Beneficence Beyond Charity: Earning as Giving

Duties of beneficence are general, impersonal obligations to promote the welfare and meet the needs of strangers. Many laypeople and philosophers presume that duties of beneficence are primarily met through volunteering or donating to various causes. More recently, some business ethicists and activists in the effective altruist camp have argued that social enterprise can be a way to exercise beneficence. This essay argues that most of us exercise beneficence, and discharge many or perhaps all of our duties of beneficence, by holding normal jobs and doing normal productive work.