Why Help?

Abstract

The previous chapter argued that Americans share a broad consensus about good things—things that are valued, or what we shall call values, and that define for us what makes a society civil. Even with this broad consensus about core values and a shared belief that all have the right to those values, clearly, Americans do not share equally in the distribution of them. These are often scarce values and in the distribution of scarce values some people get more, some less. There may be many reasons why some people get less—perhaps there are personal failures of moral rectitude, perhaps there are governmental and institutional failures to provide, protect, or preserve these values, or perhaps it is simply the result of the vagaries of chance, nature, or God (Lasswell, 1958; Davis and Moore, 1945). Whatever the cause, there is a broad consensus that people in need should be helped. Agreeing to this general principle does not mean that we actually are sympathetic to every individual in need, nor does the principle tell us how we move to action or what methods we should use.