The Online Library of Liberty

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• Literature of Liberty a Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought
• Editorial Staff
• Associate Editors
• Editorial
• Bibliographical Essay: William Marina, Revolution and Social Change: the American Revolution As a People's War
• I: Autonomy
• Paternalism
• Autonomy Vs. Cooperation
• Selfish Benevolence
• Self-esteem and Helpfulness
• Self-responsibility
• Democracy and Self-esteem
• Obedience Vs. Self-ownership
• Self-determination
• Freedom and Learning
• Intolerance Vs. Self-actualization
• II: Civil Liberties
• Liberty In America
• State Schooling and Freedom
• The Right to Bear Arms
• An Armed Militia
• The Right to Die
• Pornography
• Ideology and Justice
• III: Political Economy
• Adam Smith's Achievements
• Smithian Scholarship
• Smith As Political Economist
• Protectionism Vs. Free Trade
• Protectionism and Politics
• Say's Law of Markets
• Political Decentralization
• Information Costs
• Free Market Banking
• Income and Motivations
• IV: Values
• Social Determinism and Objective Values
• Relativism
• Health and Objective Values
• Ought Vs. Is
• Values In Research
• Rights Vs. Right Judgment
• Prima Facie Values
• Fetal Rights
• The Greatest Good Or Number?
• Politics and Objective Values
• Ontological Values
• V: Justice
• Justice, Lockean Rights, and Liberty
• Justice and Adam Smith
• Rawls's Social Contract
• Rawls's Methodology
• Justice and Social Welfare
• Compensatory Justice
• Nozick's Legal Code
• Legal Justice and Coercion
• Justice, Punishment, and Deterrence
• Justice and Self-actualization
• VI: Property
• Liberty, Property, and Social Welfare
• Prima Facie Rights
• Lockean Property and Social Welfare
• Nozick, Taxes, and Property
• Locke Vs. Women's Property
• Indian Property Rights
• Kant On Property
• Just Price and Balancing Rights

Selfish Benevolence

Lester H. Hunt

• Carnegie-Mellon University

“Generosity.” American Philosophical Quarterly 12 (1975): 235–244.

The generous person, though frequently confused with the just, charitable, dutiful, or altruistic and selfless person, may really be the fully autonomous and superabundantly selfish man. The moral confusion over generosity arises from misidentifying its gift-giving with sacrifice and the ethics of duty.

Generosity involves an act of giving because of the value of the act itself rather than because of some other good it brings as a consequence (such as purchasing goods, repaying debts, fulfilling one's duties or station, or expiating guilt). One giving generously intends to do the recipient a real good, but not as a duty in the manner of paternal obligation rescuing a prodigal son. The generous person's intention is gratuitous; he has no “because” in giving beyond the benevolent gift. To answer “Why give someone anything?” the generous person doesn't invoke obligation but rather a “Luciferian freedom,” that freedom needing no reason for what we do.

As a free gift, generosity is distinct from justice, charity, and altruism. The virtue of justice does not monopolize concern for the welfare of others. Generosity also tends to others' welfare, but the generous agent is motivated by self-centeredness rather than pity or fairness to others.

The Good Samaritan, as the image of the charitable man who saves the unfortunate wayfarer, bestows a different sort of benefit than does the generous man. Charity involves rescuing someone from something bad; generous action intends to do someone a more positive good. Generosity, a characteristically Greek ethical notion, is a self-centered liberality in gift-giving which does not notice the beneficiary's need; Christian charity, in contrast, focuses on the other, on his soul with its private needs and pain. This other-centeredness is morally insignificant to the Greek ethics of happiness (eudaimonia), with its concern for self-actualization.

The generous man is not an altruist in his gift. Because he does not reckon his own interests or the interests of others in his gift-giving, the generous man cannot be said to subordinate his interests to another in altruistic or sacrificial fashion. Unlike the altruist, the generous man disdains to attend to moral rules or requirements.

As Aristotle, Descartes, Emerson, and especially Nietzsche portray him, the generous person not only practices liberal acts, but lives a life of liberality and demonstrates a noble superabundant autonomy and self-sufficiency. Disdaining niggardliness or the need for safety and affection, the generous man perceives himself as “one who has overmuch of the good” and “a squanderer with a thousand hands” (Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra). Generosity is beyond all need, either the benefactor's or the beneficiary's.

In respect to the virtue of generosity, those persons who are morally best are those for whom being good is natural and easy. Generosity does not require that being a good person entails struggle with the self or its spontaneous overflowing of goodness. The generous person is not at the effect of his or another's need but is at the cause of his self-chosen benevolence.