Miranda Perry Fleischer on The Morality of Charitable Bequests

Miranda continues to give us good food for thought.  Her latest piece is on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:

Compare two wealthy individuals who have amassed a fortune at their deaths. Adam bequeaths his wealth to his children; Bonnie leaves hers to charity. Many instinctively feel that Bonnie’s decision is morally unproblematic and superior to Adam’s. Adam is “creating dynastic wealth” and “giving his heirs an unfair headstart;” Bonnie is “doing good.” But is this intuition correct? What if Bonnie’s bequest paves the way for her grandchildren to be admitted to her selective alma mater? Simply adds to a wealthy university’s already large endowment without increasing the school’s educational offerings? Pays for a new boathouse for the crew team? Creates a perpetual private foundation through which her heirs will decide which local charities deserve large grants?

This Chapter analyzes the extent to which charitable bequests implicate the two predominant concerns motivating restrictions on wealth transfers. It first argues that charitable bequests which augment or maintain the head start of the donor’s family or other already-wealthy families exacerbate inequality of opportunity. Next, it argues that bequests to charities controlled by the donor’s family—whether private foundations or seemingly-outward facing public charities—can be tantamount to handing power down to one’s heirs, which implicates the concern that familial wealth transfers allow families to hand dynastic power down from one generation to the next, in contrast to democratic ideals.

darryll k. jones