Christians can be altruist and maybe Egoist at the same time because they want to help other people who are not as fortunate as they are. The altruists want to help as much as they can, so Christian Aid tries to get as much money as they can to help the poor people around the world, they will benefit from this rather than Christian Aid. You could argue some of them are Egoists, so that it will make them feel better helping the other people, or getting into heaven for doing all the good charity works or maybe you could argue it is so that poverty will stop and that it will make them feel better knowing that the world is a better place. Though I doubt many are egoists in Christian Aid.
This is what Christian Aid are trying to do and it reflects the Christian values, speaking out with courage and carrying on God’s work, doing what they believe is right. Making poverty would be a miracle.
Q1B. Identify the ethical theory that best explains Christian Aids charitable work and mission. Explain why the theory or theories you have chosen relates to this group?
The ethical theory that best explains Christian Aids charitable work and mission is altruist, utilitarianism, situation ethics and maybe Natural Law. This is because these theories our which help problems of others rather than solving problems of their own. They all have the same aim, help and try to solve that problem and then move onto the next one or start a new project while carrying on the other ones.
All these ethical theories relate to the person’s aim or what they should do. Altruism states that they have the obligation to help others. It is trying to say what you believe and many people in Christian Aid believe that this is the right thing to do. Utilitarianism states “greatest good for the greatest number”. All of the people who are not sure what do but believe in that the world is meant to be equal or that poverty should be history fit into this group. Many people are poor around the world and Christian Aid are trying to help solve the issue with various schemes and projects. They do what will make most people happy. Situation Ethics states “do the most loving thing”. A lot of people love doing what they do in Christian Aid, knowing that all the help they give will be worth it and that many people’s lives will be better. Natural Law states “follow your purpose”. Not everyone believes their purpose is to help other people, make poverty history or make the world a better place. However there are people that do want to help people who are not as fortunate as us.
This all relates to what Christian Aid does and its aims. Doing what is best and trying their best to help, however bad the problem.
I believe that the best theory that explains Christian Aid’s work is Situation Ethics because all the people that work in Christian Aid love what they are doing and are proud of it. Just like how Simon Cowell did the Haiti charity single, many people joined in and they were happy to do so and really wanted to help out. There are also many celebrities who are auctioning things for charity. It’s for the best and they work hard to help the poor and needy. The worst would be Egoist because they are people who are selfish and think about themselves. Christian Aid is the complete opposite as they help other people and push themselves and work hard for others, while egoists would think about themselves.
Should we deal with our problems in the UK first and then the others later?
I think mostly no because there are problems in the UK that are bad and to be solved but there are also many bad things around the world that we take for granted in the UK. We could do a bit of both each time rather than being egoistic.
We shouldn’t be fully egoistic as there are many problems that are very bad around the world that need help while the things in the UK could wait, as they are not that serious as world hunger or poor people living in dumps. It would be unnecessary to solve everything in our country rather than helping others. I feel that we should do a bit of both and help others while helping ourselves, rather than just helping our needs.
If you want to solve all the problems in the UK then you look from an Egoist point of you, you will know that they want to solve all the problems in the UK before they even think about helping the others. So if one problem will take 10 years then so be it, it shall. Once that last problem is solved then maybe, just maybe they might think about helping the other countries out. As they want all the problems in the UK to be solved, because if they work on another country’s problems, the government and others are going to forget the ones in the UK and so that problem will drag on and on. Psychological/ethical egoism is the same for this because they need the problems solved to feel better and want to do what is best for them. The meanings may be a bit different but the final goal is the same.
However, if you don’t mind the problems in UK, then you can take an exact opposite point of view, an altruist; they would help the other countries and then their own problems. This shows they are nice and helpful people, who put aside their own problems and think about other people’s problems. By helping others you will get something good from it and the country you have will be in good terms with the UK.
As a utilitarian you could do both and help yourself while helping others, which would be good for many people. However you cannot argue that helping the poor people in other countries will provide the most help for the most amount of people. This is different to the egoistic approach where if you help your own country and have all the charity going to us then it would solve a lot of problems in our country. Yet if we did this we wouldn’t have good relations to other countries and we wouldn’t get anything back if we helped ourselves. There are greater problems outside the UK than inside the UK.
I think the teleological view is the right one here as we should base things on the consequences. However if we viewed it then it might rule out some of the views in utilitarianism.
Situation ethics is similar to utilitarianism but situation ethics is to do the most loving thing and so it is not for pleasure but for love. This is followed by Jesus’ quote “Love others as I have loved you”. We should help others as they have helped us rather than being selfish. We would get rewards by other countries for helping them. It’s what Christian Aid love doing, helping others.
However I believe the utilitarianism is the best view as we get our problems solved and problems in other countries to. It would make a lot of people happy. It is what would make people happy and this is the one. Many people would be happy if poverty was history, world hunger gone and many other things that go around the world. Helping others will help us to at some point. We will benefit more on helping the poor and needy rather than ourselves.
