Beneficence

Beneficence.—Not every act of helping others is virtuous, nor is all virtuous assistance called beneficence. (a) Thus, to assist others in evil is maleficence, nor is it virtuous to help them with an evil purpose. Examples: To give money to criminals to help them defeat the law is participation in crime. To give presents to others in order to receive a return of favor from them is cupidity (Luke, xiv. 12). (b) To assist others or to give to them out of compassion for misery, is mercy; to do so out of a sense of obligation, is justice; to do so out of love of God, is beneficence.

Beneficence is a duty, and like charity should be universal: “While we have time, let us work good to all men” (Gal., vi. 10); “Do good to them that hate you” (Matt., v. 44). But this does not mean that no discrimination is to be used in beneficence, or that impossibilities are required.

(a) Not every kind of activity in which others are engaged is deserving of assistance, not every kind of suffering of others may be removed. Examples: Criminals or enemies of the State are not to be assisted in their wrongdoing, but one may attempt to bring them to better conduct; one who has been justly sentenced to prison may not be aided to escape, but he may be visited and consoled and given religious assistance.

(b) Not all can be helped individually; even the richest and most generous person can benefit only a small percentage of those who are deserving. Charity requires, however, that one be so disposed that one would help all individually, if it were possible, and that one does help all generally, by praying for both Catholics and non-Catholics.

Since it is impossible to help all individually, beneficence should be regulated by the order of charity (see 1174 sqq.), and particular good should be done to those with whom on account of conditions of time or place one is more closely associated. Hence, the following general rules are given:

(a) In benefits that pertain to a particular kind of relationship; one should give the preference, other things being equal, to those with whom one has that relationship. Examples: To make a banquet for another is a benefit pertaining to friendship, and hence should be shown to one who is a friend, rather than to one who is a business associate, but not an intimate. To support another person is a benefit pertaining to kinship, and hence should be shown to a parent, rather than to a stranger.

(b) In benefits given to those with whom one has the same kind of relationship, one should give the preference, other things being equal, to those nearer in relationship. Example: In dispensing alms, one should help one’s own family rather than distant relatives.

If other things are not equal, the foregoing rules must sometimes be reversed.

(a) When the common good is involved, preference should be given those who represent it, even though others are nearer to one as regards private good. Hence, a citizen should help the fortunes of his adopted country rather than those of his mother country; in a civil war one should aid rather one’s comrades than one’s kinsmen who are on the opposite side.

(b) When a supreme good of a private person is at stake, one should prefer to help him, even if a stranger, rather than another who is a friend, or relative, but who is not in the same distress. Example: One should give one’s loaf to a man dying of starvation rather than to one’s own father, who is hungry but not starving.

(c) When the means with which a benefit is bestowable belong to another, one must prefer to give back what belongs to the other, even if this person is a stranger, rather than use it for the good of a friend or relative. Thus, if a person has stolen money or has borrowed money from a stranger, he must return it to the owner, rather than make a present of it to his own wife. An exception would be the case in which the wife was in dire necessity, whereas the owner was not; but the duty of restitution would remain for the future.

No general rule can be laid down for all cases in which one party is nearer to self and the other party more in need, and many such cases have to be decided according to prudent judgment in view of all the circumstances. It should be noted that, though wife and children are nearer to one than parents, the latter have a greater claim on charity when they are in equally extreme necessity, on account of the supreme benefit of life received from them. But ordinarily one is bound rather to provide for one’s children (II Cor., xii. 14).