Keith has yet another thought provoking article up over at The Earth Blog. This time he takes on the world of the mega-giver, and asks a question many of us may not have. Is giving large amounts of money to certain causes really good for the world?

There is a well known Jewish concept called tzedakah, which roughly translates as “charity”. The 12th Century Jewish philosopher Maimonides, formalised tzedakah into 8 levels, each subsequent level being less righteous than the previous one. Taken in a secular sense they are as follows:

1. Giving a poor person work so he will not have to depend on charity
2. Giving charity anonymously to an unknown recipient
3. Giving it anonymously to a known recipient
4. Giving it to an unknown recipient
5. Giving it before being asked
6. Giving adequately after being asked
7. Giving willingly, but inadequately
8. Giving unwillingly

As a key facet of Jewish tradition, obviously charity has a long and often noble history. Philanthropy is defined as “charitable giving”, but the philanthropy we are most familiar with is that which links the giver of, often large sums of, money to the charitable cause. This is excellently described in Joseph Epstein’s article on celebrity giving, which notably exposes the link between giving and publicity. Epstein hints that such philanthropy doesn’t even lie on Maimonides’ scale; I would go further as to say that such “philanthropy” isn’t charity at all.

Read more here.