in the interest of others
regardless of the benefit to yourself.  One of the main arguments
against Ethical Egoism is that in certain situations, such as natural
disasters, we can know the interests of others because they are
immediately obvious (such as food, clothing, medical care).  Because
of that we are obligated to help because of the greater good, which is
in everyones best interests.  Another is that if we are
self-interested

As it relates to this question, it can show that the intentions of a
person can vary widely but still be within a consistant moral
framework which on the outset seems like it is totally detached from
reality but is in actuality a cohesive system of values.  In my
opinion we are both individuals and part of society, therefore it is
in our best interest to act selfishly AND altruisticly, which we would
judge on a case by case basis.  This is called Utilitarism.  In this
context, due to the considerations a corporation must keep in mind
regarding its public image and its bottom line, and the overall good
to society and perhaps humanity in general an act of kindness can
bring, I consider a public act of generosity to be ethical, if not in
spirit at the least in deed.

Is all this grandstanding necessary or could it be done more discretely?

Personally, I think it is a two edged sword.  On one hand, it raises a
greater awareness of those who are silently suffering, and could cause
a chain reaction of genorosity.  On the other it teaches people that
nothing is worth doing unless someone knows about it.  Which means
instead of deriving your compassion from a strong belief, it is only a
device to stoke your ego.  In Western Cizilization we are virtually
drowning in negativity.  Our media continually plays on our deepest
fears to get better ratings.  I think any break from that can be a
good thing.  I definitely do not think that this play for attention is
necessary.  Privately, I think the best acts of kindness are probably
the ones no one has heard about.  Still, detachment is so rampant
these days that we need any positivity we can get, even that which is
seemingly superficial.  In the end the person getting helped is
probably going to be very happy to finally catch a break, and that to
me is what is important.

Here are some good resources on Ethics:

Moral Theory
http://ethics.acusd.edu/

Ethics Resource Center
http://www.ethics.org/

Business Ethics
http://www.web-miner.com/busethics.htm

Institute of Global Ehtics
http://www.globalethics.org/

Codes of Ethics
http://ethics.iit.edu/codes/

Hope this helps.

watershed-ga

Search Terms:

://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=ethics

---

Clarification of Answer by watershed-ga on 30 Oct 2005 19:43 PST

There are a couple of typos and an incomplete sentence fragment in
your answer and for that I apologize.  I accidently pasted my rough
draft instead of the finalized answer.  No difference in the content
though.  I would edit it but I am unable to.

Sorry,

watershed-ga

great answer

i fail to see the ethical question. oprah in particular donated
$10,000,000 of her own money to the relief fund. not money from her
production company or her angel network. that ten million came out of
her personal checkbook. i'd say that's about as sincere as you can
get. if in so doing she also generated some headlines that either
motivated others to follow suit or brought attention to her other
charitable activities, so be it. good for her, good for her charity
and good for the people she helps. where is the ethics of sitting in
jaded judgement of someone or some organization that gives of
themselves to aid others? is it preferable for them not to give at
all? should they be prevented from making public pronouncement of the
contributions they have made? are they not, as corporate citizens,
entitled to whatever public goodwill comes their way as a result of
their generosity? assuming that obtaining that goodwill was the
motivating factor behind the gift, does the money spend less well for
the recipients?

personally i am more offended by those who judge what others give than
i am by the announcements of those that do. if wal-mart answers the
call and sends a fleet of trucks with supplies and money to the
distressed, i don't care if they take out billboards to tell everyone,
including their shareholders, what they are doing with their assets.
when sandra bullock gave $1,000,000 of her money to the relief fund,
there were talking heads on tv chastising her for not giving enough. i
find that discussion offensive. much more offensive than someone who
is writing a check, saying out loud that they are so doing.

giving is a very personal action. as a long time board member of an
organization that routinely accepts very large donations from members
and the public, it is my experience that some donors want, need and
demand that the organization make the contribution known. others
choose to give privately and insist on being anonymous. the job of the
organization is to gracefully accept the funds and honor the request
of the donor. it is not the job of the organization to evaluate the
psychological make-up of the donor and determine the purpose of the
gift. so too i think we should be thankful when those that can do and
be less concerned about what secondary benefits they may obtain from
having done so.

when you desperately need something to eat and a place to live, the
difference between altruist and opportunistic capitalist is clearly a
discussion of no consequence to you. maybe it shouldn't be to the rest
of us either.

People often fail to see the possibility of a win-win situation. Sure
celeberties and corporations donate money because it makes them look
good. They also donate money because they get tax breaks. So what is
wrong with both parties benefiting from the exchange. Charities get
their MUCH needed funds and celebs and corporations get their positive
public image. Everybody wins!!!! I am a team captain for the American
Cancer Society's Relay for Life every year. My team raises close to
$3000 for cancer research. The (hard) truth is that I really don't
care much about cancer research, but the president of my university is
on their board of directors. So in this case the American Cancer
Society gets $3000 and I (hopefully) get tenure. Everybody wins.

There is another side to this issue, which many Christians believe is
the best path to follow, and which is directly connected to the
admonition given by Jesus in Matthew 6:1-4, i.e. "Beware of practicing
your piety before men in order to be seen by them; for then you will
have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give
alms, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the
synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly,
I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms,
do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that
your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will
reward you."

This idea was further expanded upon by Lloyd C. Douglas in his first
novel, "The Magnificent Obsession," which posits the idea that not
only does not making a public spectacle of one's charity please God,
it also results in personal power for the giver.  See a synopsis here:
http://www.answers.com/topic/magnificent-obsession  You might even
read the Bible and the book. I have, and I tend to believe secrecy, or
at least modesty in charity is the best policy.