The ‘Food Bank’ case study is a very complex and sensitive topic. Here you have a completely selfless person, Michelle, who is simply trying to help the less fortunate. She is practicing Eudaimonia, maybe hoping that generous acts will lead t positive repercussions for all. However, it seem that her generous and productive acts may be backfiring on her. She receives food donations, which she then gives to those who need it. The problem is that the food that she keeps receiving is very unhealthy and is actually hurting the people who she is trying to act. Therefore, she tries a different method; she will only accept healthy and nutritious food donations. However, the problem with this is that now very few donations are coming in. All the hungry people are still hungry because they have nothing to eat. It seems as if generous acts are leading to harm, rather than good. Even though Socrates advocated generous acts as leading to positive things, nothing positive is coming out of Michelle’s actions. If we actually look at Socrates’’ life, we can see he actually suffered for his good deeds, just as people are suffering through Michelle’s good deeds.

First of all, Michelle and Tim both believe that they are doing the right thing. Michelle believes she is helping by only accepting healthy food, while Tim believes he is helping by demanding that all food products be collected. They are both acting generously and probably believe that generous acts benefit all; as stated by Aristotle in, Politics, generous acts are required to achieve happiness.1 Generous people enjoy giving, because not only does it help the people who are receiving, but also helps the people who are giving. Unfortunately, Michelle has fallen in that dire trap, where all the good she tries to do backfires on her. According to Plato’s, Dialogue, Socrates is punished by death for his teaching of wisdom; even though he thought that he was helping others search for wisdom, he was accused of corrupting the you and executed for it.2 The proposal that Tim is offering is equally as harmful, even though his intentions are in the right; to help the hungry. His proposal would just lead everyone back to the original problem and would be another example of good intentions leading to bad things happening. Could there be a solutions for these two that could solve the problem; providing people with food, while also making sure that they don’t sick or unhealthy from it

In my personal opinion, I don’t believe that a perfect solution exists to this dilemma. If Michelle continues with her plan, then very little food will be coming in and the people will go on being hungry. On the other hand, if Tim reverses Michelle’s setup, then people will have food, but it will be unhealthy and will make the people unhealthy and sick. Now, if these two really believe in helping hungry people, then maybe they could put up their own money. They could, if they could afford it, use their own money to buy healthy food for the people. This would require them to really sacrifice themselves, their resources to help others. As pointed out by Aristotle and Plato earlier, it doesn’t matter how generous and helpful someone is and it doesn’t matter how good their intend is, someone always ends up suffering. Whether the suffering is delivered to those who were being helped or those being helpful, someone will suffer. However, if the individual who is doing the helping can relieve the suffering of those who need the help by absorbing it themselves, then they should seriously consider it. If they’re really serious about helping others, then they need to consider sacrificing and hurting themselves to help those who really need it.

As mentioned earlier, the ‘Food Bank’ case study is a very complicated and sensitive dilemma. We have people who need serious help and people willing to lend a hand. Unfortunately, generosity and assistance leads to more suffering and further negative consequences than expected. Michelle seems to suffer a similar dilemma to that of Socrates; both are simply trying to help, yet more bad comes out of it than good. However, unlike Socrates’ case, where he was negatively affected and not the people he was interacting with, it is the hungry people and not Michelle who are suffering. If she keeps doing what she’s doing than all those hungry people will continue to be hungry; and if she reverts back to her old policy, than those people will be full, but sick and unhealthy. There aren’t too many things that Michelle and Tim can do to really help these people; to feed them without making them unhealthy. The best solution can I can come up with would be for these two to use their own money to buy healthy food for the food bank. This way, the people can eat healthy and nutritious food; they will be full and healthy. Michelle and Tim would suffer, but better them than the others.

Endnotes

1 Ernest Barker, trans. Aristotle, Politics. (Oxford University Press. Oxford, 1995), 1263bl 13-14.

2 Percy Bysshe Shelly, trans, Plato, Dialogues. (Simon and Schuster Paperbacks. New York, 2010), 24c-26a.

Bibliography

Barker, Ernest, trans. Aristotle, Politics. Oxford University Press. Oxford, 1995.

Shelly, Percy Bysshe, trans, Plato, Dialogues. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks. New York, 2010.