'The Ethicist' By Randy Cohen

Ethics are moral principles. It is unethical to offer incentives for charity acts, big or small, because it teaches society to only help others when it benefits themselves. Providing an incentive implies that people are only giving to charity for the reward rather than out of “the goodness of their hearts.” In “The ethicist”, Randy Cohen’s column in The New York Times magazine, Cohen writes “is the exchange of donations for grades ok?” Giving rewards to students who donate is unethical because it gives them a reason to donate that strays from the morals: generosity and selflessness. Students who wouldn’t give to charity before the incentive suddenly become interested as soon as they find out they can benefit from donating. Incentives, such as getting extra bonus points on test, inspire the “what’s in it for me?” attitude. Another way that the bonus point …show more content…
In middle school, each classroom had a box that students were asked to fill with canned food. By the end of the allotted time period, the class who brought in the most cans of food to donate to the hungry won pizza or ice-cream. In this case, the goal changes from feeding the hungry to winning food. The ethical morals are replaced by selfishness and greed. Incentives shouldn’t be given to students, or even adults because it takes away their will to do good. When there is no reward, giving to charity is more ethical. For example, on the news a few years ago, there was a story about a young girl who didn’t want birthday presents on her birthday that year. Instead, she wanted people to bring shoes so she could donate to them to kids in Africa who didn’t have any. This girl sacrificed getting birthday gifts and she didn’t receive any award; the complete opposite of donating to charity just to get something out of it. Donating to charity can be ethical when the donator is not being tempted by