Beggars Can’t Be Choosers? Philosophy and Choice

One day when I lived in Philadelphia a homeless person asked me for money. Normally I would offer to buy him food rather than give him money because I knew there was a problem with drug and alcohol abuse amongst the homeless and I was afraid I might be enabling an epidemic. On this particular day, however, I was running late for something very important. I couldn’t stop to buy something—but I did have a $20 bill in my pocket. I thought quickly: this money could really help someone trying to get back on his feet, or it could really do a lot of damage to someone struggling with addiction. Should I give it to him and hope for the best? Should I withhold it and risk letting someone go hungry? What choice should I make? What would you choose?

One choice would be to give it no thought and just do whatever I felt like doing. However, imagine someone who lived in such an impulsive way: acting purely on desire and without any thought. Such a person (a ‘wanton,’ to use Harry Frankfurt’s term) would be little better than a wild animal: giving or keeping, helping or harming, hugging or strangling with whatever whim happens upon her. Such a capricious life has never been attractive to me, so this wasn’t really a choice. I needed a thoughtful decision.

The problem is that there are so many considerations that choices like this can be confusing. Here are three examples:

1. Is it best to give people the means to make their own choice or is it best to give them an environment that is most conducive to success?
2. Is it better to have a society where people help each other or one where people are independent?
3. Why should I help someone in the first place?

These questions are, respectively, questions of human nature, political philosophy, and ethics. In other words, these are philosophical questions, and they have a direct impact on our lives.

On that Philly sidewalk, I didn’t have the time to sift through all these criteria; I had only a few moments to act. Philosophy is something best done when we have time to sit and consider, not on the fly. So, one reason we have to do philosophy (and read philosophy blog posts) is that it will help us to make the difficult decisions that arise in life.