I retracted a suggestion for someone to donate after I learned that their income is lower than my consumption
Suppose Bill Gates spends £1m on personal consumption a year and donated $100m. Is it wrong for him to suggest others to donate to charity too?
As a rough heuristic, it is not reasonable to ask others to commit to a higher ethical standard than myself.
I agree with this entirely. But sacrifice is not virtue! There’s nothing virtuous about limiting your own standard of living; virtue consists in living well and helping others. It is the donating 20% that measures (in part) my ethical standard, so I wouldn’t ask others to donate more than 20% - but I’d be happy to suggest they do the same.
It is the donating 20% that measures (in part) my ethical standard
You seem to be somewhat contradicting yourself. You’re criticizing others for equating sacrifice with virtue, but then measuring virtue as the percentage that you sacrifice! What matters is how much you help people. If you donate $3,500 to buy bed-nets, you’ve (in expectation) saved a life. It doesn’t matter whether that was 10% of your income or 1% or 0.1%. The important thing isn’t the percentage donated, it is the total amount donated. By asking someone earning less than you to donate 20% (or whatever it is you donate), you are asking them to do less good than you do. To be asking the same of them as you do of yourself, you would have to ask they donate a higher percentage, or increase their income.
This is far from obvious to me. I retracted a suggestion for someone to donate after I learned that their income is lower than my consumption...
As a rough heuristic, it is not reasonable to ask others to commit to a higher ethical standard than myself.
Suppose Bill Gates spends £1m on personal consumption a year and donated $100m. Is it wrong for him to suggest others to donate to charity too?
I agree with this entirely. But sacrifice is not virtue! There’s nothing virtuous about limiting your own standard of living; virtue consists in living well and helping others. It is the donating 20% that measures (in part) my ethical standard, so I wouldn’t ask others to donate more than 20% - but I’d be happy to suggest they do the same.
You seem to be somewhat contradicting yourself. You’re criticizing others for equating sacrifice with virtue, but then measuring virtue as the percentage that you sacrifice! What matters is how much you help people. If you donate $3,500 to buy bed-nets, you’ve (in expectation) saved a life. It doesn’t matter whether that was 10% of your income or 1% or 0.1%. The important thing isn’t the percentage donated, it is the total amount donated. By asking someone earning less than you to donate 20% (or whatever it is you donate), you are asking them to do less good than you do. To be asking the same of them as you do of yourself, you would have to ask they donate a higher percentage, or increase their income.