I raised an issue of courtesy that overlay a moral dilemma in an earlier blog and got some helpful responses. Let me comment that courtesy has only one goal which is to make all social transactions move smoothly. That is not a constraint of moral action.
However, I don't detect real problems in the interaction of courtesy and morality being confronted in the popular columns of Miss Manners, Ann Landers or their offspring or Dr. Laura.
I was visiting some of my grandchildren......
I was visiting some of my grandchildren (3 girls ages 6-8.) On a snowy morning a homeless woman approached the car. I opened the window and she said she needed $3 for gas for her car. I said no thanks and closed the window. The grandkids listened and watched carefully.
Before we confront the question of what my behavior should be in front
of impressionable girls, let me point out that I didn't confront the
problem when my own children were growing up. I had built a park for
the street people of that era and I knew many of them. So I
occasionally gave them a $1 which my children saw me do. I never gave
or loaned money to people in the park because I had work to do and
being known as a light touch made me or any worker useless in the park.
Moreover, in 1981, when the park had been running for two years, San Francisco didn't have a global reputation as a city with a bad homeless problem. A reputation that hurts tourism.
Moving on to yesterday (in a Mormon city) one of my granddaughters asked how the woman who approached us could be homeless if she has a car (this grand daughter compares everyone else's wealth to her own.)
To me the courtesy is obvious (I have to be polite in saying no) but the moral problem is serious. What kind of example am I setting for my grand-daughters by rejecting a homeless woman?
I've asked around and the consensus seems to be for me to do the same thing I do without children around. That makes sense. They will always figure out my real behavior anyway. Another consensus point is that woman and girls should never give money to beggars because the homeless present a greater problem to women with their instability. They should not be encouraged to approach women.
I know that is a totally ineffectual piece of advice because any count
on the street will show you that two out of three people giving beggars
money are woman.
So what is the answer?
I personally told the girls my views on homeless. That they are usually not homeless, they are not short of food or money....they are modern hobos who prefer to live on the street and don't want the onerous responsbilities of conventional middle-class life. They don't need my money, other than what they collect from my charitable donations and taxes.
I also point out that "homeless" is a term first introduced from New York in 1981 and the number of homeless has been constant ever since then and probably will be for my grand daughter's entire lives.