(1) I don't think that tipping is "altruism", but rather meeting a *special obligation*. I don't think it's "especially" morally regrettable when we use some of our resources to meet special obligations in a way that's impartially suboptimal. I would much prefer that people expanded their charity budget from out of their "personal luxuries" budget than from their "meeting special obligations" budget.
(2) Being suboptimal isn't sufficient to be "morally regrettable"; it depends what one otherwise would have done. Few people who stop tipping will use the savings to do more good. Most will just pocket the change. So it's morally preferable (rather than regrettable) that these people continue to tip.
On (1): I think many people do think of themselves as doing something altruistic when they tip. Consider especially all the areas of life that tips are asked of us now, beyond the restaurant; coffee shops, pick ups for food, etc. So this article will still be interesting there. Additionally, while I agree that it would be *even better* to take your donation money out of your normal budget rather than your tipping budget, it does seem as though there is something especially regrettable about wasting whatever money you *do* decide to use altruistically in very suboptimal ways.
On (2): I agree that it depends on the relevant subjunctive. But I guess what I have in mind is someone who thinks of their tip as doing good. If this is money you are *already* volunteering for others (for the sake of the good), it seems upon reflection of all the suffering in the world that it is sad that you decide to volunteer your money in this way.
I confess that I don't perceive a huge difference between "child vs tip" and "child vs pay-bill-rather-than-successfully-dine-and-dash". Aside from the actual probability and severity of punishment I face, legal requirement per se doesn't make me distinguish between the similar special obligations of bill and tip.
Yeah, that's a nice point. And one could go further and contrast "child vs. refrain from stealing from the cash register when no-one is looking", etc.
But surely we shouldn't regard it as a "morally regrettable" form of "suboptimal altruism" that people uphold pro-social norms and expectations against stealing, so...
Hmm that’s a good point! But I take it the difference is that “follow the law, even if you think you can do better yourself by violating it” tends to be a good decision procedure. We have to raise the level of generality a *lot* to say the same about tipping (eg recourse to the general goodness of pro-social norms).
A fire case. Very challenging. I hate tipping but, you know, social expectations and the like.
Actually- here's what I have thought about it. If you're eating out at a place that "requiries" (socially) a tip, then you're already either violating your moral obligations by eating out at a place unnecessarily expensive, or the moral costs of the expense are outweighed by the companionship or other goods that came from eating out with this group of people. In either case, tipping likely isn't going to magically align with the relevant cutoff point in either scenario. So, it isn't the tipping that we need to be concerned with, and the tips at least go more directly to someone rather than a corporation, unlike the bulk of the meal price.
Interesting. But idk! A 20% tip is pretty substantive, seems like it could make that difference. Especially when we consider the aggregate effect I mention in the post — we could have hundreds of billions of dollars going to charity if we all donated our tips instead!
Do you mean eating out? While I agree it’s also a huge cost, I think there’s something special about tips — namely, many people think they are being *altruistic* by tipping. There’s something regrettable about spending one’s altruistic energy in this way.
What do you think about Kershnar’s argument for the duty to tip? In a nutshell: in countries where tipping X amount is the norm, you implicitly promise to tip when you order, which generates a promissory duty to tip — you can avoid undertaking this obligation, but only by saying, beforehand, “I’m not going to tip”.
Hm, my first reaction is that I don’t think promises generate duties — they’re just good decision procedures for maximizing value. But set that aside. Nevertheless I would think that even if promises did generate duties, there are thresholds that clearly get outweighed by enough good. Just as I should disregard my promise to have lunch with you if I see someone who needs medical attention on the street, so too here with tipping and starving children.
I see your point. However, maybe I am missing something here, but wouldn’t this option of giving the tip money to starving children simply disappear if people started doing it more? The argument would go something like this:
Assuming:
- Restaurants operate under the assumption that tips pay most of the wage for waiters.
- Restaurants set the price of food such that revenue exceeds expenses by a modest amount (I am unsure of the site’s reliability, but on ZipRecruiter it says restaurant owners make ~$95K a year).
- The minimum wage amount that restaurants would be paying servers with no tips ($7.25 in many states) is inadequate to attract enough people to become waiters.
Then:
- Restaurants must increase the price of food to compensate for additional labor costs.
The amount it would increase seems variable, but I think there is reason that it would be around 20% because of existing salary expectations and to get a comparable amount of people to want to work as a waiter as there is now.
In effect, the 20% additional costs earmarked as altruistic in this scenario would just become a required cost. The only reason it needn’t exist now is because the tipping custom is so strong.
I agree that if restaurants did incorporate the tip price into the cost of the food, then this point about moral regret would no longer apply. But that’s not too weird or devastating! Because it’s still true that *insofar* as we are thinking that our tipping is justified for moral reasons, we are wrong.
Regarding donations, if you are morally obliged to give your $20 to a starving child, why not your second $20, and your third. You say you would prefer that the child not starve? But what about the second child? OK to let that one starve? Larissa MacFarquhar has an excellent book and an article about people who believe that you should give until you have nothing left.
Tipping is a social obligation imposed by restaurant owners who don’t want to pay their staff. Practically no one chooses to tip out of kindness (unless the service was outstanding or the server had a pretty face) or moral obligation. We tip because it would be socially awkward not to. We don’t even tip to get good service. The best service in the world is in Japan where tipping does not happen. We tip because the system is set up to require it. The system is set up that way because the server does not get paid enough. Everyone would be better off if no one tipped and the server were paid what she deserves (except the restaurant owner).
There might be another scenario where we should trade one act of kindness for another but neither side of this one works.
On “Why not Give More?”: I give this response in my response to the “Doesn’t this generalize?” objection. The key is that my claim wasn’t about moral obligation. It was about what is morally regrettable. In particular, I made the claim that it is morally regrettable to give away money you are already using to help others to not save those who need it most. This kind of regret is inapplicable to your other money. *Insofar* as you are using your money to help others, you should use *that* money to save children rather than fund the richest 2% of the population.
On it being a social obligation: interesting. Now, there’s a huge debate about what the purpose here is (whether it’s altruistic or social obligation or for purchasing an experience). Let’s suppose youre right. Well, then while the moral regrettable point might not be applicable, (though it will be for anyone who still does so out of altruism, and this argument should persuade one who tips for moral reasons), what it suggests is that this is an interesting way to *change* our social obligations! If we all, citing *moral reasons about donation*, stopped cooperating in allowing restaurants to underpay, we could plausibly change this social obligation! Though that is independent of the point you were making
Two quick thoughts:
(1) I don't think that tipping is "altruism", but rather meeting a *special obligation*. I don't think it's "especially" morally regrettable when we use some of our resources to meet special obligations in a way that's impartially suboptimal. I would much prefer that people expanded their charity budget from out of their "personal luxuries" budget than from their "meeting special obligations" budget.
(2) Being suboptimal isn't sufficient to be "morally regrettable"; it depends what one otherwise would have done. Few people who stop tipping will use the savings to do more good. Most will just pocket the change. So it's morally preferable (rather than regrettable) that these people continue to tip.
Thanks!
On (1): I think many people do think of themselves as doing something altruistic when they tip. Consider especially all the areas of life that tips are asked of us now, beyond the restaurant; coffee shops, pick ups for food, etc. So this article will still be interesting there. Additionally, while I agree that it would be *even better* to take your donation money out of your normal budget rather than your tipping budget, it does seem as though there is something especially regrettable about wasting whatever money you *do* decide to use altruistically in very suboptimal ways.
On (2): I agree that it depends on the relevant subjunctive. But I guess what I have in mind is someone who thinks of their tip as doing good. If this is money you are *already* volunteering for others (for the sake of the good), it seems upon reflection of all the suffering in the world that it is sad that you decide to volunteer your money in this way.
I confess that I don't perceive a huge difference between "child vs tip" and "child vs pay-bill-rather-than-successfully-dine-and-dash". Aside from the actual probability and severity of punishment I face, legal requirement per se doesn't make me distinguish between the similar special obligations of bill and tip.
Yeah, that's a nice point. And one could go further and contrast "child vs. refrain from stealing from the cash register when no-one is looking", etc.
But surely we shouldn't regard it as a "morally regrettable" form of "suboptimal altruism" that people uphold pro-social norms and expectations against stealing, so...
Hmm that’s a good point! But I take it the difference is that “follow the law, even if you think you can do better yourself by violating it” tends to be a good decision procedure. We have to raise the level of generality a *lot* to say the same about tipping (eg recourse to the general goodness of pro-social norms).
A fire case. Very challenging. I hate tipping but, you know, social expectations and the like.
Actually- here's what I have thought about it. If you're eating out at a place that "requiries" (socially) a tip, then you're already either violating your moral obligations by eating out at a place unnecessarily expensive, or the moral costs of the expense are outweighed by the companionship or other goods that came from eating out with this group of people. In either case, tipping likely isn't going to magically align with the relevant cutoff point in either scenario. So, it isn't the tipping that we need to be concerned with, and the tips at least go more directly to someone rather than a corporation, unlike the bulk of the meal price.
Interesting. But idk! A 20% tip is pretty substantive, seems like it could make that difference. Especially when we consider the aggregate effect I mention in the post — we could have hundreds of billions of dollars going to charity if we all donated our tips instead!
Yeah, at least you could construct examples where thats true.
Why not go after the 80% unnecessary cost rather than the 20%? That seems to me to be the worse problem
Do you mean eating out? While I agree it’s also a huge cost, I think there’s something special about tips — namely, many people think they are being *altruistic* by tipping. There’s something regrettable about spending one’s altruistic energy in this way.
Yes thats what I meant. Okay, I see!
What do you think about Kershnar’s argument for the duty to tip? In a nutshell: in countries where tipping X amount is the norm, you implicitly promise to tip when you order, which generates a promissory duty to tip — you can avoid undertaking this obligation, but only by saying, beforehand, “I’m not going to tip”.
Hm, my first reaction is that I don’t think promises generate duties — they’re just good decision procedures for maximizing value. But set that aside. Nevertheless I would think that even if promises did generate duties, there are thresholds that clearly get outweighed by enough good. Just as I should disregard my promise to have lunch with you if I see someone who needs medical attention on the street, so too here with tipping and starving children.
I see your point. However, maybe I am missing something here, but wouldn’t this option of giving the tip money to starving children simply disappear if people started doing it more? The argument would go something like this:
Assuming:
- Restaurants operate under the assumption that tips pay most of the wage for waiters.
- Restaurants set the price of food such that revenue exceeds expenses by a modest amount (I am unsure of the site’s reliability, but on ZipRecruiter it says restaurant owners make ~$95K a year).
- The minimum wage amount that restaurants would be paying servers with no tips ($7.25 in many states) is inadequate to attract enough people to become waiters.
Then:
- Restaurants must increase the price of food to compensate for additional labor costs.
The amount it would increase seems variable, but I think there is reason that it would be around 20% because of existing salary expectations and to get a comparable amount of people to want to work as a waiter as there is now.
In effect, the 20% additional costs earmarked as altruistic in this scenario would just become a required cost. The only reason it needn’t exist now is because the tipping custom is so strong.
I agree that if restaurants did incorporate the tip price into the cost of the food, then this point about moral regret would no longer apply. But that’s not too weird or devastating! Because it’s still true that *insofar* as we are thinking that our tipping is justified for moral reasons, we are wrong.
None of your objections go quite far enough.
Regarding donations, if you are morally obliged to give your $20 to a starving child, why not your second $20, and your third. You say you would prefer that the child not starve? But what about the second child? OK to let that one starve? Larissa MacFarquhar has an excellent book and an article about people who believe that you should give until you have nothing left.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/22/extreme-altruism-should-you-care-for-strangers-as-much-as-family
Tipping is a social obligation imposed by restaurant owners who don’t want to pay their staff. Practically no one chooses to tip out of kindness (unless the service was outstanding or the server had a pretty face) or moral obligation. We tip because it would be socially awkward not to. We don’t even tip to get good service. The best service in the world is in Japan where tipping does not happen. We tip because the system is set up to require it. The system is set up that way because the server does not get paid enough. Everyone would be better off if no one tipped and the server were paid what she deserves (except the restaurant owner).
There might be another scenario where we should trade one act of kindness for another but neither side of this one works.
On “Why not Give More?”: I give this response in my response to the “Doesn’t this generalize?” objection. The key is that my claim wasn’t about moral obligation. It was about what is morally regrettable. In particular, I made the claim that it is morally regrettable to give away money you are already using to help others to not save those who need it most. This kind of regret is inapplicable to your other money. *Insofar* as you are using your money to help others, you should use *that* money to save children rather than fund the richest 2% of the population.
On it being a social obligation: interesting. Now, there’s a huge debate about what the purpose here is (whether it’s altruistic or social obligation or for purchasing an experience). Let’s suppose youre right. Well, then while the moral regrettable point might not be applicable, (though it will be for anyone who still does so out of altruism, and this argument should persuade one who tips for moral reasons), what it suggests is that this is an interesting way to *change* our social obligations! If we all, citing *moral reasons about donation*, stopped cooperating in allowing restaurants to underpay, we could plausibly change this social obligation! Though that is independent of the point you were making
Down with tipping!