Criteria for Charity

In Singer's Famine, Affluence, and Morality he makes some great points. A point the really stuck out to me was on page 235, "Because giving money is regarded as an act of charity, it is not thought that there is anything wrong with not giving. The charitable man may be praised, but the man who is not charitable is not condemned." This point really made me think about how much we are encouraged to donate and volunteer to help the less fortunate. If charity is so highly thought of why do we not donate time and money more often? I wish there was more of a push on people to do charity. Singer goes on to say on page 235 that we ought not to buy clothes that we do not need to keep us warm. I want to agree with Singer on this point. In theory it sounds great where we would not live lives of excess and only spend what we need to and help others. However, in practice this would never work what with everyone's different points of views and different desires in lifestyles. Singer ends this paragraph that I have been focusing on by saying "we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so" (235). Tying this all in I believe that there should be more of a stigma placed on people that do not participate in charitable actions. Why is it acceptable to not be charitable? If it is such a great action we should encourage people to do more and maybe look down on those who do not participate. My only problem with putting this thought into theory is where to draw the line as to what is acceptable Charity or not. I would not know where to say who had to donate what money or how much time in order to be considered "off the hook." But that is part of the problem we have with blaming those who are not charitable. I think as a society we are afraid to tell people that they must do certain things in order to be morally right when we cannot even place a criteria for it. Also, I feel it is tough because we do not know the personal issues of people and how much money they can donate or even if they have donated. People often do not talk about their charitable actions because they do not want to seem like they are bragging and did the action for the attention.