The Good Samaritan: Give Directly to Refugees
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The Good Samaritan: Give Directly to Refugees


by Scott MacInnes

This article is adapted from one that was first published on the ‘Tasmanian Times’ website on 18.04.2018 and is reproduced here by permission of the author, whose other articles on effective altruism, animal welfare and other subjects can be found here: http://oldtt.pixelkey.biz/index.php/category-article/155

An audio version of the original piece can be found on his YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpXxJuuEfBvyLmCiRbYtGlw

Alain de Botton argues in his book ‘Religion for Atheists’ that religions still have some very important things to teach us, even if we no longer believe their supernatural claims. One such valuable lesson is that of the Good Samaritan, which has enduring relevance, not least of all to our response to the plight of today’s refugees. 

The Parable of the Good Samaritan describes a conversation about what it means to live fully and how we should treat others. It is a story that nearly everyone knew by heart when I was a child, though hardly anyone does these days. So I repeat it as it was originally told, but with some alternative translations in brackets for the non-religious reader.

Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus.

“Teacher,” he said, “what must I do to inherit eternal life [to live fully]?”

He said to him, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” 

He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God [the Highest Good] with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.” 

And he said to him, “You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.”

But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead.

“Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite [an instructor in religious law], when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

“But a Samaritan [a half-caste, despised by the religious establishment] while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity [compassion]. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii [pieces of silver], gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?”

He said, “The one who showed him mercy [compassion].”

Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”

I have always thought this to be one of the great works of literature, ethics and morality—as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. Writers can only aspire to create a story within a story as beautifully realized as this. Philosophers have not been able to improve on its compelling ethical and moral logic.

As a child, I was captivated by the story, particularly when read aloud with feeling. Something about the vividness of the scene and rightness of its message resonated and lodged.

As a teacher, I marvel at the sophistication of the teaching techniques involved, appealing to both the imagination and to reason. Jesus turns the question back onto the lawyer, forcing him to reflect on what he has already been taught and to accept responsibility for his own learning. Rather than preach, he tells him a story. Jesus does not promise him “eternal” life, just “do this and you will live.” The final stroke of genius is to reframe the question: not whether the man in the ditch was their neighbour but which of them was a neighbour to him?

As a lawyer, I am chastened by the confrontation between cleverness and goodness.

As a human being wanting to know how I should live, I am humbled by the example of the Good Samaritan and challenged to ponder whether I am rather more like the priest and the Levite than I care to admit.

The story also makes me reflect on what it is that I love with all my heart, soul, strength and mind – what is ‘God’ for me, in the sense that Paul Tillich defines God as ‘that which is ultimate reality for you; what you take seriously without any reservation.’ And this forces me to reflect further on whether I should be redirecting my attention in life to what is more worthy of such love.

Because of my background and temperament, I also find myself wondering about the relationship between ‘the law’ and ‘love’, between morality and compassion. The story operates at both levels: the Samaritan represents compassion in action; the parable represents moral reasoning in action.

Elsewhere in the New Testament, Jesus unambiguously proclaims his understanding of the Golden Rule, which is the basis of the Abrahamic law: ‘Do unto others as you would have others do unto you’. This positive exhortation to ‘do good’ to others is a significant extension to the more generally accepted negative injunction: ‘Do not do unto others what you would not have them do unto you.’ This primary obligation to ‘do no harm’ remains the basis of our law today. But it is an insufficient basis for our morality.

The Golden Rule, in one form or another, is universally recognised because it is integral to the moral fabric of our being. In his book, Singer points out both The Good Samaritan parable and the Golden Rule in his rhetorical discussion of why we should help our fellow humans in need. As a very insightful friend recently pointed out to me: ‘It’s not a matter of accepting the rule and acting on it, but of the rule reflecting the universal nature of the impulse.’ The distinctive inflection in the Parable of The Good Samaritan is that it affirms the sovereignty of good and the primacy of love, which transcend the law.

What is most striking about the difference between the priest and Levite and the Samaritan is that the former act partially out of a sense of what convention dictates, what their discriminatory religious rules require of them. By contrast, the latter acts out of a spontaneous compassionate impulse: ‘when he saw him, he was moved with pity.’ 

The Samaritan does not even have to think about it: he knows what the right thing is to do. His thinking is not a rational analysis of religious rules or moral principles; it is pre-conceptual. I am reminded of Shakespeare’s ‘pity, like a naked new-born babe’ (suggesting an instinctive sense of right and wrong) and ‘the quality of mercy…which is twice blessed: it blesseth him that gives and him that takes.’

Van Gogh’s striking image of ‘The Good Samaritan’ conveys, in all its vitality, the intimacy of the human connection that such compassion can create. It is the relationship between the two central characters, supported by all the forces of nature (including that wonderful horse!), which is the true focus of attention. This is where the real action is, not with the distant figures who pass by. And it is not the ‘personality’ of the characters that is of interest or importance: it is only the power of goodness in action that matters.

This is the work of a great creative genius at the height of his powers, painted in astonishment, trembling, awe and reverence. The artist is fully aware of the power of all the elemental forces involved in this simple story. The painting has a concentrated, untethered wild energy about it that is irresistible. Ever since a good friend sent it to me, it has lodged deep inside me, alongside the story, as a moral force to be reckoned with.

The principal message of the story is the need to ‘put ourselves in the shoes of the other’ and act on our compassion, like the good Samaritan, rather than find reasons for not doing so, like the priest or the Levite. To act requires us to extend ourselves, to make an effort—something Van Gogh makes visceral.

The most revolutionary idea contained in this story, however, is that we should be compassionate to strangers. Here we have a radically extended definition of who we should regard as our neighbour and to whom we should be neighbourly—someone who is anonymous, not part of our family or clan or nation, who does not necessarily share our religious or moral beliefs, whose only qualification for our sympathy and aid is that they are a suffering fellow human being, of equal dignity and worth, with whom we share a common humanity. Again, this is a central tenet to Singer’s book and to much of his life’s work.

Clearly Jesus was millennia ahead of his time! However, the parable makes it clear that individuals were already acting this way: Christianity did not invent compassion or moral action. They are universal values. And yet, while these qualities clearly still endure today, there is also cause for concern.

At the beginning of his wonderful TED presentation on effective altruism, Singer shows a very disturbing video clip of a modern playing out of the Good Samaritan story. A two year old girl is run over by a van and left bleeding in the street by the driver. Several people pass by without offering any assistance. Eventually a street cleaner raises the alarm but the girl dies on her way to hospital

Most viewers of this video clip are horrified by the indifference of the passers-by. And yet, as Singer points out, we know that thousands of individual children die each day from preventable diseases associated with povert—-today the number is 17,000. We could save many of these if we didn’t treat them with a similar indifference. The same could be said of many of the millions of individuals forced to flee their homes for their own safety and who are now stuck in refugee camps.

In an earlier article, ‘Pippa’s Dilemma: the moral demands of affluence’, I quoted Singer’s modern parable of the ‘Child in the Pond’. If one is walking past a shallow pond and sees a child drowning, one ought to wade in and pull the child out. This might mean ruining an expensive pair of fashionable shoes but most of us would accept that this is insignificant compared to the death of a child. (And, equally clearly, it makes no moral difference whether it is a pair of shoes or a portion of our money that we are called on to sacrifice.)

Singer derived the following moral principle from such a simple act of compassion: if it is within our power to act to prevent something bad from happening to another human being, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral significance, then we have a moral obligation to do so. It follows that it would be morally wrong for us not to do so.

According to this argument, it makes no moral difference whether the person I can help is a neighbour’s child ten yards from me or a Syrian, Rohingya or African refugee whose name I shall never know, ten thousand miles away. They are fellow suffering human beings of equal worth and must call forth similar compassion and moral concern, irrespective of proximity.

Of course the modern context is different. Instead of being confronted by a single man in the ditch, we are now being confronted by millions of people in refugee camps. But these are all individual men, women and children in no less desperate need of assistance. We may not be able to come to the aid of all of them, but we can certainly help some.

Proximity will always make an encounter more immediate, more personally confronting and more difficult to avoid, as well as potentially more satisfying.  I would like to believe that it is only a lapse of moral consciousness—rather than a lack of compassion, wilful blindness or indifference—that prevents us from experiencing a similar sense of moral obligation when confronted by the more distant but equally disturbing realities witnessed on our television screens.

Whether we respond individually to these modern day people in the ditch will depend on our ability to respond personally to the story about the Good Samaritan or the Child in the Pond. Arguments about the responsibility for and scale of the problem, or any political views we may have about our national policies on refugees and asylum-seekers, are secondary to the personal ethical and moral issue: Do we care and are we willing to act on that care?

The Good Samaritan shows us very practical ways to act as individuals: he gives the person in need immediate first aid, then takes him to a place of safety and then gives some money to a third party to help maintain him until he gets back on his feet.

There is nothing particularly heroic about what he does. He is not a saint. He doesn’t devote his whole life to helping the poor. He just does his bit as an individual. The only difference between the situation facing him and us is the magnitude of the problem, not the nature of the required personal response.

We may not be in a position to do all that he does, but we can certainly give some of our money to third parties who are in a position to do some of it for us.

* * * * * *

If the need for compassion is recognised and a moral obligation to give money for such a purpose is accepted, the further practical and moral question arises: how can we ensure that the money we give is actually getting to the people who need it most and is making a positive difference?

Fortunately, we can now have confidence in some of the answers, thanks largely to the work of one of the world’s leading charity evaluators, GiveWell, which has carried out extensive independent research in order to rate the effectiveness of charities. It currently recommends only nine charities in the world as meeting its very strict criteria for effectiveness. Peter Singer’s organization The Life You Can Save promotes many of the charities on GiveWell’s list along with several other nonprofits that deliver interventions proven to improve health and opportunities for those living in global extreme poverty.

One of the top rated charities both organizations have consistently recommended is GiveDirectly, which has recently launched an exciting new initiative to help refugees overseas, where the need is greatest.

Uganda is a country which in 2016 took in more refugees than any other, including the whole of Europe at the height of the crisis. Yet despite having limited resources, its government has very progressive policies for the nearly 1.4 million people who have sought refuge there. It has granted refugees basic rights—like education, work, freedom to leave their settlements,property ownership, and the ability to apply for citizenship—in order to help them rebuild their lives. The major obstacle that holds these people back is lack of capital to get a start.

With this in mind, GiveDirectly launched a program in Uganda, after carrying out a very successful pilot project there. The program has been very carefully designed to have maximum impact. The organization plans to make substantial lump sum cash payments via mobile technology and bank accounts to refugees and locals in neighbouring support communities. It uses an aid model which has been tried and tested in its two other established programs and which independent research has shown to be very effective. 

The underlying philosophy of GiveDirectly is one of maximum transparency in its operations and maximum empowerment of the people it seeks to help. In everything it does, it affirms the dignity of the individual as a fundamental value and guiding principle. It believes that those most in need of our financial assistance know better than anyone else how to use it. It provides the cash grants unconditionally, without any strings attached. All the evidence supports their premise that recipients use the money they are given wisely and effectively to rebuild their lives.

GiveDirectly is running a cash transfer program for Ugandan refugees.

Donors to GiveDirectly can be very confident that their money is getting to the people who need it most and is making a real difference to their lives. This charity should particularly appeal to those people (including many libertarians) who are concerned that governments and charities may not use their donations to the best purpose and who believe in maximum individual freedom and autonomy. You can find out why GiveWell and The Life You Can Save rate this as one of the top charities in the world, by visiting Effective Altruism Australia’s website: https://effectivealtruism.org.au/. And on The Life You Can Save’s website, you can learn more about GiveDirectly here and donate to support their transformative work here.

Whether or not we support the current refugee and asylum-seeker policies in our own countries—a topic we should be actively engaged in as responsible citizens— we can each feel compassion as individuals for the plight of victims of displacement and famine around the world and we can each accept some personal moral responsibility for doing our bit to help them. The easiest and best way to do this is by making a donation to a charity of proven effectiveness.

A number of The Life You Can Save’s other recommended charities also provide crucial assistance to refugees—you can read a summary of those programs here.

******

The Parable of the Good Samaritan gives us a very clear personal choice when confronted by the extreme suffering of our fellow human beings: we can look away and pass by, as the priest and the Levite did, or we can act on our natural compassion, as the Samaritan did.

The ‘culture of uncare’ tells us it’s OK to look away and pass by—‘it’s not our problem’, ‘there’s nothing we can do that will make a difference’, and so on. That culture of disavowal and negativity must be resisted, for the sake of our personal and global health and wellbeing. One of the best ways to do this, in the present context, is to donate to a charity of proven effectiveness and to encourage others to do likewise.

Nearly all of us can afford to give something. Most of us can afford to be much more generous and give much more than we currently do, another central tenet of Singer’s book. Remember, we in Australia now enjoy the highest relative personal wealth in the world and most of us are in the world’s top 10% in terms of income.You can find a chart in both the book (p. 221) or on The Life You Can Save’s website with Singer’s recommendations about how much each of us, depending on our income level, should ideally donate to effective charities in order to do our part to help those less fortunate than ourselves.We should be willing to share more of our incredible good fortune, because it is the right thing to do. As Beth Barnes shows in her wonderful short TEDx presentation, if we all did so, we would very quickly make the world a much better place for everyone, not just for the lucky few.

It may be true to say that charity begins at home: but it should never end there. It may be true that one individual cannot change the plight of the millions presently in dire need: but we can certainly change the lives of some of them through our individual action.

The Good Samaritan changed the life of one man in the ditch. His example still resonates 2000 years later, with the same clear message to each one of us: “Go and do likewise!”

 


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The views expressed in blog posts are those of the author, and not necessarily those of Peter Singer or The Life You Can Save.