Generosity: Virtue in Civil Society

Tibor R. Machan

ene 1998 · Cato Institute

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Is generosity part of a good life? Do we have a legally enforceable obligation to be generous? Is the welfare state a form of generosity? What is generosity, and under what conditions are people generous? In Generosity: Virtue in Civil Society, Tibor Machan offers answers to those and many other questions. His work continues the long tradition of virtue ethics and shows how generosity is one of the benevolent virtues, which also include charity, kindness, and compassion, and can only be realized in combination with the "master virtue" of integrity or prudence. Machan argues that if people who spend their time defending and attempting to expand the welfare state were to devote similar attention to practicing the virtue of generosity and promoting it among their neighbors, relatives, coworkers, and friends, we would certainly live in a freer and more generous world. The abdication and usurpation of personal responsibility are the greatest moral failures of the modern welfare state.