We need the state to protect us from the exploiters. Without state protection we would be eating grass and living in caves. Low wages increase the welfare bill and we all end up paying for that.
For those of us too dumb, uneducated and/or unwilling to protect ourselves, you are correct. For the rest of us, the government is not helping, it is rather getting in the way.
You seem to be of the beleif that those people on the low end of the pay scale cannot, for whatever reason, look out for their own best interests. I beleive that they can, and if given the chance(as well as the expectation), they will.
Entry-level positions(those most likely to be at or near minimum-wage), should not be the career goal of any person. They are great for gaining experience and therefore being able to advance into better paying jobs/positions. To argue that these jobs should pay enough for a person to build a life and career around them is assinine at best.
You and I just discussed the degree to which our society is poorly informed. Do you think that lower income folks, particularly those below or near poverty, are any better informed than are the ignorant folks who aren't struggling day by day? The dichotomy between your remarks there and here astounds me. How can we have a society of poorly informed folks and not have that affliction apply to low income or impoverished folks too? Wouldn't they be just as susceptible, perhaps more so, as society's typical middle class ignoramus?
Of course, there are reasons why some, perhaps many, poor folks cannot reliably and consistently make sound or high quality decisions. To your point immediately above, however, outright stupidity isn't necessarily one of those reasons.
Of course they are not, but that is not my fault, nor is it my problem. It is the responsibility of each of us to me well informed. If someone chooses to watch TV instead of picking up a book or otherwise increasing their understanding of the world, let them reap the rewards of their laziness.
What then is the causal factor(s) that explains why both a non low income person and a low income person, both of whom "choose to watch TV instead of picking up a book or otherwise increasing their understanding of the world," one of them should and does reap some degree of reward and the other shouldn't and does not? The only thing that makes any sense to explain that other than just dumb (literally) luck.
You and I both know there are plenty of folks above the poverty level who clearly do nothing like picking up a book and so on. Just look at in any thread on USMB and you'll surely find multiple folks making claims and/or intimations that are entirely unsupported by (1) the facts or (2) anything resembling rational analysis of the facts. They may have "picked up a book," but they are too stupid or ignorant to know that it's the wrong one if it's the only one they are going to bother reading.
Choices. That is the difference. I chose not to attend a 4-year college, I have to live with that choice. I also chose to not accept the notion that I would be doomed to low-income because of that choice. Others do not make the same choices, that is their right. I, however, have the right to beleive that they have to live with those choices.
We all make choices, some good, some bad, to argue that it is my "moral" or "social" responsibility to "help" those who made poor choices, is tanamount to endorsing communism, IMHO.
Red:
The term
beneficence connotes acts of mercy, kindness, and charity. It is suggestive of altruism, love, humanity, and promoting the good of others. In ordinary language, the notion is broad, but it is understood even more broadly in ethical theory to include effectively all forms of action intended to benefit or promote the good of other persons. The language of a
principle or
rule of beneficence refers to a normative statement of a moral obligation to act for the others' benefit, helping them to further their important and legitimate interests, often by preventing or removing possible harms. Many dimensions of applied ethics appear to incorporate such appeals to obligatory beneficence, even if only implicitly. For example, when apparel manufacturers are criticized for not having good labor practices in factories, the ultimate goal of the criticisms is usually to obtain better working conditions, wages, and benefits for workers.
Whereas
beneficence refers to an action done to benefit others,
benevolence refers to the morally valuable character trait—or virtue—of being disposed to act to benefit others. Many acts of beneficence have been understood in moral theory as obligatory, as determined by
principles of beneficence that state moral obligation. However, beneficent acts also may be performed from nonobligatory, optional moral ideals, which are standards that belong to a morality of meritorious aspiration in which individuals or institutions adopt goals and practices that are not obligatory for everyone.
Exceptional beneficence is commonly categorized as
supererogatory, a term meaning paying or performing beyond what is obligatory or doing more than is required. This category of extraordinary conduct usually refers to high moral ideals of action, but it has links to virtues and to Aristotelian ideals of moral excellence. Such ideals of action and moral excellence of character need not rise to the level of the moral saint or moral hero. Even moral excellence comes by degrees. Not all supererogatory acts of beneficence or benevolent dispositions are exceptionally arduous, costly, or risky. Examples of less demanding forms include anonymous gift-giving, uncompensated public service, forgiving another person's costly error, and complying with requests to provide a benefit that exceeds the obligatory requirements of ordinary morality or professional morality.
Saintly and heroic beneficence (and benevolence) are at the extreme end of a continuum of beneficent conduct and commitment. This continuum is not merely a continuum mapping the territory
beyond duty. It is a continuum of beneficence itself, starting with obligatory beneficence. The continuum runs from strict obligation (grounded in the core norms of beneficence in ordinary morality) through weaker obligations (the outer periphery of ordinary expectations of persons, such as great conscientiousness in attending to a friend's welfare) and on to the domain of the morally nonrequired and exceptionally virtuous. The nonrequired starts with lower‑level acts of supererogation such as helping a stranger who is lost find a desired location in a city. An absence of this sort of beneficence constitutes a defect in the moral life, even if not a failure of obligation. The continuum ends with high-level acts of supererogation such as heroic acts of self-sacrifice to benefit others. Beneficence is best understood as spread across this continuum. However, there is considerable controversy about where obligation ends and supererogation begins on the continuum.
A celebrated example of beneficence that rests somewhere on this continuum, though it is hard to locate just where, is the New Testament parable of the Good Samaritan. In this parable, robbers have beaten and left half-dead a man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho. A Samaritan tends to his wounds and cares for him at an inn. The Samaritan's actions are beneficent and the motives benevolent. However, they do not seem—on the information given—to rise to the level of heroic or saintly conduct. The morally exceptional, beneficent person may be laudable and emulable, yet neither a moral saint nor a moral hero.
Deep disagreements have emerged in moral theory regarding how much is demanded by obligations of beneficence. Some ethical theories insist not only that there are obligations of beneficence, but that these obligations sometimes demand severe sacrifice and extreme generosity in the moral life. Some formulations of utilitarianism, for example, appear to derive obligations to give our job to a person who needs it more than we do, to give away most of our income, to devote much of our time to civic enterprises, etc. It is likely that no society has ever operated on such a demanding principle, but it does seem embraced, at least abstractly, by a number of moral philosophers—arguably even on Kant's theory of the categorical imperative (although, as already mentioned, Kant seems to deny such scope to obligatory beneficence).
By contrast, some moral philosophers have claimed that we have no general obligations of beneficence. We have only duties deriving from specific roles and assignments of duty that are not a part of ordinary morality. These philosophers hold that beneficent action is virtuous and a commendable moral ideal, but not an obligation, and thus that persons are not morally deficient if they fail to act beneficently. An instructive example is found in the moral theory of Bernard Gert, who maintains that there are no moral rules of beneficence, only moral ideals. The only obligations in the moral life, apart from duties encountered in professional roles and other specific stations of duty, are captured by moral rules that prohibit causing harm or evil. In Gert's theory, the general goal of morality is to minimize the causation of evil or harm, not to promote good. Rational persons can act impartially at all times in regard to all persons with the aim of not causing evil, he argues, but rational persons cannot impartially promote the good for all persons at all times.
Those who defend such a beneficence-negating conclusion (regarding obligation) do not hold the extreme view that there are no obligations of beneficence in contexts of role-assigned duties, such as those in professional ethics and in specific communities. They acknowledge that professional and other roles carry obligations (or duties, as Gert insists) that do not bind persons who do not occupy the relevant roles; they claim that the actions one is obligated to perform within the roles are merely moral ideals for any person not in the specific role. That is, these philosophers present beneficence not as a general obligation, but as a role-specific duty and as institutionally or culturally assigned.
In rejecting principles of obligatory beneficence, Gert draws the line at obligations of nonmaleficence. That is, he embraces rules that
prohibit causing harm to other persons, even though he rejects all principles or rules that require
helping other persons, which includes acting to prevent harm to them. Thus, he accepts moral rules such as “Don't kill,” “Don't cause pain or suffering to others,” “Don't incapacitate others,” “Don't deprive others of the goods of life,” and the like. His theory therefore makes nonmaleficence central to the nature and theory of moral obligation while denying that beneficence has any place in the theory of obligation.
However, the mainstream of moral philosophy has been to make both not-harming and helping to be obligations, while preserving the distinction between the two. This literature can be confusing, because some writers treat obligations of nonmaleficence as a species of obligations of beneficence, although the two notions are very different. Rules of beneficence are typically more demanding than rules of nonmaleficence, and rules of nonmaleficence are negative prohibitions of action that must be followed impartially and that provide moral reasons for legal prohibitions of certain forms of conduct. By contrast, rules of beneficence state positive requirements of action, need not always be followed impartially, and rarely, if ever, provide moral reasons that support legal punishment when agents fail to abide by the rules.
The contrast between nonmaleficence and beneficence notwithstanding, ordinary morality suggests that there are
some rules of beneficence that we are obligated to follow impartially, such as those requiring that we make efforts to rescue strangers under conditions of minimal risk. Even some legal punishments for failure to rescue strangers may be justifiable. Significant controversies have arisen in both law and moral philosophy about how to formulate and defend such requirements, but one more or less classic idea has been to argue that a person P has an obligation of beneficence to help another whenever the other is at risk of significant loss of or damage to some basic interest; P's action is necessary (singly or collaboratively) to prevent this loss or damage; P's action (singly or collaboratively) is likely to prevent the loss or damage; and P's action does not present significant risks, costs, or burdens to P while the benefits that the other person can be expected to gain outweigh any burden that P is likely to incur.
