But when thou doest alms, let not thy
left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full."
I think what Jesus meant was that letting others know was not the problem, but giving alms for the sake of being honored by others. These good deeds were not done out of mercy for fellow human beings, but to improve their stature in society.
We try to judge people based on their actions. Someone messes up and defends themselves with "I was only trying to help!" - "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."[0] The fact that proverb exists at all, means that our society has at least a partial inclination towards judging people on their actions, regardless of intention.
Well, if that applies in the "mean good, do bad = bad" case, then it should apply symmetrically in the "mean bad, do good = good" case.
Concretely: Bill Gates does some good. Someone says: he's only doing it to atone. So it doesn't count. --- the first part is not the problem, but the second part is. He still did good, and it still counts. Hate his character all you want, but he did good. Don't use his character to detract from his actions.
[0] There's even a Wikipedia page about it; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_road_to_hell_is_paved_with...
Consider a Pimp finds out he can londer money and find new girls by setting up a homeless shelter. Is setting up the shelter a good action?
For the record, Bill's business practices sucked, but there's no denying that he had better vision for tech than the monster of his day, IBM. Each age has its villain, each of which has been far from what the world considers to be truly evil.
The pimps homeless shelter might also be a net positive impact. It seems far more selfish.
Alternatively it may have started Gates down a different path which changed his mindset. I can't know as this is all internal. The point is some people feel the internal reasoning is just as important as the outcome.
PS: This is one of the reasons the law cares about internal reasoning not just outcomes.
The important thing is that the charity gets done.
I've worked to overcome my WASP reluctance to talk about money. As a geek, we should be comparing salaries. As an activist, to be effective you need resources, which is a nice proxy for buy-in, so you learn how to ask for money.
Yes, and this is the concept I take issue with. If Bill Gates's continued public dialogue over his charitable actions convinces other billionaires to join the cause, how is that anything other than a net positive? He may yet succeed in wiping out malaria when he might not have succeeded had he kept quiet.
The goal of any charitable act should be to make your charity obsolete. Quiet, private giving in small amounts without a coordinated plan does not accomplish that. It merely serves to feed somebody for another day.
This is misguided, but it's not hard to understand where the idea came from.