About begging.

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Hello! I am currently in Calcutta, India. It is a city with about 15 million people in it, and one of the poorest in the world. I am confronted with a lot of beggars here. I wonder about 2 things. First from the point of view of the beggar. Is it ok to beg from a moral point of view? Is it ok to bother other people for money , sometimes in a very persistant way, without even knowing who you are talking to? And from my point of view, is it ok to give money? Do you help these people to survive or do you just help maintaining this humiliating activity by encouraging to do so.

I know that in my own city in the decadence of thew western world the beggers are drug addicts 9 out of 10 and will take the money you would give them directly to their dealer to get another shot. Obviously you can argue that it is immoral to ask somebody for money to eat while you actually plan to buy drugs from it. Obviously you can argue that supporting this is a very bad idea. They probably are in this situation because of those drugs, drugs that made them unable to function in society.

Here in India however it is different. Most of the beggars here are not drug addicts at all and would love to work and earn their place in society if they would have the means to do so. They are cought in a downwards spiral , usually started by some bad luck that got them in such a bad position. This is not uncommon here because the margins are so small that one or two days without an income mean hunger. Then again, there are also some bonafide organisations that organize begging here. Some beggers are professionals that get a monthly income from those organisations in return for their daily harvest. All in all a pretty complex situation.

Another point is… should you give a begger money? When some guy just want a sandwich to make it trough the day it seems allright, but when you help maintaining the dubious practice of proffesional begging it seems not.

This is all theory offcourse. Things become different when you have just eaten is some fancy retaurant and some mutilated guy dressed in nothing but rags , living and sleeping on the sidewalk just in front of that restaurant, unable due to his physical condition doing anything else than that, no social welfare whatsoever etc etc… asks you for … 5 dollarCENTS.

Untill now I did not give anything to anyone, exept for 1 or 2 occations I cannot really explain. Also there is something that beggars do to you. So part of me wants to kick them. Nothing can be more repulsive than a mutilated limb touching you in order to make you feel sorry for him, even to make you feel guilty about your privilaged situation compared to him or her. On the other hand it cost so little effort to fill in his demands. I only have to works seconds literally, to make up for it, while my contribution could set him up for the rest of the day.

Could you guys help me deal with this? Do you think there is something philosophical in general to say about this practices to fall back on when all these thoughts go trough your mind when faced with such a situation?

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Hello SNADERT

This is a very interesting question. I have had the same problem many years ago, and I did find a solution to it that was quite simple and logical.
I would estimate, if I relate my own experience, that the occasions where you have given something involved people in whom you saw something to which you could positively relate. Perhaps you recognized the way a person looked out of his eyes. If this is not the case, I think this assumption of mine is still a possible answer to your question. Instead of looking at the situation as if there is a great mass of deprived humans you now need to deal with, you could judge each beggar individually. There is no need to make this judgement a serious scrutiny of his virtues and vices, but if you like the person at first glance, if you find something agreeable in his expression, it’s justified to give him something, even without giving it great philosophical and moral considerations. On the other hand, if the beggar simply annoys you, and there is nothing in his face to suggest to you that it is a pleasant person, let the person find a person who does relate to him to give him something.

The bottom line of this problem is that it is not your problem. Any effort you make to solve a persons problem should not come from guilt about tha fact that you are not part of the problem this person is part of, because this is only a good thing. If, from a personal motivation to help this specific person, you perform an act of charity, you bring goodness from your own world to his world. This is the opposite of letting badness be drawn from his world into your world. I advise you to cherish and honour the goodness of your own world. I think seeeing the beggars as individuals is the greatest charity you can practice - not in the least to yourself.

kind regards,
abhi-pratapta

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I like your point of view. This is a pretty hard thing to do however. First of all, the physical appearance of most beggars seem alike. This is because my own shortcomings. I have never been to India before in my life so everything is new and its hard to make distictions between everything and everybody. This will probably get better after a while in this country.

Secondly, the pure scale of poverty and misery is also overwhelming. It really helped me however to read Dominique Lapierre’s novel The City Of Joy. The book really stresses the fact that no matter how poor and miserable, there is always beauty and happiness to be found in humans.

So, I think that I will be able, after some more time to adapt to everyday life here, to see a real person like myself behind “the beggar” and if I like what I see I will toss him some coins to get a bite to eat.

That said, there will always be a voice in my head I think that is saying : What you are doing is never going to give you what you want out of life…You want to sit there , holding your hand up, untill you die? Am I , by giving you this money, encouraging you to continue this?

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I suggest keeping your money… all you will accomplish is making yourself feel better about having “helped” some unfortunate individual… instead make damn sure that when the time comes you vote for the right people or even activly seek to further a political agenda that would aid the poor on a more global scale… or at least a larger scale… if every person who ever gave out money to a begger had put the time it took to earn that money into seeking a more charitable government… well… i’m sure you can imagine the results…

Giving a little money to a begger once in a while seems a wasted effort… it’s like you live in a village and there’s a guy with a knife on the loose stabbing people… and all you do is hand out bandages… a far better and more productive thing to do would be to stop the guy with the knife… THEN you can worry about the bandages…

another solution would be to shoot beggers on sight… lol… but that’s hardly a moral action… :stuck_out_tongue:

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Begging is a derivative of the society… the point is not in accepting or denying the act of begging but i think we should be bothered about its existence - “How on earth did this happen” ??

Is begging free willed or just forced upon??? Basically it can be attributed to the imbalance in the framework of human living which is/was created by the society. No begger prefers begging but is begging.

Subjectively, how does one feel when one sees an act of begging… superior ??? sad??? angry ???.. We created this and we now derive different psychological states… and still we dont realize the futility…

I personally would strive to indulge initially in not percieving begging as external to my being but as one with me.

This realization is imminent… the world will be a lot different then after…

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I think abhi-pratapta’s view is the most realistic one. This is about you, right? Not about the beggars, or the nature of the world. Neither of these is in your control. All you can do is decide how you are to deal with this reality, that is thankfully temporal for you.
I would certainly not adivse you to consider the beggars as part of you.
Just give something on occasion when you feel like it, if that happens. This is hardly an effort for which the time and energy could be spent in saving the world. I imagine sometimes it will take more effort not to give them something.
What you could try is at one occasion giving someone a substantial amount, say a couple of dollars or whatever kind of money they have there, instead of a few cents - and actually say what you want to say to him when he is still surprised at what he got. In that way it might be possible toi get throgh to him.

reminds me of a saying I can’t find back but wich goes something like this:
‘he is a fool who, because he could do only a little, chose to do nothing’

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Tell them not to be so materialistic.

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I belive abhi-pratapta’s view is the most common… and also the most easy view… it does not require any of us to acknowledge our own part in the society that created the begger before us… but simply see him as an individual who had a run of “bad luck” that we might help if we so wish…

I find it simplistic… but as all simplistic things are… it is also seductive…

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I don’t think it’s the easiest view, because you have to look at all these people, and that is difficult, as the situation they’re in is very unattractive.
This is in reality much more difficult than throwing all of them on a conceptual heap and wreck your brain about that heap for some time and then concluding it’s fucked up but there’s nothing you can do about it, because anything you would do would worsen their dependence.
That is not only an easy generaliation, but not a philosopically tenable position, since you have no knowledge of how these people ended up exactly where they present themselvees to you. If you really want to help them there is no other way than to look at them individually, and scrutinize their history. Giving coins is not enough, of course, you’d have to converse with them, see if they have skills, and try to figue out a way you can help them make themselves useful. But I think most of us would not be willing to go that far.

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Did I somehow suggest that the alternative was to turn a blind eye? Take what view you wish… but unless you outright blind yourself you can’t help but notice them when they walk up to you and beg for money… So i’m not sure I see the relevance of the above comment… all views on this subject require you to notice their misery…

Oh I agree… but that’s hardly my conclusion… there’s plenty you can do… you just don’t want to do it… it’s that much easier to just hand over a few coins and call it a day… or (and i love this one) blame them for not having “worked hard enough” or being lazy and conclude they desurve what they get…

Amuzing that you should have writen this but not thought of the next step… I agree with you so far… now… imagine actual government employed people doing this for a living… and there you have your “bigger picture”… so next time you vote… keep that in mind… It is unrealistic, like you said, that a person who has to worry about putting food on his/her own table would go so far out of his/her way to help a compleat stranger… but if it were your job… well… then that would be a different story… and instead of paying 10 bucks a month ro some charity… you would agree to add 1% extra tax… along with everyone else… and help the situation that much more… but if your unwilling to do this… then i don’t see why not just ignore the individual bum before you as well… and walk on…

The difficulty in this is actually attempting to see more than whats right in front of you… and that is a far more difficult thing to do than simply noticing how bad off the begger is and hand over some coin…

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That’s not what I’m talking about, of course. I mean seeing them, not their misery.

Easier than what?

Ah, this is your hands on approach. So tell me, if I like in a prosperous western country like Holland or the USA, and want to improve the instuation of beggars in India, for whom should I vote? Can you describe the process as you envision it from the vote to the situation improving for the beggars? Please use your own country for the example. I hope to learn something from you about how it’s done.

Interesing view. Personally, I think the difficulty for most people is not daring to see what is right in front of them. They think of beggars as ‘someone who is bad off’. In my view, there is more to a person than his financial situation. I realize this must sound rather primitive from your grand political perspective, but we are each entirled to our own point of view, right?
I’m looking forward to your explanations though.

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alright Jakob

let me answer some of your questions…

vote for whomever is willing to do something about the poor beggers in your own country first… and if you want to help india with their problems… best of luck to you… that’s a LONG way off from where you could start…

Let me explain to you how i see it… I don’t consider the act of giving money to a begger petty or useless… at least not entirely… but i do consider it hypocritical unless you wish to help generally… certainly you are entitled to help the individual in front of you on a whim… but it is “shallow”… if you were to stop and think about it… you would realize that you dont perticularly enjoy seeing such pathetic individuals that throw themselves at your mercy when they beg for charity… It could be that you don’t like the idea of having it be your problem and find it hard to ignore… or it could be that you feel sorry for them but simply don’t know how you could help… either way… you can pay the money and be rid of them… or ignore them and walk on… that is unless you stop up and think about it…

Beggers are a result of poverty… poverty is a result of uneven distribution of property/resorces… I’m not gonna start waving around a red book and encurage communism or anything… god forbid we all be equal… but there is something to be said about a welfare society… which means we let the imbalance continue yet CAP it… the richer you are the more taxes you pay… that way the distence between the very rich and the common folk won’t be that wide… ideally this won’t effect a nation… but that’s assuming rich people give a damn… and that’s the problem… nations such as the US offer lower taxes and thus the rich will uproot to the US and become richer… and the nation suffers…

Sorry for the political rundown… but basically that’s the problem we’re facing… now it may seem HORRIBLY improbable that any one person could do anything at all about this… but all you really need to do is give a damn and make sure you know what’s going on in the world… once you know… you’ll vote better… and raise your kids better… hell you might even convince some of your friends to vote better…

but that’s all asuming you actually give a damn… otherwise… like i said… walk on by…

you’re right… sounds a tad “primative” :stuck_out_tongue:

Nah… just kidding mate… I’m sure there are even people out there who view beggers like they would a stray cat or something… can’t say… but once you realize they’re people… and realize that there’s allot of them… then we can develope a view on “beggers”… prior to that… there’s no use talking about it…

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I come across about one or two beggars a year. If I’m not completely hard up at the time I’ll give them a few dollars.

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Instead of confessing my long history with beggars, or commenting on professional beggars, I just wanted to add the following: –

"Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste,
it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple
and take alms of those who work with joy.

"For if you bake bread with indifference,
you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man’s hunger.

"And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes,
your grudge distils a poison in the wine.

"And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing,
you muffle man’s ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night. "

-Kahil Gibran, The Prophet

15

This is my policy with beggars for what it’s worth.

Hold onto your money. You might be needing it tomorrow. Though not as hard up as the beggars, if you loose your passport and wallet, you might be wishing you had those few dollars back? Nevermind what’s coming ten years down the road.

But, sometimes we are moved to give money to some beggar, not because of any reason or system, just feel the compulsion to do so.

Sometimes we give to beggars based on a sort of system. This could be a percent of your income as in some religions, or welfare-states. Or, at certain tourist/pilgrimage sites, it is traditional to give some money to the cripples or to child-guides who will follow you throughout the afternoon.

Related to the above are psudo-beggars, guides and drivers and companions who you might over-pay or solicite service from though it is not really necessary.

Excepting whim and cheritable/tax obligations, I do not give to beggars. Of course, even charitable schemes such as tithes or alms or welfare-taxes are still an arbitrary line-in-the-sand; there is no answer to this question besides what you decide on.

16

If you like the look of a person, help them… but if you don’t like how they look, you don’t need to care or worry?

Spoken in true Eastern fashion. Their suffering is their fault, it is all part of the Circle of Karma. They suffer now because of a former life.

You’re in Calcutta SNADERT? Probably a lot of untouchables there aye? That must be pretty rough. As far as Hindus are concerned… they deserve their caste or lot in life.

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It’s tough to give out money in Calcutta SNADERT. I don’t know if this has happened to you yet, but when you whip your wallet out and give a little to one person, you can get mobbed! This happened to me a few times in Sri Lanka. I quickly stopped pulling out cash. Giving food is a great idea if you can.

Questions regarding beggars and suffering are tough questions. It is the question of responsibilty for fellow men.

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I live in boise, idaho, and I am an avid skateboarder. I go to this skatepark under an overpass nearly every day and that is also a place where a lot of homeless congregate. There is not a lot of homeless in boise, but it all pretty much happens in front of my face, and I have been observing their behavior in boise to get a better idea on their plight.

About half of them are regulars, that I see every day. What they do is stand right by the stop sign at the off ramp (there are a few off ramps)

They usually hold up a cardboard sign that says something like, “veteran needs help” etc and most of them have crosses drawn on them and fishes. After they get the dough the sign is usually thrown away.

On weekends there is always more “homeless” at the offramps, and I have seen times in high traffic where sometimes almost 1 out of 5 cars gives them something. That was during the holidays.

I have also seen at times where about 5 of them will hang out behind the offramp where cars can’t see them, take 15 minute turns to stand out and then divide the money later.

Some of these same homeless people I have later seen on the benches around the skatepark drinking tall boys after tall boys. Some, but not all.

My friend decided to test it out, he of course is younger than most of these folks, but still has kind of a ragedy look. He held up a sign at the same off ramp holding up a sign that said, “need $ for bus ticket home to cali, stuck in boise” and drew a fish and cross on the sign even though he is an athiest. He got almost $30 in less than an hour.

I am almost tempted to get some old clothes and take this up full time. I make about $10/hour in my job, and if I was making $30/hour standing on the side of the street watching skateboarders all day, I might not want to get a job either.

I don’t know what the answer is to this, I guess tackling the system is the most productive. But I give when I feel to give as well.

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As you might can tell, I disagree with this thinking to a large degree.

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I have seen shows like 60 minutes or Current Affair that have showed healthy people that live in the suburbs getting wheel chairs, heading downtown, and pretending to be disable veterans. These people do pretty well too. That is fun that your friend did that. I would love to try it sometime. I think it would be an eye opening experience.