How should I be charitable?

Option 1: Make the donation without asking questions.

One view is that the charitable person should give a donation to anyone who asks for one and appears to need it, because it fulfills the duty of benevolence—the duty to help needy human beings. If a donor has done all he or she can, then the donor need not be concerned how the donation is used—whether for good or bad purposes. This is so because the responsibility for spending the donation wisely belongs to the recipient and not the donor.

This view places the adherence to duty above a concern for consequences. It has the virtue of enabling one to avoid agonizing over other people's responsibilities. It also promises consistency in the actions of the moral agent. But one effect of this view may be that the recipient of a donation may not change harmful behavior and may not make any improvement in the quality of his or her life.

Option 2: Make the donation and ask questions about its use.

Another view is that the donor has a right to ask how the donation will be used and even to try to verify the recipient's stated intention for the use of the gift. The reason for this is ensuring, as much as possible, that the donation will go for good rather than bad purposes—for food, say, rather than illegal drugs.

This view manifests some concern for the well-being of people. But it entails difficult practical problems: Often, for anyone to verify, beyond a reasonable doubt, the use of a gift, a donor must become deeply involved in the recipient's life. The donor may well be unable to spare the time it would take to do so, and the recipient may not tolerate the intrusion. But this view involves a greater concern for the effectiveness of gift-giving. It aims to ensure that the donation accomplishes exactly what the donor intends it to accomplish.