The Gap Between Good Will and Volunteer Work

Volunteers traditionally project the image of dedication, commitment, and morality. Volunteers feel as though they are performing a good deed, further, an act of good will. Kant would disagree. Kant classifies a good will as something not considered or contemplated, but as a duty both known and expected. Good will is done without analysis of outcome or weighing of possible consequences. These good wills are limitless in their intrinsic value and are established by maxims which can be universalized. Volunteer work seemingly aligns with all of these motivations based on its basic concept. However, volunteering has been socially warped into an act of self-gratification and self-benefit.

English professors Clare Holdsworth and Jocey Quinn provide a critique of volunteer work in their article discussing student service. Volunteer work has been crafted into a social construct not only expected, but required of collegiate students. Today, every university considers community service as a key indication of dedication, increasing the likelihood of acceptance. Service is continuously advocated by universities throughout the students’ academic careers. The implicit requirement is viewed as a stepping stone of success and increased understanding of different societal and cultural groups. Therefore, students do not necessarily view volunteer service as an unspoken moral duty but as a duty of personal success

Students attack service work with enthusiasm and zest, ready to improve the state of leaving for less fortunate or needy groups. However, this aura of improvement and learning is often misunderstood and detrimental to the connection of the societal two groups. The initial gap, whether socioeconomic or cultural, can be extended. While students boost their chances of future success, the minority or underprivileged groups remain at the bottom of the social ladder. Often times, the service being done is of no lasting effect to the group helped. The semester before my freshman year I went on a service trip to Spain with 18 DePauw students. We stayed with families and completed a service project over the course of two weeks. Motivations varied, but majority of the group sought a vacation to a foreign country and the opportunity of cultural immersion and learning. However, the locals received far less from the service. We tore apart a hostel and attempted to reconstruct the outer wall. This resulted in ultimate failure because we were unsure of how to operate the tools and did not have proper skills for the job. Some of the local men had to dedicate their free time to help us. We also redid the entrance to their town church. Although this project ended successfully, many of the older citizens preferred the traditional entrance and rambled arguments in Spanish which none of us understood. Although a failure, Kant would have accepted this attempt if our maxims consisted of an instinctive sense of moral obligation.

Students also form imagined networks with the groups they serve. By helping the minorities or underprivileged, volunteers may think they can empathize or understand their sense of oppression or struggle.  Holdsworth and Quinn claim, “This concept enables us to understand how networks between volunteers and communities need not be materially realised. Through volunteering students can find themselves in unaccustomed settings which may challenge their grounded experiences and encourage them to imagine new affinities with unfamiliar others. This suggests an alternative view to popular representations of student volunteering which emphasise having fun, making friends and acquiring skills, but one that acknowledges how volunteering opens up opportunities for production of imagined connections and affinities.” Therefore, these imagined networks only illuminate power structures. Volunteers think they can associate with the underprivileged group, but the underprivileged group has no way of understanding experiences of the privileged group.

The promotion of helping others is not wrong. In fact, we must help others. But looking at volunteering trends among student, service cannot be recognized as a moral will. Students are motivated to enter the business world with optimal opportunity for success, and the underprivileged group tend to serve as a building block in the process. Even those with good intentions looking to help other are not performing moral will. Shafer-Landau provides a Kantian argument saying, “I assert that in such cases an action of this kind, however it may conform with duty and however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth but is on the same footing with other inclinations.” Although service might make us personally satisfied, volunteer work is mostly unsuccessful in achieving the status of moral will.

Volunteers traditionally project the image of dedication, commitment, and morality. Volunteers feel as though they are performing a good deed, further, an act of good will. Kant would disagree. Kant classifies a good will as something not considered or contemplated, but as a duty both known and expected. Good will is done without analysis of outcome or weighing of possible consequences. These good wills are limitless in their intrinsic value and are established by maxims which can be universalized. Volunteer work seemingly aligns with all of these motivations based on its basic concept. However, volunteering has been socially warped into an act of self-gratification and self-benefit.

English professors Clare Holdsworth and Jocey Quinn provide a critique of volunteer work in their article discussing student service. Volunteer work has been crafted into a social construct not only expected, but required of collegiate students. Today, every university considers community service as a key indication of dedication, increasing the likelihood of acceptance. Service is continuously advocated by universities throughout the students’ academic careers. The implicit requirement is viewed as a stepping stone of success and increased understanding of different societal and cultural groups. Therefore, students do not necessarily view volunteer service as an unspoken moral duty but as a duty of personal success

Students attack service work with enthusiasm and zest, ready to improve the state of leaving for less fortunate or needy groups. However, this aura of improvement and learning is often misunderstood and detrimental to the connection of the societal two groups. The initial gap, whether socioeconomic or cultural, can be extended. While students boost their chances of future success, the minority or underprivileged groups remain at the bottom of the social ladder. Often times, the service being done is of no lasting effect to the group helped. The semester before my freshman year I went on a service trip to Spain with 18 DePauw students. We stayed with families and completed a service project over the course of two weeks. Motivations varied, but majority of the group sought a vacation to a foreign country and the opportunity of cultural immersion and learning. However, the locals received far less from the service. We tore apart a hostel and attempted to reconstruct the outer wall. This resulted in ultimate failure because we were unsure of how to operate the tools and did not have proper skills for the job. Some of the local men had to dedicate their free time to help us. We also redid the entrance to their town church. Although this project ended successfully, many of the older citizens preferred the traditional entrance and rambled arguments in Spanish which none of us understood. Although a failure, Kant would have accepted this attempt if our maxims consisted of an instinctive sense of moral obligation.

Students also form imagined networks with the groups they serve. By helping the minorities or underprivileged, volunteers may think they can empathize or understand their sense of oppression or struggle.  Holdsworth and Quinn claim, “This concept enables us to understand how networks between volunteers and communities need not be materially realised. Through volunteering students can find themselves in unaccustomed settings which may challenge their grounded experiences and encourage them to imagine new affinities with unfamiliar others. This suggests an alternative view to popular representations of student volunteering which emphasise having fun, making friends and acquiring skills, but one that acknowledges how volunteering opens up opportunities for production of imagined connections and affinities.” Therefore, these imagined networks only illuminate power structures. Volunteers think they can associate with the underprivileged group, but the underprivileged group has no way of understanding experiences of the privileged group.

The promotion of helping others is not wrong. In fact, we must help others. But looking at volunteering trends among student, service cannot be recognized as a moral will. Students are motivated to enter the business world with optimal opportunity for success, and the underprivileged group tend to serve as a building block in the process. Even those with good intentions looking to help other are not performing moral will. Shafer-Landau provides a Kantian argument saying, “I assert that in such cases an action of this kind, however it may conform with duty and however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth but is on the same footing with other inclinations.” Although service might make us personally satisfied, volunteer work is mostly unsuccessful in achieving the status of moral will.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=eec79075-2c4c-409f-981c-17cd73ac50d3%40sessionmgr4003&vid=1&hid=4207

Holdsworth, Clare, and Jocey Quinn. "The Epistemological Challenge of Higher Education Student Volunteering: “Reproductive” or “Deconstructive” Volunteering?" Antipode 44, no. 2 (2012): 386-405. Accessed March 10, 2015. Ebsco Host.

Landau, Russ. "Immanuel Kant." In The Ethical Life: Fundamental Readings in Ethics and Moral Problems, 88-93. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.