On Inheritance

By Walter C. Johnson, Headmaster, Hackley Perspectives Spring 2013: I had a friend in English Graduate School, a philosophy undergraduate major, one of the most rationally rigorous thinkers I’ve known. His father was a multi-millionaire, which back in those days meant something. He had made clear that he didn’t believe in inheritance and would give all his wealth to charities. His children would have to make their own way. My friend was remarkably accepting of this. I in contrast couldn’t imagine not trying to persuade my father otherwise, had I been similarly situated.

As the headmaster of a school, I now have ample experience of the need of parents to do their best for their children -- including my own need as a parent. Sometimes, though, it’s a challenge to understand what that “best” might be. How would I have counseled my friend’s father on his son’s po­tential inheritance? As a twenty-something, I saw the father as self-involved, driven by his principles to a lack of consideration for his children; now I wonder if his principles were in fact driven primar­ily by such consideration for his children.

Let me forestall some anticipations -- this is not an essay against leaving our children money, nor in favor of confiscatory inheritance taxes. Neither is it a covert way of recommending that you leave your estate to Hackley. We can have that conversation another time! Given a choice between being rich or poor, I’d choose rich, and given a choice between leaving my children wealth or not, I’d choose wealth. I remember as a pre-school child there was a boy my age in our neighborhood offer­ing nickels for dimes. The thing was, nickels were bigger! Those of us with dimes thought we were getting a great deal. Even then I thought money was a good thing, but I wasn’t wise enough not to trade a greater value for a lesser.

When we imagine “the best” for our children, we inevitably project our own idea of the best. The imaginative challenge is simultaneously to see our children as separate from us -- beloved, but with their own identities. If we fail in that understand­ing, our idea of the best remains purely self-refer­ential. We have all had those conversations with our children in which we have assumed what our children should do and how they should respond; we’ve even patiently explained that to them. If they bend to our power as parents, we sometimes even believe we’ve succeeded in communicating, when in fact we may simply have treated our children instrumentally, without respect for their indepen­dent identity.

Kant’s categorical imperative enjoins that we treat all rational beings always as ends in them­selves, not merely as means. In other words, we need to respect their autonomy, their freedom as moral actors, and not undermine that autonomy to serve our own ends, even if that end is a desire to assure their material advantage -- or to assure they make good, moral choices. The irony is, we need to give them the freedom to make what we may see as the wrong choice in order to develop their ability to make the good choice.

In a famous mistranslation, Jesus is reported to have said “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Is it more difficult, then, for a rich man to act morally? Does wealth, which is a kind of power, tend to make us see oth­ers in terms of that power, rather than through the eyes of love? Are we more likely to treat others -- even our own children -- as objects of our will, limiting their freedom in our desire to serve their best interests?

The challenge for us as parents is that to achieve the “best” for our children, we need at some point, gradually, increasingly so as they progress through adolescence, to surrender our will to theirs. We need to give them the freedom that may put them at risk, knowing they may abuse it. The greatest gift to our children is our love, and the greatest expression of that love the gift of this freedom. We want to give our chil­dren wealth because wealth is a proxy for that freedom. We think that this power may make them more free when we’re not able to shield them with our power as parents.

As we give them wealth, though, we need to be sure we’re not trading dimes for nickels. Our children are experts in us! They watch what we do, not just what we say, and know us better than sometimes we might wish. We need to make sure the wealth we give them in fact supports freedom, rather than limiting it. If instead we unwittingly teach them to see the world as subject to their will, to use others instrumentally, we may contribute to their isolating themselves from any real love and friendship, which Kant teaches us can emerge only from respect for the other’s freedom.

We want our children first and foremost to be happy, to lead fulfilled and meaningful lives, and wealth is a tool towards that end. As parents and as teachers, we work together in this community to educate our children in the value of freedom, and in the wisdom to use it with love.

I don’t know what happened to the boy in my neighborhood, but I bet he’s accumulated a lot of dimes over the decades! As for my friend from graduate school, he has tried valiantly to live his life by principle, though I recall explain­ing to him that living consistently from prin­ciple was impossible for us as mortal beings. His attempt to do so, though, has brought him closer than anyone I know. Perhaps that’s the best definition of heroism -- to aspire sincerely to ideals you know you cannot attain. As parents, there’s nothing harder than giving your child the freedom to make mistakes, so perhaps that’s what makes parents heroic.