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Gordon Tullock states that there are three motives for income transfers: 'the desire to receive transfers, charity, and envy' (1997, 6). The motive behind the vast majority of government redistribution, [...]

Though the Benedictine monk and Old English homilist AElfric (ca. 950ca. 1010) was not rich, he was well acquainted with those who were. Indeed, the monastic reform movement of which [...]

THE INSPIRATION FOR THIS PAPER was a presentation by John Mueller at the Austrian Economics Research Conference on March 12, 2015. In his lecture, which was based on his book [...]

In his recent book, Seth Schwartz explores '[t]he tension between egalitarian solidarity and competitive reciprocity' in the late Second Temple period and in rabbinic Judaism. (1) As Schwartz's characterization of [...]

With the liberalization of religious practices after the fall of the Soviet regime in Russia, almsgiving to beggars in Russian Orthodox churches has become one of the most widespread forms of Orthodox charity. However, the priests are faced with an ethical dilemma: should they be charitable with beggars or should they sanction those who do not live according to certain moral standards? This article examines how Orthodox priests interact with different groups of beggars and how they create ethical ways of acting. It proposes that contemporary Russian Orthodox ethics are multi-referential, anchored in historicity, relatedness, interaction, and creative reasoning. [Keywords: Russia, Russian Orthodoxy, Christianity, ethics, begging, almsgiving, value], B egging appeared more openly in all urban settings of European Russia soon after the dismantlement of the Soviet regime. The post-Soviet transformations also encouraged a particularly vivid revival of [...]

In one of his most important and celebrated works, Jurgen Moltmann wrote that 'Mission embraces all activities that serve to liberate man from his slavery in the presence of the [...]

An examination of the charitable giving behavior of 16,442 households reveals intriguing patterns consistent with the club-theoretic approach to religious sect affiliation. The club-theoretic model suggests that individuals with lower socioeconomic standing will rationally be more likely to align themselves with exclusivistic sects. Because sect affiliation is also associated with more obligatory religious contributions, this approach generates novel predictions not anticipated by standard economic models of charitable behavior. Traditional analysis of charitable giving can mask the 'sect effect' phenomenon, as low-income giving is dwarfed by the giving of the wealthy. However, the application of a two-stage econometric model--separating the participation decision from the subsequent decision regarding the level of gifting--provides unique insights. Basic socioeconomic factors have significant and opposite associations with different categories of giving, calling into question the treatment of charitable giving as a homogenous activity and supporting the understanding of sect affiliation, and potentially religious extremism, as rational choice phenomena.

This study builds upon and extends the social-identity-based model of cooperation with the organization (T. R. Tyler, 1999; T. R. Tyler & S. L. Blader, 2000) to examine commitment and cooperative intent among fundraising volunteers. In Study 1, structural equation modeling indicated that pride and respect related to the intent to remain a volunteer with an organization, and that this relation was mediated primarily by normative organizational commitment. In Study 2, structural equation modeling indicated that the perceived importance of volunteer work was related to pride, that perceived organizational support related to the experience of respect, and that pride and respect mediated the relation between perceived importance and support on the one hand and organizational commitment on the other. Overall, the results suggest that volunteer organizations may do well to implement pride and respect in their volunteer policy, for instance to address the reliability problem (J. L. Pearce, 1993). Keywords: volunteer work, volunteer organization, pride, respect, organizational commitment

Empirical model of effect of group size and availability of public goods on propensity of individuals to indulge in charity is presented.

The methodological lessons Gricean charity gleans from psychologists' work in conversational pragmatics are outlined. It is argued that it is not the primary aim of Gricean charity to rationalize subject responses but rather to impose evidential requirements on psychological studies in order to gain a more correct picture of the way in which evidence is weighed, inferences drawn and choices made.

An argument that the account Derrida gives tends towards a structural tension considering the use to which he intends to put the concept that runs up his own explication of it is presented. A misguided analysis of what is really going on in giving and an account offered in 'Given Time', followed by own alternative, and then proceed to a sort of mediation which can be found in 'The Gift of Death' is showed.

Byline: Jan Narveson (1) Keywords: aid; charity; cosmic justice; desert; earnings; effort; markets; redistribution; social justice; virtue Abstract: This article discusses the question of poverty and wealth in light of several theses put forward by Larry Temkin. The claim that there is a sort of cosmic injustice involved when great disparities of ability or of wealth are found. He is concerned especially about disparities that are undeserved. It is agreed that this is unfortunate, but not agreed that they are unjust in a sense that supports the imposition of rectification on anyone else. Nor is poverty typically 'undeserved' in the only really relevant sense: the poor simply do not produce enough to earn them high incomes, and probably correct incomes they derive are indeed what such efforts are worth in the circumstances. That persons with very low incomes may merit our sympathy is accepted, but sympathy leads to charity, rather than to the involuntary exploitation of the better off. The essay concludes with further observations about the relevance of free markets, and points to the iniquities of the restrictions on commerce that are the most potent source of perpetuated poverty today. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1 Article History: Registration Date: 22/03/2004 Received Date: 22/03/2004 Accepted Date: 22/03/2004

The principle of charity says that all agents are rational. The principle of meta-charity says that all agents believe all agents are rational. My thesis is that the arguments which are used to support charity also support meta-charity. Meta-charity implies meta-meta-charity. By recursion, the principle of charity implies that it is common knowledge. But there appears to be intelligent, well-informed disagreement with the principle of charity. So if the entailment thesis holds, opponents of the principle of charity have a new objection to the principle. Defenders of the principle of charity must either refute the entailment thesis or accept much stronger consequences than they expected.

This article examines the stigma associated with needing and receiving assistance after a natural disaster. I conducted a qualitative, longitudinal study of women who survived the 1997 Grand Forks, North Dakota, flood. Based on sixty in-depth interviews and observation, the data show the ways in which the stigma affected these women when they had to accept charity, many of them for the first time in their lives. Factors that played a role include the self-sufficient culture of North Dakota, the caregiving role of giving and self-sacrifice, the experience of downward mobility and loss of middle-class status, the utilization of impression management techniques, and the ways in which the women shifted their former views of poor people and welfare recipients. I conclude with a discussion of how the examination of the stigma of charity illuminates the construction of class, gender, and race in white, middle-class consciousness.

A fiscal analysis of the 'Valor Ecclesiasticus', in an effort to determine how much poor relief was offered by religious institutions and hospitals on the eve of the Dissolution during the 16th century in England, is provided. The author maintains that approximately 7% of monastic income went towards charitable provisions.

The authors synthesize what has been learned from the two-issue series of American Behavioral Scientist on universities' responses to troubled times. They argue that educators and community leaders should channel the vast resources of volunteerism toward social change for a more just society and discuss ways that service-learning endeavors contribute to this process. They contrast the current state of higher education with a vision of a transformed institution they think preferable to the status quo and then focus on the difference between charity and social justice. Through service learning, acts of charity - which typically end up reproducing the status quo - can facilitate the politicization of students and help them to become active promoters of a more just society. Six questions are posed to assess the extent to which community-based education or research endeavors engage in charity or facilitate social justice.

In this essay I reply to Richard Rorty's and Judith Shklar's influential accounts of liberalism, preferring what I call 'strong agapism' to Rorty's ironism and Shklar's emphasis on avoidance of cruelty. Strong agapism treats love as a 'metavalue,' an indispensable source of moral insight and power, yet it admits the genuineness and fragility of goods other than love (for example, health, happiness). The detaching of charity from moral self-sufficiency - as well as from certainty about personal immortality - amounts to a disconsoling doctrine in many respects. I conclude, however, that accent on agape betokens a profound philosophical and theological optimism. This optimism stems from the conviction that putting charity first is its own reward, a joyful affirmation of life (and its Creator) that is the basis of all other virtues.

Phronesis Transformed: From Aristotle to Heidegger to Ricoeur, THOMAS P. HOHLER The article begins with Aristotle's discussion of phronesis for ethical life, only to discover the absence of a universal [...]

The differences of conditional and unconditional charity, with regards to efficiency of transfers, are analyzed. Donors who provide conditional charity may not receive enough infformation to correct mistakes, as opposed to donors who had wrongly given unconditional charity. The cost of transfers, on the part of the recipients, is also investigated.

The article explores the play 'Last Judgment' performed by York's Corpus Christi theatre as a ritual to promote charity and social unity in the community. The author compares discourses on charity and poverty by pageant text and the guild documents.

The relationship between women's charitable work and the public sphere that focuses on the Hamilton Ladies Benevolent Society, which operated in the nineteenth century Ontario, is investigated. The annual reports of the investigation reveal that the charitable women used particular tactics and techniques of display to make claims upon the public sphere.

In a personal narrative, the author discusses her relationship with her father, her father's life and his identification with Jewish culture. Throughout, she draws parallels between her father and the philosopher Benedict Spinoza, placing emphasis on the concept of charity in Spinoza's philosophical works.

The giving of alms to Shvetambar Jai renouncers is a specific institutionalized elaboration of the idea of a free gift, an idea which all the major world religions have their [...]

Byline: Thomas A. Kelley Early one morning many years ago I found myself sitting on my duffel bag in front of the Greyhound bus station in Casper, Wyo., waiting for [...]

An analysis of the growing role of social enterprise and social entrepreneurship in society, the government's plans for the sector and the role higher education has to play. It is argued that there is a dire need for the generation of intellectual capital in the growing social enterprise sector, that it has been under-researched on both the theoretical and applied sides and that academics have much to contribute.

Here's a good one. When is a bucket not a bucket, and when might you not have to pay VAT on its lid? Finance is rarely anyone's favourite module on [...]