Fleischer: The morality of charitable bequests

Miranda Perry Fleischer (San Diego) has a chapter titled The morality of charitable bequests in a the new book Inheritance and the Right to Bequeath: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives (Routledge 2022). Here is the abstract for the chapter:

Although discussions of inheritance law and policy focus on private bequests to family members, decedents also bequeath large sums to charity – roughly $42 billion in 2020 in the United States alone. The place of charitable bequests has largely been overlooked in the philosophical literature, which tends to approach inheritance as the transfer of wealth between generations of the same family. Most theorists simply assume, with little discussion, that charitable bequests raise different policy concerns and should be given favourable treatment. This chapter explores the interaction of charitable bequest-giving and two common concerns of inheritance law and policy, namely equality of opportunity and the hereditary transmission of political and economic power over others. It argues that charitable bequests are not equal when it comes to alleviating such concerns, and in fact, some charitable bequests exacerbate them. To that end, priority should be given to charitable bequests that further the head start of the least-advantaged and that do not perpetuate family control over assets.

Lloyd Mayer