Pogge views the well-being of the worst-off members of global society as the proper starting point for a practical theory of justice, but his view might just as well be considered an argument from social beneficence. Pogge has been particularly concerned with the sweep of global poverty and its impact on health and welfare—an interest almost identical to Singer's.
The consequences of extreme poverty for health are well-documented, and these consequences inform Pogge's theory of both basic goods and justice. He also assesses the degree to which institutional structures can be expected to fulfill the mandates of the theory.
Pogge's theory demands that persons have access to basic goods of housing, food, and health care. This type of theory focuses on distributions intended to enable persons to reach certain functional levels. The idea is to start with an understanding of health and individual well-being and then to connect that account to capabilities for achieving levels of functioning essential to well-being—through, for example, proper nutrition and access to health care.
Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum are advocates of a capabilities theory. Some writers more closely connected to biomedical ethics have used the background of capabilities theory with a distinct twist toward beneficence. For example, Madison Powers and Ruth Faden, who acknowledge an intellectual debt to Sen and Nussbaum, start with a basic premise: Social justice is concerned with human well-being—not only health, but what they call six distinct and core dimensions of well-being.
The six are health, personal security, reasoning, respect, attachment, and self-determination. The justice of societies and of the global order can be judged by how well they effect these well-being dimensions in their political structures and social practices. The job of justice, they say, is to alleviate the social structures that cause these forms of ill-being, but this theory might just as well be stated as the job of beneficence.
Business ethics is a second area of applied ethics in which questions about beneficence have emerged as central. Hume's immediate successor in sentiment theory, Adam Smith, held an influential view about the role and place of benevolence, as a number of writers in business ethics have noted. Smith argued that the wealth of nations is dependent upon social cooperation—fundamentally, political and economic cooperation—but that this realm is not dependent on the benevolence that characterizes moral relations.
It would be vain for us to expect benevolence in market societies. In commercial transactions, he says, the only successful strategy is to appeal to personal advantage: Never expect benevolence from a butcher, brewer, or baker; expect from them only a regard to their own interest.
Market societies operate not by concerns of humanity, but from self-love. Several problems in business ethics can be seen as attempts to come to grips with Smith's view. Discussions of the role of the corporation in society and the very purpose of a corporation as a social institution are examples. It is not disputed that the purpose of a for-profit corporation is to make a profit for stockholders, but there has been an intense debate about whether maximizing stockholder profits is the sole legitimate purpose of corporations—as Milton Friedman and others have argued—and whether truly beneficent corporate conduct is justifiable.
This question is normative, but there is also the question of moral psychology raised by Smith: Is it reasonable to expect benevolent acts from the business community? Does beneficence have any place in the world of business? Corporate social programs often appear to involve a mixture of limited beneficence and self-interested goals such as developing and sustaining relationships with customers.
An example is found in public utilities' programs to help customers pay for electricity, gas, oil, phone service, and the like. These programs often decrease rather than increase corporate profits. They are, in effect, a form of corporate philanthropy. The programs locate and attempt to remedy the root causes of bill nonpayment, which typically involve financial distress.
The programs also seek to rescue people in the community who are in unfortunate circumstances because of industrial injury, the ill health of a spouse or child, drug dependency, and the like. The company may even pay for consumer advocates, who are social workers trained to deal with customers and their problems.
These programs, by design, make life much better for various members of the community who have suffered misfortune. They therefore have a strong appearance of beneficence. They may not be entirely motivated by benevolence, however, because they may also be designed to achieve a positive public image as well as payment of overdue bills. Some firms have charitable programs that seem to be cases of pure beneficence—that is, not ones admixed with forms of outreach that will help the company.
Money is taken directly out of profits, with no expected return of benefits. It has been questioned, however, whether programs of even this description are instances of pure benevolence. In the precedent U. Smith Manufacturing v. Barlow , a judge determined that a beneficent charitable donation to Princeton University by the A.
Smith Co. However, the judge acknowledged that such beneficence may not be pure beneficence, but rather an act taken in the best interest of the corporation by building its public image and esteem. In effect, the judge suggests that such a gift, while beneficent, may not derive from entirely benevolent motives. If beneficent acts by corporations are nothing more than clever ways to maximize profits, then these actions seem to satisfy Friedman's conception.
Whatever the truth about business's motives , a separate question is whether businesses have any obligations of beneficent action. Stakeholder theory is an example of an approach that answers in the affirmative. In the classical profit-to-stockholder view, stockholders' interests were supreme, but what about the interests of other stakeholders, particularly those whose efforts are necessary for a firm's survival and flourishing?
Who deserves to benefit? A stakeholder is any individual or group which can affect or benefit, or be affected by or benefited by, an organization. Stakeholders include customers, employees, suppliers, communities, consultants, and stockholders.
Stakeholder theory is commonly regarded as a theory of corporate responsibility—the theory that managers of a firm have obligations to a specified group of stakeholders. Many of these obligations are ones of beneficence, especially with regard to employees and stockholders.
Stockholder theory, by contrast, is the theory that managers have obligations—conceived as fiduciary duties—only to stockholder interests. In contemporary business ethics it is now widely held that corporate responsibility requires a stakeholder perspective, but that this perspective is still not broad enough, because there may be additional obligations of beneficence to contribute to various forms of social awareness and public policy even when the affected community is not truly a stakeholder.
But do corporations have obligations of beneficence to some larger community? Many corporations have answered yes to this question. The company asserts an obligation to be good citizens, including offering the support of charities, the encouragement of civic progress, the bettering of public health, and the improvement of education.
Johnson and Johnson and many other companies assert that they have obligations to these ends, but to many writers in business ethics this claim of obligations is either misguided or overstated. They regard such moral demands as ideals or institutional commitments, especially if they reach out to the world community. Paternalism is often found in the practices of business and in government regulation of business.
For example, many businesses require employees to deduct money from their salary for a retirement account; they may also deduct salary money to pay for a life insurance policy. Paternalism is here assumed to be an appropriate liberty-limiting principle. Another commonplace example comes from the construction industry and the chemical industry. If an employee wishes not to wear a particular suit, mask, or other protective device, the company also the government will compel it anyway, often though not always for paternalistic reasons.
An ongoing example of paternalism is the restriction of various pictures, literature, or information—often pornography or violent depictions—on the internet, in bookstores, and in video stores. Customers may wish to purchase or receive information about these products, but paternalism thwarts their preferences.
Arguments are put forward maintaining that those exposed to pornography will harm themselves by such exposure—for example, pornography might reinforce their emotional problems or render them incapable of love and other distinctively human relationships.
The buyer is free to make the purchase or not make it. Paternalistic restrictions on purchasing have the objective that buyers not harm themselves or will not fail to receive benefits that they otherwise might not receive. For example, the control of pharmaceutical products and controlled substances—through government policies and licensed pharmacies—has often been justified by appeal to paternalism.
They found evidence of all four principles in one form or another, with a clear emphasis on the principle of beneficence. Is Alzheimer's disease hereditary? Is there a test that can predict Alzheimer's disease? How is Alzheimer's disease diagnosed?
Diagnosis of dementia Disclosure of the diagnosis Facing the diagnosis Taking care of yourself Developing coping strategies Maintaining a social network Attending self-help groups Accepting help from others Dealing with feelings and emotions Changing roles and how you see yourself On a more positive note Organising family support Dealing with practical issues Financial and administrative matters Driving Safety issues Employment issues Healthy eating Contact and communication Speaking, listening and communication Signs, symbols and texts Personal relationships Talking to children and adolescents Changing behaviour Lack of interest in hobbies Disorientation Managing everyday tasks Keeping an active mind Services Caring for someone with dementia The onset of the disease Diagnosis: should the person with dementia be told?
Dealing with emotions Arranging who will be responsible for care Determining to what extent you can provide care How will Alzheimer's disease affect independent living?
What progress so far? Acknowledgements References Intercultural care and support Introduction Understanding dementia and help seeking Diagnosis, assessment and treatment. Support and care Professional and informal carers Conclusions References Members of the expert working group Terms and concepts Dementia as a disability?
So-called libertarian paternalists or neopaternalists , principally the team of Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, have argued for government and other institutional policies intended to protect or benefit individuals through shaping, steering, or nudging their choices without altogether disallowing or coercing those choices. These policies pursue values that an intended beneficiary allegedly already holds, at least implicitly, but does not realize because of limited capacities, limited resources, or limited self-control.
Since they already embrace these values, their autonomy is not violated despite the paternalism at work. This conception must confront two major problems: The first is conceptual.
It is head-scratching how a libertarian can be a paternalist in the standard senses of these terms. It would be improper to assert that he supports the current platform of the party he has always supported in the past.
Since the late s, principles of beneficence have been a mainstay of the literature of biomedical ethics. Persons engaged in medical practice, research, and public health appreciate that risks of harm presented by interventions must often be weighed against possible benefits for patients, subjects, and the public.
Their professional obligations are deeply informed by their commitments to prevent or reduce harm and to produce a positive balance of goods over inflicted harms.
The principle of beneficence plays a foundational role in the framework of research ethics and federal regulations in the United States and beyond. The Belmont Report has provided the basic moral framework for research ethics in the United States.
This commission was established in by the U. Congress with a charge to discover and publish the basic principles of human research ethics and also to "consider" the boundaries between biomedical research and accepted medical practice. The commission found that beneficence is one of only three basic principles of research ethics. This principle soon became and remains today one of three canonical principles in American research ethics governing research funded by the federal government.
The three basic principles are 1 respect for persons, 2 beneficence, and 3 justice. In this context, the principle of beneficence is understood as an abstract norm that includes derivative rules such as "Do no harm," "Balance benefits against risks," and "Maximize possible benefits and minimize possible harms.
As one major demand of beneficence, the National Commission required that during the course of the ethical review of research protocols there be arrayals of data pertaining to benefits and risks and of alternative ways of obtaining the benefits if any sought in the research.
It also demanded that systematic and nonarbitrary presentations of risks and benefits be made to subjects, as part of the informed consent process, and that assessments of risks and safeguards be considered by ethics committees when they evaluate whether research protocols are justified.
The moral concern is that some subjects, notably children, would be overburdened and possibly disturbed or terrified. However, the commission recognized that risks must be permitted during the course of many forms of research, including pediatric research, in order for investigators to be positioned to distinguish harmful from beneficial outcomes.
Today, the problem might be expressed in terms of the need for investigators to determine the safety or effectiveness of a therapy or diagnostic tool under investigation in a study.
This understanding of beneficence and its role in protecting human subjects is deeply embedded at the core of research ethics in many countries. Beneficence has played a major role in a central conceptual issue about the nature and goals of medicine as a social practice. If the end of clinical medicine is healing, which is a goal of beneficence, then arguably medicine is fundamentally a beneficent undertaking, and beneficence grounds and determines the professional obligations and virtues of the physician.
Authors such as Edmund Pellegrino write as if beneficence is the sole foundational principle of professional medical ethics. In this theory, medical beneficence is oriented exclusively to the end of healing and not to any other form of benefit. The category of medical benefits does not, for Pellegrino, include items such as providing fertility controls unless for the prevention and maintenance of health and bodily integrity , performing purely cosmetic surgery, or actively helping a patient to effect a merciful death by the active hastening of death.
This characterization of the ends of medicine allows Pellegrino to limit severely what counts as a medical benefit for patients: Benefit in medicine is limited to healing and related activities such as caring for and preventing injury or disease.
This thesis is controversial. Even if healing and the like are interpreted broadly, medicine does not seem to many in bioethics to have such precise boundaries.
If these are bona fide medical benefits, how far does the range of benefits extend? If a physician runs a company that manufactures powered wheel chairs for the elderly, does this activity supply a medical benefit? When physicians consult with an insurance company about cost-effective treatments that save their patients money, is this activity a beneficent component of the practice of medicine?
Controversy over the ends of medicine requires decisions about what is to count as the practice of medicine and, derivatively, what counts as medical beneficence. Controversy appears not only in the literature of biomedical ethics, but also in some split decisions of the U. Supreme Court—notably in Gonzales v. Oregon , a case dealing with physician-hastened death. The majority decision in this case asserts that there is no consensus among health care professionals about the precise boundaries of the legitimate practice of medicine , a legal notion similar to the medical-ethics notion of the proper ends of medicine.
The court notes that there is reasonable disagreement in the community of physicians regarding the appropriate process for determining the boundaries of medical practice and that there is also reasonable disagreement about the extent to which the government should be involved in drawing boundaries when physicians themselves disagree.
This court opinion allows that, depending on state law, a physician may legitimately assist in various ways to help bring about the death of a terminally ill patient who has explicitly and competently requested this assistance from the physician. Physician-hastened death by request of the patient — controversially characterized as physician-assisted suicide—is again a prominent example of this problem.
Physicians and nurses have long worried that patients who forgo life-sustaining treatment with the intention of dying are killing themselves and that health professionals are assisting in their suicide. These worries have recently receded in significance in biomedical ethics, because there is now a consensus in law and ethics in the U.
This consensus began to be developed with the case of Karen Ann Quinlan in and eventually was formed around U. Supreme Court decisions, especially the Cruzan Case of The writings of numerous philosophers and lawyers contributed to the formation of this consensus. A clear part of the consensus is that it is a moral violation not to withhold or withdraw a validly refused life-sustaining treatment.
However, this problem has been replaced by another: Is it harmful or beneficial to help a competent patient who has requested help in causing a hastened death? In addition to vexed questions about the purported distinction between killing and letting die, this issue presses the question of what counts as a benefit and what counts as a harm.
Is requested death in the face of miserable suffering a benefit for some patients while a harm caused to other patients? When is it a benefit, and when a harm? Is the answer to this question determined by the method used to bring about death--for example, withdrawal of treatment by contrast to use of lethal medication? A number of controversial issues in biomedical ethics concern how public policy could, and should, change if obligations of social beneficence were given more strength in policy formulation than they have traditionally been afforded.
The foundations of public policy regarding organ procurement provide an instructive example. Established legal and policy precedents in many countries require express consent by a decedent before death or by the family after death. A near absolute right of autonomy to decide about the disposition of organs and tissues has been the prevailing norm. However, this approach impairs the efficient collection of needed tissues and organs, and many people die as a result of the shortage of organs.
The scarcity of organs and tissues and the inefficiency of the system have prompted a spate of proposals for reform of the current system of procurement, with the goal of creating more space for social beneficence.
One policy proposal with a notably strong social-beneficence commitment is the routine retrieval of organs and tissues. In this system of procurement, a community is permitted to, and encouraged to, routinely collect organs and tissues from the deceased, unless the dead person had previously registered his or her objection to the system with the state. The routine retrieval of tissues and organs from the deceased is regarded by many as unjustified on traditional grounds of respect for autonomy.
However, advocates of the policy of routine retrieval argue that members of a community have an obligation to provide other persons with objects of lifesaving value when no cost to themselves is required.
That is, the justification is based on beneficence, not respect for autonomy. The debate is likely to continue for many years about whether beneficence or respect for autonomy should prevail in public policy governing organ retrieval.
Advocates of the current system argue that individual and family rights of consent should retain dominance. Advocates of routine retrieval argue that traditional social priorities involving beneficence in conflict with autonomy have been wrongly structured.
Meanwhile, most contributors to the literature on the subject agree that the present situation of low-level organ-procurement is morally unsatisfactory and in need of some significant measure of reform. Some of the most important issues in the ethics of health and health care today are widely classified as issues of social justice.
However, at the hands of many writers, social justice is notably similar to social beneficence. For example, perhaps the most important moral problem in global ethics is how to structure both the global order and national systems that affect health so that burdens are avoided, benefits are provided, and then both are fairly distributed using a threshold condition of equitable levels of health and access to health care.
Globalization has brought a realization that problems of protecting health and providing beneficial services are international in nature and that their alleviation will require a restructuring of the global system. Rawls argues that a social arrangement forming a political state is a communal effort to advance the good of all in the society. His starting assumptions are layered with beneficent, egalitarian goals of making the unequal situation of the naturally disadvantaged members of society both better and more equal.
His recognition of a positive societal obligation to eliminate or reduce barriers that prevent fair opportunity and that correct or compensate for various disadvantages has implications for discussions of both beneficence and justice in health care. Rawls himself never pursued these health-centered issues, but his theory has influenced many writers on moral problems of health and biomedical ethics, including Norman Daniels, Martha Nussbaum, and the team of Madison Powers and Ruth Faden.
Daniels argues that because health is affected by many social factors, theories of justice should not center entirely on access to health care, but also on the need to reduce health inequalities by improving social conditions that affect the health of societies, such as having clean water, adequate nutrition, and general sanitation.
Powers and Faden view the well-being of the worst-off members of global society as the proper starting point for a practical theory of justice, but their theory can also be expressed as an argument from social beneficence. The sweep of global poverty and its impact on health and welfare is a major topic in the theories of Singer and Powers and Faden.
Their theory also identifies unfair patterns of advantage and unfair relations of power such as subordination, exploitation, and social exclusion that are rooted in unjust social-structural conditions. Among other things, their theory assesses the degree to which institutional structures can be expected to fulfill the mandates of the theory.
This type of theory focuses on distributions intended to enable persons to reach certain functional levels essential for a flourishing life that is protected by social institutions. The idea is to start with an understanding of health and individual well-being and then to connect that account to basic capabilities for achieving levels of functioning essential to well-being—through, for example, proper nutrition and access to health care.
Some core capabilities are bodily health, ability to play, ability to affiliate socially, freedom of movement, and adequate educational level. Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum are advocates of a capabilities theory. Some writers closely connected to bioethics and health policy have moved beyond capabilities theory with a twist toward beneficence and well-being. Powers and Faden provide a theory closely connected to global health policy.
Through the discussion, in the paper so far, I found that beneficence lies within the very essence of humanity. There is a common goodness which lies in every human being.
Beneficence, as a moral principle is derived from this inner humanity of every individual. In other words, human dignity and its very essence are defined by the principle of beneficence. Despite their initial differences, utilitarianism, deontology and virtue ethics recognize this fundamental humanitarian disposition of doing good for others. Mill recognizes this as the natural human benevolent disposition of mind which is like a tender plant that needs proper care and protection through realization to grow further.
The principle of beneficence as I suggest, is different from its consequential utilitarian notion as suggested by Mill since it develops from the basic understanding of humanity. No ethical system can deny this common and deepest part of morality.
This version of beneficence is more credible as it does not impose over-demandingness on an individual for any maximum beneficial outcome following utilitarian calculation of beneficence over cost, and it also overcomes the rigorous duty-based limitation of Kantian deontology.
This version appeals to the fundamental virtue of humanity. Finally, the credibility of this form of beneficence can be supported by the underlying transcendental humanism which is the chief feature of Indian tradition. Nicolai Hartmann identifies the rigorism of Kantian notion of ought evolves from its universal emphasis on the moral worth on the character of moral ought. In Kantian ethics, the meaning of the moral laws comes from its universalistic nature of moral ought.
The rigorism of Kantian theory evolves from its universal claim of moral worth for any action, i. Following this, an action is moral if and only if it is performed in accordance with the law.
Unlike Kant, Hartmann endorses that the moral worth of any actions depends on the valuational qualities they produce. According to Hartmann, a morally good person can distinguish himself as how he morally ought to be from the moral valuations of his actions.
Precisely, Hartmann combines the moral ought with an individual's value or inner character traits. He writes,. Since, this action does not conform the requirement of what it ought to be so in general, this action is definitely not what it ought to be in actual.
Ought to do demands and directs one to aim for the realization of unfulfilled value in the act itself. Suppose a person is intended to be ideally benevolent, and so he devotes himself into charity work, however, as a finite being, he has some materialistic limitation as well as the limitation of time and special distance.
So, the ideal value for which he aims for does not accord with the value of his performing deeds. Accordingly, ought to do not always attaches to the ideal moral values, but it attaches to situational values. So, the person who aims to be ideally benevolent, the moral worth of his beneficent actions does not depend on achieving the moral value, but its moral worth arises from his continuous rational endeavor-in-itself.
Firstly, beneficence as a moral principle or ideal moral ought that is universal and grounded in the very nature of humanity. This ought in general is actual since its intention ought to be based in the humanitarian concern toward others.
Secondly, beneficence as an active principle is situation-specific for its successful application in our daily lives. The principle of beneficence as an active principle can be applied successfully in practice where there is a harmony between the humanitarian intention of doing good and the actual situation.
But I can only perform it in actuality if my intention of doing good is in accordance with my actual situation. Here the actual situation primarily requires my swimming ability. Without this ability, I cannot actualize the principle of beneficence in this situation. However, the ideal moral imperative of beneficence never stops a human being from his continuous striving for doing good to others.
However, following the high demand for ideal beneficence, some situations become more complicated where the individual is capable of swimming but there are more than one or two or ten drowning children and equally in the same emergency. Thus, beneficence as an active principle has its limitation in the situation-specific context where the demand for moral worth following the ideal imperative is too high. Conversely, since the universal moral worth of beneficence requires us to fulfill the unfulfilled ideal moral goal and directs individuals to fulfill the ideal goal, this situation-specific limitation is not applicable to the universal moral principle of beneficence.
The limitation of the actualization of the ideal moral act of beneficence in this situation can be overcome through a continuous endeavor toward achieving the ideal value of beneficence. The quality of a moral act does not depend on achieving the ideal goal, but the moral worth inheres within the genuine continuous endeavor of achieving that ideal value of the action itself.
In the above situation, the person can sincerely endeavor to save as many children as he can without harming himself since it will not be wise to put himself in danger in this already endangered situation and since simultaneously he can inform the locality and police to try to save them all.
The moral principle of beneficence comes as a universal obligation from our core of humanity. The sincere endeavor for this conscientious effort of doing good holds the goodness and genuineness of an individual's intention.
This conscientious effort is intrinsically valuable. The content of the intention of this endeavor should be universal and objective regardless of its situational perspective. Here the moral worth lies within this universal content of continuous striving to achieve the ideal value. This continuous effort to reach the ideal value is unconditional and good-in-itself. I suggest that, despite the limitation and incapability of an individual to act beneficently for all in a particular situation, the continuous effort for the ideal value of beneficence for any situation determines the moral worth of any action.
Morality aims to develop an individual into a morally better person, and this conscientious effort within every individual develops the moral conduct of an individual. My version of beneficence, following Hartmann, relocates the focus of the moral worth from the universality of moral duty-based beneficent actions to moral values of beneficence of the actions and relates it with the agent and combines the moral ought with an individual's value or inner character traits.
In this regard, I would also like to mention the Aristotelian concept of the mean which refers every virtue of character lies between two correlative faults or vices. Consequently, virtue represents neither excess nor deficiency but the right amount.
He develops his doctrine of mean with the concept of arete or virtue per excellence. Virtue is by nature intermediate between two extremes and it is same for all, but intermediate is not in the object but relatively to us or to be chosen by us. Aristotle illustrates this point such as if ten is too extreme and two is too little, then the intermediate is six in terms of the object according to arithmetical proposition. However, if both the athletic trainer and beginner order six pounds food for each, it will be too much for the beginner and too less for trainer.
So, the intermediate is not in the object, but it should be chosen by us which is relative to us. Now, following Aristotle, this version of beneficence confirms the excellence of human being is the disposition of beneficence which derives from the common goodness of every human being and enables a human to perform well for the betterment of humanity in general.
Human excellence consists in something which makes it unique and exclusive to only humans. Aristotle recognizes this uniqueness of human beings consists in reason or practical wisdom which can determine the observance of the mean of virtues relative to us. Practical wisdom, of this theory, is not only the reason but the proper balance of reason and emotion since the moral value of beneficence presupposes the altruistic emotional concern such as sympathy, compassion, love for other-beings.
Moreover, this theory not only recognizes rationality as the uniqueness of human being, but it also recognizes the inner goodness of humanity as the exclusiveness of human beings. Practical wisdom, as I mentioned above, follows from such reasonable and balanced thought process of rationality.
In eudaimonist virtue ethics, the virtue is only justified because of the consequences it brings about.
Here the virtues are the constitutive elements of achieving the ideal state of eudaimonia. Following Aristotle, my theory also focuses on the continuous endeavor toward the betterment. People are aiming for the betterment, however the moral worth of my theory does not depend or determined by the consequences on how much the agent comes closest to perfection through his performance. Moreover, unlike utilitarianism, my version of beneficence does not impose any unfair obligation on an individual to fulfill the maximum beneficial outcome.
The limitation to actualize beneficence in situation-specific context can be overcome by the continuous endeavor of an individual to achieve that ideal universal value of beneficence for any situation. This continuous effort bridges the gap between the ideal moral value of beneficence with its actualization in the real world.
Only those beneficent actions hold the moral worth where the volition of continuous effort underlies the effort to achieve the value of ideal beneficence. Such continuous effort to be ideally beneficent develops the moral conduct of any individual. I have argued that every human being based on their humanity holds a moral responsibility to be beneficent toward other human.
Thus, the universal moral principle of beneficence derives as a primary moral ought from the most fundamental value of humanity. The rational willingness to be morally responsible for others originates from the basic humanitarian concern for other human beings.
Human beings are born with this beneficent disposition. However, this disposition is vulnerable within the world where we have to survive. Human beings become self-centered due to the continuous struggle they have to undergo to survive in this competitive world. During this continuous struggle, humans gradually become self-centered and forget their basic essence of humanity.
The primary duty of ethics is to protect and enhance this basic humanitarian disposition of beneficence. The humanitarian concern for other-beings springs deep inside from the love for humanity in general which develops the moral disposition to be beneficent for all. Thus, this disposition to be beneficent is universally intrinsic to every human being.
However, this objection is attributed with the utilitarian standpoint of beneficence where the moral worth of an action depends solely on its maximum beneficial outcome. However, this objection cannot be raised against my suggested form of beneficence, since here no such moral demand is prescribed to maximize the beneficial outcome. This version of beneficence rather focuses on the inward growth of humanity and protects the natural humanitarian disposition of concern for others.
Human beings are now well-aware of their rational superiority over other species; however, they are not fully aware of their natural humanitarian disposition through which they naturally connect and cooperate with other human beings.
Although whenever we are confronted with some accidental emergency, our inner goodness rises with the benevolent concern in our conscious mind, and it comes as a command to us to do something beneficent. Suppose I maintain punctuality in my office. However, when I see a person fall down from a bus on the way of my office, my inner goodness rises with concern for that person, and I run for help rather maintaining my office punctuality.
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