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Cato Policy Report, January/February 1998

Cato Books:

The Virtue of Generosity

"The welfare state blocks moral excellence"

Generos.gif (24812 bytes)Many contemporary political theorists argue that classical liberals are necessarily opposed to generosity because they oppose the welfare state--which, in the eyes of those theorists, is the source of generosity (and many other virtues) in modern society. In the new Cato book Generosity: Virtue in the Civil Society, Tibor R. Machan, author of Human Rights and Human Liberties, Individuals and Their Rights, and other books, argues just the opposite. He maintains that the welfare state makes true generosity difficult to practice and that virtue flourishes most in a free society based on individual rights.

David Schmidtz of the University of Arizona praises Generosity, saying, "Too many critics simply postulate that individualism is 'atomistic.' Machan responds with a sensitive and circumspect but appropriately optimistic analysis of the virtue of generosity and why it thrives in free societies. This is the best book available on the topic." And Nathaniel Branden, author of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, calls the book "an invaluable contribution to the literature of freedom."

Machan maintains that "individuals have rights to life, liberty, and property--which is to say that in society no one may murder, kidnap, assault, steal from, or extort from another person." Those rights are fundamentally negative--they outline a person's potential sphere of action and, if respected, allow an individual to do whatever he wishes so long as he doesn't violate the equal rights of others.

Negative rights require individuals to let others alone; they do not require a person to act on another's behalf or obligate one to be generous to others. However, if one has positive rights to things--for example, generosity--then others are obligated to provide them. Machan maintains that in a society that recognizes positive rights and makes generosity obligatory, generosity can no longer be considered a virtue. To be virtuous, an act must be freely chosen. If you are compelled to act in a supposedly "generous" way, how can your act be deemed virtuous? After all, if given the choice, you might have decided not to be generous. The welfare state, Machan contends, "fosters resentment, bureaucratic inefficiency, and frustration--but most of all, it blocks the only way moral excellence can flourish, by way of free choice."

"Generosity, as are other moral virtues, is due from us because we have a commitment to ourselves to live fully human lives," concludes Machan. "But it is not due from us because others have a right to it. Those who insist that this is the justification of moral generosity unjustifiably politicize all of human life. They propose to make all of human life a matter of regimentation from above, with little room left for life's greatest task, the achievement of the moral life of a responsible human being through our own free choice."

This article originally appeared in the January/February 1998 edition of Cato Policy Report.