The “Samaritan’s dilemma,” is the conflict we feel when we want to be altruistic, but fear being taken advantage of. It’s an argument against charity, a dilemma faced by the “soft-hearted” who want to help their neighbor but don’t want to be exploited. Stone compares the feeling to when one person in a struggling family comes into fortune and finds themselves bombarded by relatives asking for help. We can’t help everybody, because if we did we would be spread too thin. Most of us want to help the needy, but how do we accomplish this successfully? Moreover, is it in our best interest as a society to give people handouts— and is it in their interests to become reliant on help from others? We don’t want to encourage “learned helplessness,” but …show more content…
We have come to expect government to solve all of our problems, when in reality, government is the problem. Some conservatives, for example, want to redesign policies so that aid recipients have to work in order to receive government aid, in what are deemed “welfare-to-work”(247) reforms. Yet these policies, rather than instilling work ethic in aid recipients, “ensures that society’s dirty work gets done by the cheap” (247). Stone argues that a politics of altruism can “revive democracy” and create a society of cooperation. Policies that favor altruism instills morals in our society and empowers citizens to act not out of self-interest but for the common good. Stone argues that citizens and politicians have to find ways to “protect ourselves while keeping our humanity.” We should enact policies that support the innocent and deserving. Just like the New Deal and Great Society, policies that redistribute wealth, when implemented correctly, give poor people the opportunities they deserve and allow them to participate in politics as