The Moral Implication in the Charity Culture

The Moral Implication in the Charity Culture
Nowadays, the charity culture is both strange and familiar to the public, for it is not reported so much on the media in one hand, and in the other hand, the moral implication in the charity culture is just like the blood in human bodies.
In the western countries, the origin of charity culture is from the religion. The theory of “Original Sin” in Christianity makes people believe that everyone is born guilty, who must atone for his philanthropy by working hard for the entire lifetime in order to get peace and go to the Heaven after death. In the western Christian culture, charity is regarded as a discipline, which has an external force; while it is an effective way as well shuttling between the wealth and the spirit beyond the free materialism. As a result, charity in the western world is not just a moral stuff, but more like a religion one.
However, in China, the origin of charity culture is from the Confucius, the humanistic ideology with “Benevolence” as its core, which is a combination of moral and ethic. In China, the charity culture is based on the theory that everyone is born good; compassion, shame, humility, and the ability to distinguish right and wrong are human natures, which are powers to guide people to promote good and restrain evil. Chinese Confucius culture makes charity as a self-driven requirement forced by moral, whether to do good or not is closely related to the individual’s temperaments and moral activities.
In Adam Smith's “Theory of Moral Sentiments”, he did not negate the moral level of the economic theory, and opposed that the moral philosophy should not be stripped from economy. He believes that every person's daily needs are limited; people should have internal restraint and regulate social conflicts through ethical. These points and the related charity activities make people understood that not enjoying the asserts by oneself, but helping people in need with the wisdom and wealth and trying best to do the things needed by society could let one achieve a perfect peace mind.
From the motivation of the charity, doing good things is considered to be the scope of individual self-cultivation, which meets the individual conscience; it emphasizes selfless giving, and never asking for paying back. The pursuit of high moral stature will undoubtedly have a positive significance, but since the motivation is just the concept of performance, which is not mandatory, it becomes popular only by the advocacy and spreading through a small number of thinkers; and if the charity just relies on the conscience of the few people, but is lack of instinct and the moral implication, it will not conducive to the development of modern philanthropy.
In China, charity fraud has once become a serious problem. Some stars do charities to gain much more fame, but not from a moral point. As we all know, a positive environment of the charity culture is a fundamental guarantee to the flourish and sustainable development of the philanthropy. With the influence of the charity fraud, Chinese ordinary people get confused about the charity and the true meaning of the charity is also misinterpreted. For this sake, it is not that we do not want do charities, but we do not know how to be charitable, and how to do it. It needs a long time to change from the utilitarian culture to a charity one; every individual should care more about the charity, and participate in. The society has a responsibility as well, to awaken the human "compassion" to guide citizens to join the charity, which helps them improve their moral consciousness.