III

Why is it that the Good Samaritan did not turn his eyes away and pass by on the other side of the road? Why did he come to the aid of the stranger in that dangerous place? He must have assumed that the injured person was a Jew, a bitter ethnic enemy. Why did he accept the risk? In our time, the dominant assumption about human behavior is that all of us are calculators of self-interest; our self-interest motivates our actions. In the story of the Good Samaritan, however, it is clear that the calculators of self-interest are the priest and the Levite who crossed to the other side of the road and avoided the risk and inconvenience. As either of them might justify themselves in our terms, "I didn't want to get involved." The Good Samaritan put aside risk and inconvenience and became involved. In simplest moral terms, the Good Samaritan represents true philanthropy. The priest and the Levite represent not so much false philanthropy as a failure of true philanthropy. 

The religious tradition says that the Good Samaritan was given a quality of compassion by God. For that to happen, one must be open to the possibility that one will find the courage to do the right thing, whatever the source or motivation. Is there a nonreligious explanation for the Good Samaritan's behavior? Is there an explanation other than that of self-interest? We want to believe that we are mature and responsible enough to do the right thing. We know that if we spend too much time calculating costs and benefits that we will immobilize ourselves, or fail to do the right thing from a simple failure of nerve.

The Good Samaritan story is part of our philanthropic tradition, I think, not because so many of us would act the way he did, but because we know in our hearts that we would want to act that way. Learning how to do the right thing when someone else is in need is a process that begins when we are very young and that is reinforced by teaching and examples all of our lives. It is a learning process that is befogged by other claims and arguments that we should think of ourselves as Number One, and as aspiring only to be "the best" with a single-mindedness that leaves little room for anything or anyone else. Advancing and passing on philanthropic values such as the model of the Good Samaritan is a process that has been shoved aside by other claims. 

The burst of legislative proposals for national service, for example, President's Bush appeals for increased voluntary service, are among the more visible signs that we may be coming to realize that a tradition of great value to our children is being lost --and that the children will suffer as a result.

At this point the evidence is more rhetorical than concrete. The Good Samaritan story reminds us most directly about the victims on our streets -- people who are homeless and hungry and children who are in peril. We hesitate, most of us, to do anything about them personally because we are afraid. The streets have become too dangerous. Fear inhibits good works. 

Fear constrains the charity of those who might otherwise bring care to AIDS victims, or the generosity of those who would otherwise like to take part in a project in a deteriorating neighborhood. When the fears and tensions of race and ethnicity are added, the impulse of charity is stifled. If fear of the immediate situation constrains our individual philanthropy, many people have argued that it is also fear that motivates our collective philanthropy: fear that without philanthropy the poor and the oppressed minorities and the unemployed and the homeless will rise up and attack the rich and powerful. (We may be rich; I suspect that we are not powerful.)

The Good Samaritan story also reminds us that there are sometimes real risks in trying to help other people. If there are risks, then courage may be called for. But since the goals are to serve others, and not oneself , bravado and machismo and those other questionable masculine perversions of the virtues of honor and courage are out of place. What is needed is the quiet courage required in "the unprotected life of real encounter," as one writer put it. That quality is evident every day among those who overcome their fears and live the unprotected life. 

These essays are personal statements, to some extent based on immediate experience as well as on observation and reading and reflection and discussion with others. If our experience does not validate what we are taught, sooner or later our commitment will weaken and may fail us -- we may fail ourselves as well as others -- when it is most needed. Experience in the form of the stories we tell about our lives is often insufficient to explain our behavior or what we expect of others, but theory without experience is insufficient, too. Shared experience is essential to the understanding of philanthropy.

In thinking about people who give their lives in service to others, I tend t6 think first in terms of the career of our eldest son. When he told us that instead of coming back to the United States from college his year abroad in France, he was instead going to Burundi in East Africa as a volunteer f or Catholic Relief services, we had two choices. We could act from our fear for his safety and try to dissuade him, or we could f eel pride instead that he would want to work as a volunteer in such a place. In a sense, he had volunteered to be a Good Samaritan and our role was to try to restrain him or to encourage him to take the risk. We encouraged him. "Go," we said, "with our blessing and support."

One of the bravest people I ever knew was a conscientious objector serving as a medic in the Philippines during the last months of World War II. He never gave in to panic; he never took foolish risks; he always kept his mind on getting help to the people who were hurt. He "let himself be governed completely by the need of the man who confronted him," to paraphrase one of the commentators on the parable of the Good Samaritan. He had much opportunity by the time I met him: when another green 18-year-old replacement and I showed up to join B Company, there were only 32 men left out of a complement of 180. The medic was himself in pretty bad shape physically, as were the others. Yet none of the death and tragedy had seemed to weaken his will to serve, or to lessen his commitment to the others that depended on him. 

The Good Samaritan story read as straightforward example gives a short course in responsible service to others. The Samaritan apparently asks the first ethical question, What is going on? He doesn't foolishly give the victim money and then ride on; the victim can't use money at that point. He applied First Aid (another philanthropic idea). The Samaritan then helps to get the injured man to a place where he can recover. 

What if the Good Samaritan were without a mule himself? What if he were partially disabled and without the physical strength to help? What if the man's injuries were critical?

One morning two years ago I stayed at home in the morning to work on a lecture. At about noon, driving to the office, I arrived at the scene of an automobile accident seconds after it happened. Three cars were scattered about an intersection; one had apparently tried to run the light. Traffic was stopped. Some people got out of their cars and walked toward the one most seriously damaged car in the middle of the street. No one seemed injured there; the driver was getting out of the car, shaken but apparently unhurt. I stopped as I passed by the damaged second car, where I saw a young woman still behind the steering wheel. I got out and walked around to the other side; neither the door nor the window on the driver's side would open. I asked her how she was.

She said, "I think my leg is broken." 

Other help arrived seconds later, including two men from a towing service truck, and just behind them, a police car. I told the policeman that the woman was injured. Thank God other help had arrived, I said to myself. I wasn't anxious to draw on my own skimpy medical background. It occurred to me that intervening in someone else's life for their benefit requires more than good will. You should know what you're doing. 

A number of drivers at the scene paused and then quickly drove on. The common rationalization for their behavior would seem to come in two forms: (1) "Others are better equipped to handle this than I am," and (2) "My business is really important and I have to get on to it." 

The first lesson that I drew from this is the lesson of vulnerability: two of the drivers were apparently obeying the law and minding their own business. Suddenly one of them found herself pinned behind the steering wheel, helpless, beginning to realize that she was alive but perhaps with a broken leg. Sometimes things go terribly wrong even when you are playing by the rules and minding your own business. 

The second lesson from this minor automobile accident is in the nature of reciprocity in philanthropy. We are all equally vulnerable to such unpredictable and sometimes dreadful experiences. Voluntary philanthropy at its core is a response to others in such situations. The value calls for the response of the Good Samaritan even though there is not likely to be even a remote statistical connection between our action in this immediate and some later benefit. our need for help will be remote in distance and time. When my accident occurs, somewhere else at some unpredictable time, this young woman will not be there. What I must count on instead is that someone will be there, willing and able to help, and whose help will be offered if necessary as a gift and not as an exchange. 

And the third lesson is that most people will drive on, will pass to the other side of the road.

My colleague Janet Huettner pointed out to me that some recent research on motivation in philanthropy indicates that we are more likely to do the right thing if we are alone with the victim and are his only source of help than we are if others are present. The terrible indifference of the 38 witnesses to the murder of Kitty Genovese may have been no more than the easy, self-serving confidence that one of the 37 others had called the police.