Ethics of Charity Relief

Charity relief in a disaster context means assisting disaster-affected people through donations of money, goods, or services, including volunteers' time and skills. Many ethical approaches accept the necessity of charity relief and see it as an ethical action, while recognizing that on occasion, charity relief can cause more problems than it solves. No fixed rules exist to make charity relief more [Page 168]effective or more ethical, but some guiding principles support efforts to avoid creating more problems.

Charity donations can be organized—such as through governments, nongovernmental or international organizations, or the private sector—or conducted in an ad hoc manner by individual donations of money or goods, or self-deploying into a disaster-affected area to try to assist. Often, individual-based charity relief is directed at one's family and friends, but many examples exist of individuals randomly choosing to assist others.

Self-deployment to a disaster-affected area is usually counterproductive, because such volunteers might be unfamiliar with the local area or culture; not have appropriate training and so put themselves and others in danger; and require food, water, and shelter that could have been used for the disaster survivors. Instead, an organized and coordinated effort that sends trained personnel with appropriate logistical and material backup is more appropriate for charity relief. That approach is frequently used.

Charity Relief as an Ethic

Many cultures and societies accept the provision of charity relief as a duty for anyone who can do so. Others follow fundamental human rights, suggesting that all people deserve minimum standards of basic necessities such as water, food, shelter, sanitation, healthcare, and education, even in a disaster's aftermath. If some people do not have those minimum standards, then efforts must be made to improve the situation, including through charity relief.

Many ethical frameworks for disaster situations support the premise of charity relief as both needed and ethical after a disaster, to match both rights and duties. “Do no harm” refers to assessing possible actions and outcomes from those actions, and then using that assessment to avoid any harm to charity relief's donors or recipients. More realistically, that means avoiding as much harm as possible, which includes potential harm from inaction; that is, harm from failing to provide charity relief.

The ethical framework of risk/benefit analysis aims for risks taken in giving charity relief to be justified in comparison to the expected benefits, while managing and mitigating these risks as much as possible. The ethics of utilitarianism seeks the greatest happiness or greatest good for the greatest number through charity relief activities.