Normative Standards

NORMATIVE STANDARDS FOR conditions of poverty arise in Western philosophy from the nature of ethics. They also rise from religious beliefs. Normative standards can be developed by groups, such as professional organizations, in the way that rules of a game like baseball or contract bridge have been developed by convention.

Ethics, a branch of the theory of value or axiology, is concerned with questions of right and wrong or of good and bad. In regard to poverty, it is usually viewed as bad when it is suffered involuntarily rather than voluntarily. Economics is concerned with the allocation of scarce resources, material goods, and services, and is actually a part of ethics; until about 150 years ago economics was taught as a part of ethics. However, the rise of a scientific approach to human problems and their [Page 785]study ethics has been separated from economics. In fact the separation is artificial. All of economics is the concern of politics and both ethics and politics is the concern of ethics. Their ethical nature is concerned with the fact that they cannot be separated from humans. What happens to humans, how they treat each other and use the power of government to allocate the resources of land, labor, and capital, is inherently ethical.

The same ethical nature is at the heart of labor or work. People who are organized into groups, in corporations, companies, communes, or any other kind of economic enterprise, must of necessity have relationships. How they treat each other, how they are managed, and how their labors are rewarded are of vital ethical concern.

In the history of the West, Christian moral philosophy has viewed the voluntary assumption of poverty for the sake of service as an ideal. In Roman Catholicism monks and priests renounce the ownership of goods in order to be free to serve the church without being distracted by worldly cares. In Protestantism ministers are supported by their congregations so that the ministers may serve the congregation without the worldly concern to make a living.

Poverty is also a voluntarily assumed status undertaken by Buddhist and Jain monks as well as others. The goal of self-assumed poverty in Eastern religions is to renounce the world as an ascetic in order to gain spiritual enlightenment or purity. In Hinduism poverty is viewed as the just deserts or the working-out of the law of karma. The person who is poor is suffering from the effects of past deeds. It is therefore not the duty of a Hindu or other adherents to Eastern religions to reduce the suffering of the poor by charity.

For most of the people of the world poverty is viewed as a negative condition in life. People who are poor are deprived of opportunities for education, travel, growth, or even the necessities of life. In the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam it is the duty of believers to aid the poor. In the case of Judaism and Islam there are merits acquired because of the good deeds done in feeding the hungry or stopping the injustices that cause economic inequality. These beliefs are a part of their views on social justice.

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