ABSTRACT
Why do people give their income to philanthropy? An influential hypothesis, known as “The Warm Glow Theory of Giving,” posits that donors derive pleasure from their charity donations in the form of a good self-image, apart from the desirable effects of their donations on the recipients (Andreoni, 1989, 1990, 2016). I first explain why the hypothesis of the warm glow is a solution to the free-riding problem of charity acts. I then distinguish between two ways of making sense of the claim that donors value their act, apart from their good effects on the recipient. One is to suppose that donors value their donations as if they were wholly non-instrumental activities. Another is to think that they consider their donations as evidence of their moral worth. The plausibility of these two versions is discussed considering Jon Elster's objection to the warm glow theory of giving as one that turns the aim of giving into what can only come as its by-products (Elster, 2006, 2011, 2013). I show that Elster convincingly objects to a desire to experience the warm glow as one that “does not make sense.” Elster is less persuasive, I argue, when he objects to that desire as a self-defeating one.
