Nussbaum and Levmore on Inheritance, Philanthropy, and Aging
Is It Unethical for People to Pass Their Wealth On to Their Children?
Helaine Olen: Why do people give money away both before they die and in their final wills? Are there different motivations in each case?
Saul Levmore: Well, that’s a really good question. Some people give money away, I think, as a way to live forever.
Martha Nussbaum: I think it’s a surrogate immortality, in a lot of cases. People realize that their life is ending, but they want some imprint on the world that is identified with them. Of course, that can take many forms, not just giving money away. It can take the form of building a building, or whatever. But I think the reason that givers to institutions so often want to name a building is they really want their imprint to be on the world in some kind of durable, etched-in-stone way. They don’t want to be forgotten.
Olen: And what are the attractions of giving money away while alive?
Levmore: It’s unsurprising when you see the Bill Gateses of the world give away a lot of money while they’re still alive, because you can watch what people do with it—you can see who’s doing and a good job and a bad job, and then give more to some places than to others, and so forth.
I think most people would prefer to give it away while they are alive and to see the progress that's made. It's just that they’re unsure about their longevity and about their future economic needs. But I think it’s natural to earmark money and have it go for some new building when you die, if you really felt like you have lots and lots of wealth.
Nussbaum: It’s also that people want to give it away before they die in order to avoid the estate tax—which may disappear, shortly. Therefore universities hate the idea that the estate tax would go away. But this is also influenced by social norms. I find that in Europe, it’s much harder to get rich people to give money away, because their peer community of rich people doesn’t honor that, as much.
Read more at The Atlantic