BENEVOLENCE, Christraj M.

BENEVOLENCE

                       

             "General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a man what he ought to be." Benevolence means an inclination to perform kind, charitable acts, kindly act, and a gift given out of generosity. Benevolence is silent good will. It is like the sun shining on hard ground, softening the earth, melting the ice, but with no design or intention to heal. It is the state of naturalness which is why it works, because the ground feels no debt to the sun. In the same way to be on the receiving end of benevolence is to be receiving something for which there is no return. Not even a pressure to respond which is why one does, so easily. Benevolence is a state of being, reliant on itself alone. It has nothing to do with feelings of mercy or preference. It offers nothing specific but everyone is drawn to it. It answers no questions, but it enables you to think. It reaches nothing, but because of it you can learn.

            To be benevolent is to be possessed by a desire for the good of others and a willingness to forward that good activity. Since the good of others takes many different forms it requires a range of different response. Benevolence, therefore, may take the form of compassion, mercy, kindness, or generosity, while benevolence is quite properly understood as a general attitude of goodwill towards others and as the specific forms such goodwill might take the term has also come to be used more recently in a much narrower sense, to refer to acts of charity. An act of charity occurs when some benefit is freely bestowed by one individual with a surplus on another who is in need. This narrowing of the meaning of benevolence means what was initially a term used to describe an uncontroversially desirable attitude to others has come to be used, perhaps, to put a good face on largess of the better-off to the worse-off. It thereby introduces doubts about the moral value of benevolence. Benevolence is said to depend for instance on the agent's feeling concern for others, while the demands of justice are recognized by reason and are these independent of the vagaries of individual emotional capacity. Benevolence as a natural and essentially sentiment based virtue, which has led some to conclude that it is inadequate to meet the demands of morality because it is neither impartial nor, ultimately open to rational assessment. We receive full amount of joy, happiness and peace when we help others.