Is it Immoral to Help the Rich?

[An example of how philosophical counseling can assist someone who is making a career decision.]

On a philosophical discussion forum a member posted a question asking for career advice. He is a financial adviser and an advancement opportunity appeared whereby he would be advising relatively-affluent people on how to minimize their investment and debt costs as well as tax burdens. Basically, he'd be getting paid to help rich people save money. However, he expressed a sense of guilt about the opportunity, a hesitation, and asked whether people thought he would be "doing a good thing for society" by taking the job.

I began by commending him for listening to his conscience and asking questions about the moral quality of his choices and actions. The desire to have one's actions be beneficial to society is a good one. However, precisely what does or does not benefit society as a whole is not something we can often see very clearly. Obviously, some actions benefit certain individuals, and might harm others, and we wouldn't want to accept a job in which we engaged in, supported or benefited from evil acts, but whether any action is a net positive for society, now or in the future, is really anyone's guess. (It is also an appeal to a particular moral philosophy called Utilitarianism, which attempts to evaluate the moral value of an action by the degree to which it benefits and is approved of by society, but we can discuss that another time.)

So I asked him to rephrase his question to ask whether his choice would or could be positively harmful to anyone? Specifically, who would be harmed in any measurable way by helping people save money? Could he actually identify the person who was harmed, and quantify the harm done? Many people talk about how something is going to be good or bad for society, but in nebulous terms. Certainly, if his advice involved stealing from or defrauding people, or benefiting from some kind of immoral situation (e.g., slave labor), then there is a problem. But helping rich people save money isn't quite the same as helping a murderer sharpen his knives. Affluent people tend to spend their money; their purchases pay for people's jobs, and therefore their food, housing, clothing, education, healthcare, as well as that of their children, etc. A person who makes $200,000 in a year often spends some or all of it. Same for the person who makes $20,000. But the former person's spending did ten times as much to "benefit society" in an economic sense. Consequently, helping people save more of their money so they can spend it on things they enjoy seems to me to be a morally-good act, at least in that respect.

With respect to avoiding taxes, the (controversial) reality is that, in most cases, taxation is little more than theft via fraud and extortion. We are generally born into a system where it is the norm (not entirely unlike someone born into an abusive family), and so attempt to rationalize it in various ways. But to believe that there is anything honorable or moral about paying taxes is probably delusional. Some might argue that taxes go to help people in need, but the primary, direct beneficiaries of taxation are government workers -- only a very small fraction of any money collected via taxation actually finds its way into the hands of "people in need." Indeed, government entities generally refuse to even report such figures.

There are much more effective ways of helping people in need -- of helping society -- than paying taxes, if that was really one's motivation. In addition, like almost anyone who experiences a seemingly-unstoppable and widespread wrong, rather than fight or resist it we frequently decry those who seem to escape it. That is, we don't throw off our own yokes, but we attack those who do. Hence, we are typically more angry about the person who doesn't pay his taxes -- the one who didn't "pay his fair share" -- than we are about the system of taxation and all of the evil it is and facilitates in the first place.

In any event, I suggested to him that I at least could see nothing immoral in helping people minimize their experience of theft by fraud and extortion (no matter what euphemism we give it), as long as doing so did not expose them to some greater evil.

Image not to scale. :)

But there is something more subtle at play in this young man's thinking (which he has yet to work out). He is troubled and is asking these questions either because there is some conflict within his own beliefs and values, or because they are in conflict with the circumstance (or his understanding thereof) that he is considering. First, his concerns imply a belief that affluence -- especially keeping control of one's money or possessions -- is intrinsically immoral. He is not far from the truth here, in the sense that an attachment to material goods is at least personally harmful, and can also end up being harmful to others. The person who has succumbed to materialism finds disordered pleasure in the acquisition and control of goods. This is problematic in itself, and often leads to other vices (vices tend to come in bunches). Such a person desires to possess, but becomes possessed by and because of his own desires. The man seemed to feel that by assisting affluent people, he would be perpetuating materialism. But as a matter of pure reasoning, though it might be true to say that all materialists attempt to avoid unnecessary expenses, it is wrong to say that all who attempt to avoid unnecessary expenses are materialists. Consequently, the act of helping people avoid unnecessary expenses does not necessarily promote harmful materialism.

His concerns further implied a kind of unspoken belief that affluent people should be paying more for things -- they should be paying more for mortgages, and paying more in taxes -- and that he might be doing something immoral by helping them avoid such costs. This is somewhat obscured by his question about whether it would be "good for society" for him to help affluent people. This is not far removed from the communist/socialist maxim popularized by Karl Marx, "From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs." This implies a whole gaggle of beliefs regarding the relationship of the person to others in society, the role of property, etc., all of which would take considerable time to untangle. Suffice it to say that there are some things that would not be good for society, but helping people -- even affluent people -- save money does not strike me as being among these.

In the end, I advised him to reflect more deeply upon his own beliefs and values, and why he felt guilty about the possibility of personally benefiting (in the sense of being employed) by helping people save their own money. It is likely that he will discover, if he digs far enough, that the tension is between his own desire for affluence, and a feeling that there is something dirty in its pursuit -- a conflict rooted in some guilt about his own opportunities and desires. Perhaps he feels unworthy, or is afraid he will fail and so is looking for a way out. It is also possible (though less likely) that he is subconsciously sensing something about the position, company or overall circumstance that may be difficult, harmful or dangerous to him or his relationships, but isn't present to his conscious mind.

I suggested to him that he work this through -- clarify his beliefs and values -- before accepting the position, lest he end up in a place where he is personally compromised or acting in conflict with his own convictions.

Gregorian Chant, Stinkin' Thinkin', and Self Defense

Last weekent I attended a Gregorian Chant workshop led by Dr. Lynne Bissonnette-Pitre of Cantus Angelorum, and hosted by the Brigittine Monks in Amity, Oregon. It was quite good.

Gregorian Chant is the official, traditional music of the Catholic Church and of the Catholic Liturgy (ironically, you'd be hard pressed to find any Catholic parish in which it is actually practiced, but that is a sad story for another time). Dr. Bissonnette-Pitre and the other members of her group provided a series of presentations, exercises and experiences to help the attendees better understand, appreciate and participate in chanted prayer. The specific context was the Catholic Mass, in and for which this method of sung prayer was developed (though it can be employed in other prayers, too).

Here is a short example from the youtubes:

Gregorian Chant refers both to a method of sung prayer (generally in Latin), as well as any of the 4000-or-so specific prayers that demonstrate the same. The practice appears to have started in the early Christian Church (and was derived from a similar practice in Judaism), where it grew for several centuries through oral tradition. "Oral tradition" means that it was passed on from person to person verbally, without being written down. Eventually, a method of transcribing the words and melodies developed, leading to things like:

But my purpose here is not to talk about or explain Gregorian Chant as much as it is to pass on an interesting principle expressed by Dr. Bissonnette-Pitre during her last presentation. Historically, chanted prayer was frequently recommended to those who were struggling with temptation, frustrations, sins, etc. The belief is that a person becomes more peaceful, virtuous and avoids vice to the degree that he is able to engage in positive practices like Gregorian Chant. Part of this had to do with the words of the chant, which are generally from the Bible and promote being virtuous, trusting God, etc. But it also had to do with the nature of the chanting, itself.

According to Dr. Bissonnette-Pitre (who is also a psychologist), various studies indicate that exposure to -- and especially participation in -- chant tends to reduce stress levels, slow and deepen breathing, slow the heart rate, reduce blood pressure, even lower the body temperature. It appears to have an overall-calming effect on most people, whereas some other kinds of music appear to have an agitating effect.

This seems to correspond to and complement other studies. Indeed, it appears that simply practicing periods of deep breathing has helped people with high blood pressure, anxiety difficulties, etc. Chant naturally incorporates this, and complements it with other meditative qualities. Together, it is foreseeable that these could have a generally-positive effect for many people, especially when dealing with a stressful event.

For example, suppose someone cuts me off in traffic, nearly causing an accident. At the time, I am very likely to have some kind of emotional response to the event (hopefully a proportional one), and it is possible that I'll still be a little rattled later, depending on the severity. Having no emotional response whatsoever, as well as having one that is excessive both indicate imbalances. Further, there are a couple obvious mistakes I could make in coping with this, or with any similar event. One might be to actively suppress it, pretend like it never happened, when it did, in fact, bother me. In such cases unresolved tensions might express themselves in other ways, such as how I treat others, or the development of vices, as we have discussed elsewhere. 

Another error would be to habitually replay it in my mind, "practicing" it and the surrounding emotions. That is only going to upset me further, and is singularly unhealthy. We often recognize the problem with this, that we are doing something harmful, but in responding just make another error. We say, "stop thinking about X, stop thinking about X, stop thinking about X, I've got to stop thinking about X.... Why can't I stop thinking about X? Will someone please help me to stop thinking about X!" Of course, all we are doing is continuing to think about X, but now with an added layer of guilt, frustration and sense of helplessness that we can't get ourselves to stop thinking about X.

The issue isn't simply that we need to stop thinking about X, but that we need to replace it with something good, positive, healthy. This is what Gregorian Chant does for many people. It provides a calming, positive, meditative outlet that simultaneously makes it difficult-to-impossible to continue focusing on the negative... at least for the duration of the chant. We are simultaneously turning away from the agitation and toward something that is positive in and of itself.

This all might seem rather abstract, so consider a physical analogy. I teach self defense and, especially with beginners, we teach them that, when confronted by an attacker, their best action is almost always to run, and if they can't immediately run, fight to escape. The primary reason is one of survival -- it is generally easier to escape from someone rather than engage and defeat him. It is only if we can't escape, or if we must remain for some other reason (such as to protect someone else), that we engage a dangerous opponent, and even then we do so at much greater risk to ourselves. This is similar to the interior life. There are times to face and engage our demons, and sometimes we have no choice, but frequently the best way to survive the encounter is to  render them irrelevant -- not by ignoring them or pretending they don't exist, and not by attempting to engage them directly, but by turning away from and replacing them with something positive.

This principle of both rejecting the bad and turning toward the good is present in many religions, in virtue-ethics moral philosophy, as well as Logic Based Therapy, which always suggests a positive, counter-acting virtuous habit to try to help the person move away from error and vice.

What are some positive things that you do to help cope with stress and frustrations?