02b-schervish-moral biography of wealth

THE MORAL BIOGRAPHY OF WEALTH:PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS ON THE FOUNDATION OFPHILANTHROPYBY PAUL G. SCHERVISH* April 2005

Introduction

In this essay, I discuss the meaning of a moralbiography of wealth in an effort to explore the philosophicaland moral foundations of major gifts by major donors.Describing the intersection of capacity and moral purpose inthe life of donors, in general, and wealth holders, in particular,will clarify what is at stake as individuals attend to the deeperpurposes and prospects of their growing discretionary incomeand wealth. The present and future prospects of philanthropyare abundant. By understanding the meaning and practice ofmoral biography, donors and fundraisers alike will beequipped to forge an even more abundant allocation of wealthto philanthropy and in a more rewarding manner.

The term moral biography refers to the wayindividuals conscientiously combine two elements in dailylife: personal capacity and moral compass. Living a moralbiography is something as simple as leading a good life, andsomething as profound as following Aristotle’s teachings onfreedom and virtue. Understanding how wealth holdersapproach the ultimate meaning of life as a moral biographyand their wealth as a tool for care of others will helpfundraisers to work more closely and, ultimately, moreproductively with the donors they wish to bring into acollaborative relationship in the service of their institution’smission. My hope is that clarifying the meaning of a moralbiography will help fundraisers to understand their donorsbetter and to help their donors chart a path of greaterhappiness for themselves, their families, and others in theworld about whom they care. For the primary need of wealth

*Paul G. Schervish is Professor of Sociology and Director of theCenter on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, and ResearchFellow at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy. Schervishwas appointed a Fulbright Scholar for the 2000-2001 academic yearat University College Cork in the area of research on philanthropy.For the 1999-2000 academic year he was appointed DistinguishedVisiting Professor at the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy.He received a bachelor’s degree in literature from the University ofDetroit, a Masters in sociology from Northwestern University, aMasters of Divinity Degree from the Jesuit School of Theology atBerkeley, and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University ofWisconsin, Madison. He has been selected five times to theNonProfit Times, “Power and Influence Top 50,” a list whichacknowledges the most effective leaders in the non-profit world.Schervish serves regularly as a speaker and consultant on how tosurface and analyze the moral biographies of wealth holders, on themotivations for charitable giving, and on the spirituality of financiallife. Email: [email protected]

BOSTON COLLEGECENTER ON WEALTHAND PHILANTHROPY

About CWPThe Center on Wealth and Philanthropy(CWP) is a multidisciplinary research centerspecializing in the study of spirituality,wealth, philanthropy, and other aspects ofcultural life in an age of affluence. Foundedin 1970, CWP is a recognized authority onthe relation between economic wherewithaland philanthropy, the motivations forcharitable involvement, and the underlyingmeaning and practice of care.

The leading cultural and spiritual question ofthe current era is how to make wise decisionsin an age of affluence. The increase ofpersonal affluence and wealth has put beforeincreasing numbers of people the opportunityto decide something substantial: whether andhow they wish to move from an emphasis onthe quantity of their wants to the quality oftheir needs. The implication for charitablegiving is that we will increasingly findaffluent and wealthy individuals across allgenerations and business backgroundstending either to freely give as a path to carefor others and happiness for themselves, or topolitely meet quotas. In an environment ofliberty, giving that is extracted will beresisted; giving that is invited as a way fordonors to identify with the fate of others willbe honored.

Research SupportOver the past twenty years CWP has receivedgenerous support from the T.B. MurphyFoundation Charitable Trust, which fundedCWP's groundbreaking Study on Wealth andPhilanthropy; the Indiana University Centeron Philanthropy; the W. K. KelloggFoundation; the Lilly Endowment, Inc.; andthe Boston Foundation.

Contact InformationCenter on Wealth and PhilanthropyBoston CollegeMcGuinn Hall, 140 Commonwealth AvenueChestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467-3807Phone: (617) 552-4070Email: [email protected]: http://www.bc.edu/cwp

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Reprinted with permission from the April 2005 edition of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (pp. 477-492). Reproduction prohibited without publisher’s written permission.

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2 The Moral Biography of Wealth

holders today is the noble need of every person,namely to clarify and pursue their moralbiography in the quest for effectiveness andsignificance. Those who address philanthropyare always first addressing moral biography.

The moral vocation for all people in allages is to combine capacity and moral compassinto a moral biography. But the variation I wantto focus on here is the moral biography ofwealth. This is the distinctive combination ofcapacity and moral compass particular to thosewith sufficient financial capacity to shape andnot just live within the organizations andinstitutions of their day. For wealth holders themain difference is that figuring out and living amoral biography entails the responsibilities andrewards of greater financial capacity and a moresocially consequential moral compass.

In the first section, I provide severalexamples from literature and the contemporaryscene to demonstrate my definition of moralbiography as the confluence of capacity andcharacter. In the second section, I elaborate theelements of a moral biography, which I derivefrom Aristotle and sociologists who write aboutthe workings of human agency. In the thirdsection, I describe the characteristics ofconsciousness that, when present, make one’smoral biography a spiritual or religiousbiography. In the fourth section, I discuss theaspects of capacity and moral compass thatcomprise a moral biography of wealth. In thefifth section, I discuss how implementing aprocess of discernment will enable developmentprofessionals to work more deeply andproductively with their donors and potentialdonors. In the conclusion, I place the issue ofthe moral biography of wealth in a largerhistorical context and encourage advancementprofessionals to deepen their own moralbiography by working to deepen the moralbiography of their donors.

Moral Biography As the Confluence ofCapacity And Character

Several examples from history andliterature will help to clarify what I mean by amoral biography. The story of Moses as told inthe Book of Exodus and of Luke Skywalker inStar Wars are the most detailed of theseexamples. Moses is born a powerless son ofHebrew slaves, yet soon becomes the adoptedheir of the Pharaoh. He enjoys princelyempowerment and anticipates ascendancy to thethrone. But Moses gradually discovers his truebloodline, realizes that the power he wields lacks

true moral compass, abdicates his right tosuccession, and flees to the mountains. There inthe highlands, with no greater capacity than thatof a stout shepherd and faithful spouse, hereceives a new mandate from the Lord cloaked inthe burning bush. Moses protests that he lacksthe power to accomplish his mission and,besides, he stutters. The Lord promises Mosesan arsenal of miraculous powers to face downthe Pharaoh and says Aaron his brother will helphim speak. And so it happens. Moses, imbuedwith the confluence of material capacity andmoral purpose, breaks the resolve of the Pharaoh,parts the waters of the Red Sea, and, with moraldirection becoming geographical bearing, leadshis people through the desert from the claytowers of slavery to the land flowing with milkand honey. Nearing the final chapter of hisgospel, Moses falters in trust and obedience,striking the rock for water twice rather than onceas the Lord commanded. As punishment for thislapse in character, the Lord arrests Moses’sgeographical progression at the outskirts of thepromised land.

Because of its fairy-tale simplicity andcosmic overtones, Star Wars also exemplifies thefundamental components of a moral biographythat we similarly find in the sagas of Superman,Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, The Lord of theRings and the like. Luke Skywalker, the hero ofthe original three films, enters the story as adutiful orphan farm boy with no special capacityor moral compass other than to help his aunt anduncle tend their farm on the desert planetTatooine. But he soon becomes caught up in thegalactic confrontation between the Rebellioninvolving a diminishing cadre of Jedi Knightsembodying the moral compass of the good sideof “the Force,” and the Empire, represented byformer Jedi Darth Vader, who has becomealigned to the dark side. When Vader’s troopersmurder his guardians, Skywalker’s familiarcapacity and moral bearing are thrown intodisarray, and he takes up a regime of Jeditraining to assist the Republic. The more hebecomes implicated in the interstellar struggle,the more Skywalker must turn to his Jedimentors to obtain a more powerful capacity anda wiser moral compass. At times his buddingpowers exceed the strength of his character,imperiling himself and his companions. At othertimes, Skywalker’s moral purpose outstrips hisstill developing capacity, and he enters a frayunprepared. Eventually, Skywalker fullyacquires a Jedi moral biography and, in astruggle unto death, rekindles Vader’s noblemoral compass.

Reprinted with permission from the April 2005 edition of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Volume 35, and Issue No. 3 (pp. 477-492). Reproduction prohibited without publisher’s written permission.


The confluence of capacity and moralcompass is also the theme of Jesus’s life. Eachof the four Gospels tells how Jesus possessedboth the physical power to work miracles andrise from the dead and the strength of characterto resist temptations, teach and live the Sermonon the Mount, minister to his followers, andsacrifice his life. Homer’s story of Odysseusreturning home from the battle of Troy andVirgil’s account of Aeneus establishing Romeboth recount how well gods and mortals linkphysical and mental prowess with moral purposeand wisdom. For instance, Odysseus uses his witto navigate the treacherous straits between Scyllaand Charybdis and to avoid the seduction of theSirens’ melody. For his part, Aeneus mustrepeatedly recover his moral and geographicbearings to keep from dallying in Crete andbeing sidetracked in Carthage by his love affairwith Dido.

Our contemporary world also offersexamples. Mother Teresa’s moral compass ledher to muster the resources of companions anddonors to care for those she called “the poorestof the poor.” Closer to home, we hearpresidential candidates recounting their lives asmorality tales, telling how in the past theydeployed public resources and personal skills inthe service of moral purpose, and how in thefuture, they will do so better than theiropponents.

Despite the larger-than-life quality ofmany of the foregoing examples, they are, in theend, only heightened instances of how each of usapplies resources in the service of a moralpurpose--be that running a business, raisingchildren with care, completing a college degree,buying a house, or making donations to charity.

The Elements of a Moral Biography

In this section I delve more deeply intothe theory and concepts of moral biography,asking the reader to refer back to the previousexamples, to their own experience, and to thebiographies of their donors in order capture themeaning of moral biography in its concreteexpressions. My starting point for discussingthe elements of a moral biography is Aristotle’sphilosophy of the good life. Figure 1 provides adiagram of Aristotle’s thinking. In theNicomachean Ethics, Aristotle reasons to theconclusion that the goal of life is happiness andthat achieving happiness results from an everdeeper realization of the purpose of life.Happiness is what we today would call an innerapprehension that life is full and fulfilling. Suchhappiness is never finally achieved, because we

experience an ever-receding horizon of needsthat pulls us away from unhappiness and towarddeeper happiness. For Aristotle, we achievegreater happiness by making wise choices. Assuch, the simplest definition of a moralbiography is a life engaged in making wisechoices. Aristotle (1999: III.1) insists on theimportance of both elements of the good life: thefreedom to choose and the virtue of wisejudgments or practical wisdom (phronesis) (seealso VI.7). Freedom is the ability to decide withliberty among a range of alternatives. Wisdom isthe virtue of sensitized knowledge that lendsdirection to the choices people make. There canbe no virtue without having the freedom forvoluntary choice; and there can be no truefreedom without the virtue of wisdom.

Figure 2 is my elaboration of what Ihave culled from Aristotle. It represents the fruitof some of my research and draws on the workof several social scientists whose work onagency I find valuable (e.g. Giddens 1984;Sewell 1992; Emirbayer and Mische 1998).Starting at the top of the figure, a moralbiography is the perpetual migration of achoosing agent from genesis to telesis, fromhistory to aspiration. Genesis is the startingcondition within which we act. It refers to boththe ultimate and more immediate origins of theworld and our personal life. Genesis is the set ofsocial and personal conditions within whichagency takes place. It is the chosen andunchosen past that constitutes the givencircumstances of our lives. These include theconstraints, resources, knowledge, feelings, andvalues within which all our choices are made.These initial conditions do not decide ourchoices in the narrow sense of determinism. Butthey are what we have to work with, for examplea happy or homeless childhood, a prospering orfailing business, a confident or hesitantpersonality, and so forth.

Telesis is the destiny of outcomestoward which we aspire. It can be anintermediate goal situated within the context ofan ultimate goal, or it can be the ultimate goal oflife. As the end we wish to achieve or thedestiny we wish to shape, telesis is related to thepossibilities, aspirations, needs, desires, andinterests we are drawn to achieve. Although wemay have shaped conditions in the past, they arenevertheless what our agency has to work with atany point in time. In contrast,aspirations—although ultimately limited by thereality around us and by our ability to imagineand achieve alternatives—are the allies offreedom that invite us to transcend and transformthe conditions of the past. Genesis is about the



conditions we receive, telesis is about theconsequences we strive to create.

If genesis concerns what is in the pastand telesis concerns what can be in the future,agency is about what we are doing in the presentto close the gap between history and aspiration.Agency derives from the Latin agere, meaning todo or to act. Agency is the enactment of choice,both about weighty issues and everyday matters.It is carried out in the environment of conditionswith which we are faced. But it is orientedtoward transcending those conditions in the lightof the needs, desires, and objectives thatmotivate our choices. As such, a moralbiography is the sequence of acts of agency orwise choices we make in the context of where wehave come from and where we want to go.

Moving down and through Figure 2, wecome to the discussion of capacity and moralcompass. Since I have already said a lot aboutthis, I will be brief. I use a variety of terms todescribe capacity and moral compass in order tocapture other dimensions of the factors whichanimate agency. Each dimension of capacitylisted in the left-hand box can be paired with anydimension of moral compass listed in the right-hand box, and visa versa. In addition tospeaking about a moral biography as theintersection of capacity and moral compass orempowerment and character, we can describe itas the crossroad of freedom and purpose,effectiveness and significance, energy andstrength of character, capital and value, andmaterial wherewithal and spiritual wherewithal.Identifying our own terms for the confluence ofcapacity and moral compass, both in general andin particular circumstances, is a path to selfknowledge and is itself an important act of moralagency.

Spiritual Biography

Before leaving the topic of historicalconditions and achievable aspirations, I want todiscuss what makes a moral biography a spiritualbiography. Thus far I have used the adjectivesmoral and spiritual interchangeably. And whileI do not want to make too much of the distinctionnow, I do recognize from my personal interviewswith individuals from across the economicspectrum how readily and explicitly they speakabout the spiritual dimension of their life.

In my model, a spiritual biographyexists when the capacity and moral compass of amoral biography derive from one’s ultimateorigin and seeks to advance one’s ultimatepurpose. An ultimate purpose, explains

Aristotle, is that self-determined end that peopleidentify as their fundamental goal of life. It isthat end, says Aristotle (1999: I.2.1. and I.7),which through a successive sequence of testingturns out to be that purpose which serves noadditional purpose. An important goal may be toobtain an education or buy a house. But in bothcases I can identify a deeper goal such ashappiness that education and owning a houseserve in turn. A simple further distinction is todefine a religious biography as one that considersthe ultimate genesis and telesis of one’s life to beconnected to what Rudolf Otto (1923) calls thenuminous, a being or force to which we bow ourhead in a relationship of worship. Those whoconsider their ultimate end to be akin toMaslow’s notion of self-actualization orHeidegger’s participation in Being would belikely to define their moral biography asspiritual. Those whose ultimate end is to enterinto the unity of love of God, love of neighbor,and love of self, as Aquinas puts it, would belikely to understand their moral biography asreligious.

The Moral Biography of Wealth

Thus far I have spoken about moralbiography in general. I now want to discusswhat is different about capacity and moralcompass in a moral biography of wealth. Putsimply, the difference is that wealth holdersenjoy a substantially elevated level of materialcapacity and a more socially consequential moralcompass. They have the capacity to produce andnot just enter into alternatives and a moralcompass of great expectations, aspirations, andresponsibilities. Wealth holders are Moses of theExodus rather than Moses of the highlands, LukeSkywalker the Jedi Knight rather than Skywalkerthe orphan farm hand.

The exciting prospect of exploringthe moral biography of wealth today is thatthere is an inner connection between thehorizons of wealth and spiritual life. Thegrowing material capacity that is creatingmore wealth holders is accompanied by newchallenges and opportunities for character andcharacter formation. In his 1930 essay, “TheEconomic Possibilities for OurGrandchildren,” John Maynard Keynes wroteabout the growth in financial wealth and itsimplications for the growth in spiritual wealth.According to Keynes, “[t]he economicproblem [of scarcity] may be solved, or at leastwithin sight of solution, within a hundredyears. This means that the economic problem



is not—if we look into the future—thepermanent problem of the human race” [italicsin the original] (1930 [1933], p. 366). “I lookforward,” he continues, “to the greatest changewhich has ever occurred in the materialenvironment of life for human beings in theaggregate… Indeed, it has already begun.The course of affairs will simply be that therewill be ever larger and larger classes andgroups of people from whom problems ofeconomic necessity have been practicallyremoved” (p. 372). The consequence of liftingeconomic necessity will be that “for the firsttime since his creation man will be faced withhis real, his permanent problem—how to usehis freedom from pressing economic cares,how to occupy the leisure, which science andcompound interest will have won for him, tolive wisely and agreeably and well” (p. 367).

We can see that Keynes forecasts bothan unprecedented material horizon and thecultural consequences that flow from it. Theeconomic possibilities he charts become thefoundation for new spiritual possibilities. I willdiscuss each in turn. But like Keynes, I willspend more time on the latter, for we are only atthe dawn of the spiritual and culturaltransformation Keynes envisioned, and so mostwealth holders know more about the economicthan the spiritual prospects of their wealth.

Growth in Capacity

From 1950 through the third quarter of2004 the annual real rate of growth in wealth hasbeen 3.31%, despite the fact that nine recessionsoccurred over this period. In 1985 when I firstbegan my research on wealth and philanthropy,the big news was that the day had arrived whenthe United States had one million millionaires.Today there are over 8 million households with anet worth of $1 million or more in today’sdollars, and over 5 million householdscontrolling for inflation since 1985. In the 2004edition of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 312are billionaires and it now takes a net worth of$675 million to make the list. My colleague,John Havens, calculates from the FederalReserve Survey of Consumer Finances that ofthe 106.5 million households in the U.S. 436,000households had net worth of $10 million or morein 2001. Of these about 7000 households had networth of $100 million or more, 16,500households had net worth of $50 million to $100million, and 412,100 had net worth of $10million to $50 million. Even from 1998 through2003—a period that included the recent

recession, 9/11, the bursting of the technologybubble, and the general stock marketdecline—private wealth in the nation has stillgrown at a real average annual rate of 2.6%.

Other indicators of the burgeoning ofwealth come from Havens and my wealthtransfer projections. We estimate that in 2002dollars an unprecedented $45 trillion to $150trillion in wealth transfer, just from estates offinal decedents, will occur over the next fivedecades and that this will produce between $7trillion and $27 trillion in charitable bequests. Ina separate projection for the same period, weestimate that lifetime giving will provide anadditional $15 trillion to $28 trillion in charitablecontributions. Taken together, charitablebequests and lifetime giving will range from $22trillion to $55 trillion, with between 52% and65% of this amount being contributed byhouseholds with $1 million or more in net worth.Given the 3.31%real annual rate of growth inwealth between 1950 and the third quarter of2004 there is every reason to expect that theactual wealth transfer and amount of totalcharitable giving will be closer to the upperestimates (based on 4% annual real growth inwealth) than the lower ones (based on 2% realgrowth).

Hyperagency

These national trends in growth inwealth and the ability to contribute substantialamounts to charity indicate that not only arethere more wealth holders with greater net worth,but that a growing proportion of them havesufficiently solved their personal “economicproblem” so as to make major gifts to charity. Inregard to a moral biography of wealth, theforegoing statistics are important because theyindicate the growing capacity of wealth holdersto make choices. On every dimension ofcapacity listed in Figure 2, the possession ofmaterial wealth offers the opportunity forhyperagency. Wealth holders have a broaderarray of choices, alternatives, capital, energy andeffectiveness at their disposal. Such capacityprovides wealth holders with the opportunity notonly to be agents but what I call hyperagents (seeSchervish, 1997 and Schervish, Coutsoukis, andLewis, 1994).

Hyperagency refers to the institution-building capacity of wealth holders. Mostpeople spend theirs lives as agents living withinthe established workings of the organizationalenvironments in which they find themselves.Hyperagents too spend a good part of their lives



as agents in this sense. But when and where theydesire to do so, they are capable of formingrather than just working within institutionalsettings. While not all hyperagents are wealthholders, all wealth holders are hyperagents atleast in the material realm. They can apply theirmaterial resources to shape the tangible world.

Hyperagents, then, are world builders.While most of us are agents who attempt to findthe best place for ourselves within existingsituations, hyperagents, when they choose, arefounders of the institutional framework withinwhich they and others will work. What takes asocial, political, or philanthropic movement foragents to accomplish, hyperagents canaccomplish relatively single-handedly. They candesign their houses from the ground up, createthe jobs and businesses within which they work,tailor-make their clothes and vacations, endowtheir children, and create new foundations, newphilanthropic enterprises, and new directions forexisting charities. When we speak about today’sdonors being entrepreneurial or venturephilanthropists, we are pointing to their capacityand disposition to shape and not just participatein the goals and accomplishments of the causesand charities they fund. While most of usparticipate as supporters of charitableenterprises, wealth holders, when they choose todo so, are producers of them.

The Moral Compass of Wealth

Hyperagency is more than simply aworld-building capacity. It is also apsychological orientation of moralcompass. In regard to the telesis ofaspiration, wealth holders harbor greatexpectations, view them as legitimate,and possess the confidence to achievethem. The question is how liberationfrom economic necessity changes thenature of wealth holders’ greatexpectations. In addition to chartingemerging economic possibilities,Keynes describes the transformation inmoral compass that economic securitywill evoke. “When the accumulation ofwealth is no longer of high socialimportance, there will be great changesin the code of morals,” he predicts.“We shall be able to rid ourselves of themany pseudo-moral principles. . . bywhich we have exalted some of themost distasteful of human qualities intothe position of the highest virtues” (p.369).

Although Keynes argues that a changein material environment will spawn a sea changein spiritual consciousness, he does not condemnas lacking moral compass those who continue tofocus on generating wealth. For “the time for allthis is not yet” (p. 372). Still he does insist thatgreat wealth offers opportunities for a broaderand deeper horizon of aspirations andresponsibilities. Until Moses received thecapacity to defeat the Pharaoh, part the Red Sea,and provide manna from the skies, the aspirationto return to the land flowing with milk and honeywas not a workable dream. Only with releasefrom the pressing demands of slavery was therethe freedom of time and resources for theIsraelites “to live wisely and agreeably andwell.” So too for today’s wealth holders.Although the greatest service of manywill continue to be through business andinvestment, there is a new dimension ofmoral compass that Keynes says cantransform the moral biography ofwealth holders. This will occur whenthe accumulation of additional wealthceases to be a primary objective for anindividual and wealth becomes aninstrument, a tool to accomplish otherends. It is Keynes’s aspiration that“[t]he love of money as apossession—as distinguished from thelove of money as a means to theenjoyments and realities of life—will berecognized for what it is, a somewhatdisgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensitieswhich one hands over with a shudder tothe specialists in mental disease” (p.369).

When individuals are in theaccumulation phase of their life, making money,although seldom the ultimate end of life, isusually a high-priority intermediate end. Whenindividuals reach a level of subjectively definedfinancial security, there is the potential for a shiftin moral compass whereby the accumulation ofwealth ceases to be an end and becomes morefully a means to achieve other ends. Such endsmay be retirement, providing an inheritance,pursuing a hobby, or enjoying more leisure. ButKeynes suggests an additional prospect, namely,a change in “the nature of one’s duty to one’sneighbour. For it will remain reasonable to beeconomically purposive for others after it hasceased to be reasonable for oneself” (372). Theshift of wealth from an end to a means, then, isarguably the most significant transformation ofcapacity and character for individuals who have



solved or are close to solving the economicproblem.

Discerning Moral Biography

Because it is not easy to decipher the moralcompass that will guide their great capacity, wehear much from wealth holders about theturmoil, worry, and dilemmas they face in regardto how their riches shape the moral biographiesof themselves, their children, and those theyaffect in business and in philanthropy.Acquiring great wealth, it turns out, is thebeginning, not the end, of a moral biography ofwealth. As a result, there is a growing need for aprocess of conscientious self-reflection by whichwealth holders discern how to complement thegrowth in their material quantity of choice with acommensurate growth in the spiritual quality ofchoice. Wealth holders who have achieved orare approaching financial security do not need toown more money but to discern the moralcompass that will direct the deployment of theirwealth.

Of course, individuals and their families cancarry out this process of clarification informallyand without the assistance of others. But mostwealth holders will benefit from engaging inwhat I call an extended archeologicalconversation with their trusted advisors,including development professionals. Suchconversation follows the principle thatarcheology precedes architecture, that self-discovery comes before defining andimplementing a financial or estate plan. In anarcheological conversation, advisors andfundraisers serve as counselors in order to helpwealth holders uncover the ideas, emotions, andactivities that shaped their moral biography inthe past, and identify the moral bearings andpurposes that they wish to advance now and intothe future. It offers the opportunity to examinethe major turning points in life, the people andcircumstances that shaped them, the hurts andhappinesses that ensued, and an agenda for thefuture. In an archeological conversation, wealthholders discern their capacities, clarify theirmoral purposes, and combine the two in a waythat creates a moral biography of wealth forthemselves, their children, and others for whomthey care. When this process of discernment iscarried out with no hidden agendas and with thepurpose of helping wealth holders uncover theirtrue aspirations, a deeper commitment tophilanthropy invariably ensues.

Conclusion

Throughout this paper, I haveemphasized several themes. The dramaticgrowth in wealth has spawned unprecedentedfreedom, material choice, and capacity. It hasalso generated unique spiritual horizons of moralcompass for a growing number of wealthholders. As a result, the overriding questionfacing most wealth holders today is how to fulfilltheir need for making wiser choices to forge themoral biography of wealth in their life.

The distinctive trait of wealth holders inall eras is that they enjoy the fullest range ofchoice in determining and fulfilling who theywant to become and what they want to do forthemselves, their families, and the world aroundthem. Today, increasing numbers of individualsare approaching, achieving, or even exceedingtheir financial goals with respect to the provisionfor their material needs, and doing so at youngerand younger ages. A level of affluence thatheretofore was the province of a scattering ofrulers, generals, merchants, industrialists, andfinanciers has come to characterize wholecultures. For the first time in history, thequestion of how to align broad material capacityof choice with spiritual capacity of character hasbeen placed before so many of a nation’s people.There is of course nothing in world-buildinghyperagency that requires virtue and wisdom.Today’s Pharaohs of financial skullduggery andtotalitarianism demonstrate that well enough.An expanded quantity of choice does notguarantee that there will be a finer quality ofchoice. But quantity of choice always promptsthe question about the moral purpose of a moralbiography that is released from economicconstraint. Making free and wise choices aboutwealth allocation for the deeper purposes of life,especially for philanthropy, is now and willbecome ever increasingly the prominent featureof financial morality and personal fulfillment forhigh net worth individuals. Understanding thecomponents of moral biography as capacity andmoral compass, working with donors to freelyand intelligently discern their capacity and moralcompass, and offering opportunities that fulfilldonors’ desire simultaneously to increase theirown happiness and the happiness of others is thesterling new vocation and, indeed, moralbiography of development and advancementprofessionals.1 I am grateful to The T. B. Murphy Foundation CharitableTrust, the John Templeton Foundation, and to the LillyEndowment, Inc. for supporting the research and writing ofthis article.



Figure 1

Aristotle’s EthicsHappiness and Wise Choices

Current StatusWhere one is

Partial happiness

Ultimate End of LifeWhere one wants tobe

Greater happinessMeans to Obtain One’sGoal

Wise Choices

FreedomCapacity for alternatives

WisdomSensitized knowledge that lends direction



��

• �� • Where one is• Partial happiness

TelesisAspirations• Ultimate end of

life• Where one

wants to be• Greater happiness

AgencyMoral Biography• Means to attain one’s

goal• Wise choices• Gospel

CapacityEmpowerment

• Choices• Freedom• Effectiveness• Vigor (energy)• Capital• Material wherewithal

Moral CompassCharacter

• Wisdom• Purpose• Significance• Virtu (virtue)• Value• Spiritual wherewithal



References

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1999. 2nd ed. Ed. andtrans. Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: HackettPublishing Company, Inc.

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Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society:Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Berkeley,CA: University of California Press.

Keynes, John Maynard. 1930/1933. “The EconomicPossibilities for Our Grandchildren.” In Essays inPersuasion. New York: MacMillan.

Otto, Rudolf. 1925. The Idea of the Holy. London:Oxford University Press.

Schervish, Paul G. 1997. "Major Donors, Major Motives:The People and Purposes Behind Major Gifts."New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising:Developing Major Gifts, 16: 85-112.

Schervish, Paul G., Platon Coutsoukis, and Ethan Lewis.1994. Gospels of Wealth: How the Rich Portraytheir Lives. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Schervish, Paul G., Mary A. O’Herlihy, and John J.Havens. 2001. “Agent Animated Wealth andPhilanthropy: The Dynamics of Accumulationand Allocation Among High-Tech Donors."Social Welfare Research Institute, BostonCollege. Final Report of the 2001 High-TechDonors Study.

Sewell, William H. Jr. 1992. “A Theory of Structure:Duality, Agency, and Transformation.” AmericanJournal of Sociology, 98(1): 1-29.
