I agree he shouldnât have his past donations held against him, and that his past generosity should be praised.
At the same time, heâs not simply âstopping giving.â His prior plan was that his estate would go to BMGF. Letâs assume that that was reflected in his estate planning documents. He would have had to make an affirmative change to effect this new plan. So with this specific action he is not âstopping giving,â he is actively altering his plan to be much worse.
I donât buy this is a morally or socially significant distinction. Do we really believe that a parallel world Warren, who made a public pledge to give his money away, and fully intended to, but never got around to actually writing a will before he changed his mind, would be significantly less blameworthy, or would escape opprobrium?
Part of my intuition is that the temporal ordering doesnât matterâif anything itâs better to give soonerâso we should not treat more harshly someone who donated and then stopped than someone who consumed frivolously and then saw the light later in life.
I agree he shouldnât have his past donations held against him, and that his past generosity should be praised.
At the same time, heâs not simply âstopping giving.â His prior plan was that his estate would go to BMGF. Letâs assume that that was reflected in his estate planning documents. He would have had to make an affirmative change to effect this new plan. So with this specific action he is not âstopping giving,â he is actively altering his plan to be much worse.
I donât buy this is a morally or socially significant distinction. Do we really believe that a parallel world Warren, who made a public pledge to give his money away, and fully intended to, but never got around to actually writing a will before he changed his mind, would be significantly less blameworthy, or would escape opprobrium?
Part of my intuition is that the temporal ordering doesnât matterâif anything itâs better to give soonerâso we should not treat more harshly someone who donated and then stopped than someone who consumed frivolously and then saw the light later in life.