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North American Philosophical Publications

The Morality of Tipping Author(s): Mark P. Mailer Source: Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Jul., 1993), pp. 231-239 Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of North American Philosophical Publications Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40435848 Accessed: 16-05-2017 21:22 UTC

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Public Affairs Quarterly

Volume 7, Number 3, July 1993

THE MORALITY OF TIPPING

Mark P. Mailer

custom of tipping service workers is frequently considered a moral obligation, and though rarely a subject of moral discourse, it deserves

closer scrutiny and understanding. The intention here is to challenge why tipping is justified by discussing its most common reasons, and to show that there is no moral justification for it, that it is grounded in custom, but not in sound moral judgment.

Why, then, do people tip service workers who perform a personal serv- ice, such as waiting at their table, driving to a destination, or carrying their luggage in a hotel? Almost all people feel that workers expect to be tipped, regardless of the service, and 71% of those surveyed feel obligated to tip, even if service does not meet their standards.1 If customers do not tip (or significantly under tip), they risk embarrassment to others in their party and the worker - in the event of future business. Most people would rather not offend, or at least shun disapproval, verbal or nonverbal, or other nega- tive reactions, such as less friendly behavior and slower service. Some tip to avoid guilty feelings, and many others derive pleasure from their gener- osity. Of course, speedy, friendly service is the major motivator. In fact, the word tip is derived from "To Insure Promptitude."2

These reasons and others like them are grounded in the customer's own self-benefit, not the worker's, and thus in a hedonistic egoism. The egoist's sole moral obligation is to create as much pleasure and least suffering for himself. Even when the egoist tips generously, far from having the worker's welfare in mind, he is buying the kind of personal service he wants in that business, that which pleases him the most. Minimally, he will gain more respect or esteem from his recipients, and that can be worth the money itself.

The other type of tipping is based primarily on sympathy toward the service worker, and is distinguished from egoistic tipping. Sympathetic tipping occurs when customers expect no personal benefit, such as better service, preferred seats or products - when traveling, for instance - nor do they derive special pleasure from it, or feel guilt from not tipping. They tip because they believe it is morally right, and not to do so would be less than

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232 PUBLIC AFFAIRS QUARTERLY

virtuous and possibly immoral. An affinity of feeling is struck toward the worker, perhaps because of the notion that they work hard and earn less. (Female workers particularly seem to elicit more sympathy from other fe- males who identify with them.) For these customers, a sense of common feeling for/with the service worker justifies a tip, and this justification engenders their moral judgment confirming this action right.

It is not argued here that this tipping is unjustified (assuming acceptable service), but only that it cannot be claimed to be morally justified. This kind of claim must be stricter and defined in its ethical implications for all, but this has not been done, and the case is difficult. Customers may suggest that tipping is morally obligatory even with average or below average serv- ice, and though tips may be reduced, they're usually not withheld. These customers hold that this moral obligation, based on their sympathy, is sound regardless of the establishment, the relative wealth of the customer and worker and other factors. This type of tipping presents the strongest defense, as egoistic tipping is less controversial, and besides, is open to the weaknesses of ethical egoism itself.3 My arguments concentrate more on sympathetic tipping but apply to both types.

There are several reasons for holding that tipping is morally obligatory. 1. It is said tipping encourages better service, specifically and overall,

which in turn permits the worker to keep his/her job, keeps the company in business with lower prices, and ultimately improves the retail economy of the community and nation. Is this claim true? Consider, that as tipping has become so standard and universal, regardless of the service, superior excel- lent service then becomes devalued and not as well rewarded. The incen-

tive to excel is sharply reduced, and even when meritorious work is no longer the aim, excellence becomes only occasional, contingent (on numer- ous factors), not the rule. Just as the purpose of tipping is to reward or encourage good service, not tipping shouldn't necessarily suggest poor service, but simply that competence alone will not be rewarded. Generally, as a business rule one is not specially rewarded simply for doing one's job. Work competence alone is not a sufficient condition for monetary bonuses. Yet certain occupations, usually in the hospitality business, are the excep- tions by the force of custom. Truly exceptional service, as defined by each individual, (recognized by top management as a high priority for business), is worth tipping well.

If competence becomes the necessary and sufficient condition, every worker within certain occupations will receive tips as a rule, and those who are satisfied with their 15%-20% have no incentive to strive beyond (in many cases) to a mediocre competent level.4 Also, reducing or withholding tips doesn't imply the business will lose money, as customers may spend more on products and services. Free enterprise, based on keep competition, naturally weeds out (or should) less than competent service, and in the end,

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THE MORALITY OF TIPPING 233

management with better service earns more profit, while the others, ideally, wither away. Some might argue that without tips the cost of services would increase, perhaps significantly. However, it is also possible that many busi- nesses (especially large and financially sound) will not have to raise prices, and prudently find other ways to absorb the cost which won't (or mini- mally) affect customers. But assuming prices are raised and enough cus- tomers choose not to patronize those services, prices may have to be lowered to their original level, or if necessary, businesses might create new services for their additional profit.5 2. Although tipping sometimes appears rational and logical, appealing to

common sense, it is equally arbitrary, irrational and unjust. Consider, for example, retail sales clerks. They are never tipped, and yet often spend more time on each customer, receive about the same wages (working with- out commission) as waitresses, bartenders, cabdrivers, etc., and work at least as hard, depending on their employers. They're expected to know their merchandise, operate cash registers, and persuade customers to make purchases. Yet waiters usually do little more than take the order and bring it to you. Bartenders do not even need to walk the floor. Gas station atten- dants with full service, repairmen, other restaurant staff, and airline atten- dants all provide personal services yet never receive tips, though their work is just as deserving. Generally, this is a cross-cultural world custom, excepting those governments which discourage or limit tipping. So, what do waiters/waitresses, porters, hair stylists, cabdrivers, doormen, etc. have in common, besides providing personal services? Apparently, only the time-honored custom of receiving tips, whether earned or not, whether they're well-paid or not, educated or illiterate, first day on the job, or a seasoned professional.6

I do not argue that these workers shouldn't receive tips, but that the entire custom is grounded purely and solely on tradition (including implied expectation), not on moral obligation, duty, or rights. That they ought to receive tips cannot be derived from the factual premise that they do receive them and have done so in the past. Yet this shift from a sociological obser- vation to a moral conclusion is exactly what so many tipping customers and workers hold true and valid. Yet this shift is unsound, despite the weight of public opinion and policy which seems to indicate otherwise. Ask a regular tipper why he or she tips, and after repeated questioning, they will imply or suggest that it's the right thing to do, not because serv- ice was exceptional, or to ensure future good service, or due to a liking for the worker. Yet why is this the right action? After all, tradition alone often lacks the sufficient moral ground for such strong beliefs and actions. Jus- tice, equality, and most of all, merit are all important virtues which would ground and establish moral precepts for a more rational custom concerning wages.

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234 PUBLIC AFFAIRS QUARTERLY

3. The most commonly held reason for tipping is that service workers depend on tips for a living. This economic reason entails that without such tips, the worker would suffer from inadequate income, which in turn entails a poorer lifestyle (lower quality food and housing, perhaps), and possibly unable to earn a living at all in that occupation. Let us assume this un- proven assumption is true in the majority of cases anyway, that hourly wages alone would not sustain them. We also assume that they have an agreement with management to keep all the tips they receive. Does this imply that such workers have a right to receive them? The right to receive money must be distinguished from the right to keep it. I have a right to keep a gift from a stranger on my block, but I certainly have no right to a gift from him, just as he has no obligation to give me one. Society recog- nizes rights to keep property as owned, but there's no moral contract for someone to simply give me one. And what is a tip, but a small gift or gratuity? Suppose, furthermore, that I help this stranger cross the street and carry his packages. Does this action entitle me to a gift from him? Could I claim a right to a gift? Would the stranger be obligated to give me one?

The answers are negative. Only in extenuating circumstances might a token gratuity be anticipated, and then only to reward the unexpected kind- ness from someone who might have ignored the stranger without feeling obligated. (For instance, if the stranger collapsed on the street and I called an ambulance and assisted him.) In these cases, one stranger may offer a gratuity to another in exchange for a benevolent service.

In a business transaction, however, workers often virtually make a living from their tips, basically for satisfactorily doing their jobs. Yet the average customer is more likely to reward a worker for doing his or her job, which must be done under fear of termination, rather than offer a similar reward to someone whose kindness was purely voluntary, done without any incen- tive, out of respect and obligation to another's predicament.

In neither case can it be claimed the recipient has a right to receive tips. No verbal or nonverbal contract exists, though custom often encourages it. Of course, workers have a right to their earned wages, and when tips are truly earned, one can argue that they have a right to the tips, too. But it is precisely the worker's customers who decide if a tip is earned. For some customers, tips are earned a priori, automatically, as it were, regardless of the quality or speed of service, while others, using stricter guidelines, evaluate the service prior to making their judgments. All along, tipping is intended to be an evaluative process, not a simple addition to the bill, a kind of service tax. Some choose not to make specific evaluations; that is their choice. In choosing to forego this value judgment, they are being no more or less virtuous than those who do make these evaluations. For

clearly, guided by custom and conscience, we have a difference of opinion

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THE MORALITY OF TIPPING 235

on the methods of tipping and the standards for what constitutes "good" or acceptable service. It is unfortunate that those with stricter standards suffer social embarrassment (especially when labeled cheap or tight, as if that was a low vice.) This social labeling has become an effective way in which service workers and their generous tippers exert social power against the rest. This intent to exert a sense of guilt from financially conservative customers is specifically unjust in light of the previous discussion. Furthermore, such workers have a right to their earned tips, but in the

same way they earn gratuity gifts from customers, or a bonus from their employer for improved or superior service. These rewards, far from being guarantees, are responses to earned work, representing a higher value or esteem. Such workers deserve these bonuses according to the employer, and customers will confirm that with greater tips, or disprove it with less or none.

Some will still argue that these workers must depend on tips, regardless of the quality of their competent service, and this necessitates a reasonable tip by each customer for every service performed. The relative financial status of the worker is not the issue. The point is that he or she is in a dependent relation to customers for 15-20% of the bill.

Does this also include customers living on government assistance? The homeless? The poor? Those with huge debts, lacking in the means to pay back? The exceptions are numerous and legion, so apparent that analysis shouldn't be required. For these groups, tipping in most instances is an immoral action, insofar as their tips are needed for their survival and/or rudimentary happiness, and spending the extra money would create a hard- ship. The tip would be trivial or insignificant to the worker but very impor- tant to these customers. This principle of utility is central here, and service workers cannot claim the Utilitarian principle in their defense, or with a rather weak argument. For clearly, 'the greatest good for the greatest num- ber of people' will be achieved when these groups of above-mentioned customers refrain from tipping, and the 'greatest good' is more likely to be achieved when all other customers do the same, when the tipping situations are evaluated from the perspectives of the customer and worker. When this is done, in most instances, the majority of the factors7 which would induce or decrease happiness cannot be known by the customer, so that the full consequences of giving the tip will remain unknown. The Utilitarian hap- piness principle, as espoused by Mill, therefore, cannot be applied ''ith reasonable accuracy in most of the cases. Among the most affluent custom- ers, the principle will weigh in favor of the workers, among the lower classes, against the workers, but in the large middle classes, the question usually appears much less certain, as the workers themselves are in the middle class. Who can say who will most benefit by a sizeable tip, or not? The Utilitarian principle is not usually argued probably because of this

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236 PUBLIC AFFAIRS QUARTERLY

dubious uncertainty, and because service workers do not perceive this as a key issue.

This relationship of dependence between customer and worker is a col- lective one, moreover, not individualized. That is, the dependence is based on customers, as a general group, giving to designated service workers. These workers consider their income from customers as a collective whole,

a constantly changing group. All customers are actual/potential tippers. Each individual may or may not contribute to the tipping whole. An impor- tant question here is: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions for this relationship of dependence to continue? This Kantian way of putting the question recognizes that this relation has survived and will be part of wage economics, of a public policy, and it's significantly interesting to analyze its minimum requirements, (a philosophical L.C.D.), especially in light of the fact that so many customers and workers are unhappy with this relationship. That is, it is minimally sufficient that enough customers con- tribute just enough to keep the worker satisfied to the point where he is not so unhappy as to quit the occupation, or become too alienated from himself or his work to perform satisfactorily. In this way, the dependent relation- ship still survives. This dependence, guided by custom and sympathy, does not entail the necessity of each individual contributing each time he is expected to do so - to these pools of gratuities. The regular customer no- tices the worker's unhappiness, and may feel guilty for not tipping enough, sympathy, and even vicarious alienation. But if these sentiments become the basis and reason for tipping, service may never excel and the game continues.

Arguably, this dependent relationship is fundamentally unjust to cus- tomer and worker, as the worker's wages ought not be the responsibility of the customer, contingent on his generosity. Public opinion strongly resists this objection however unjust it seems.

This dependent relationship is similar, in certain respects, to charitable giving. It is meaningful to think of tips as small donations, contributions to a worthy service. Tips and donations are given to people who might not survive, or have a poorer existence without them. They are voluntarily given in degrees of frequency and amount, partly determined by the level of sympathy and the contributor's finances. Although the charity depends on and requires donations from the collective action of donors, this in no way necessitates, morally or economically, that every donor or potential donor donate something each time requested to do so, or at every opportunity.

Let us assume that Jones volunteered to be on a list of donors to the

Lupus Foundation. However, this doesn't obligate her to contribute some change each time she sees a can labeled 'lupus' on the counters of stores she patronizes. Nor is she obligated each and every time she is asked to pledge a donation by telephone or mail. By consent, though, she is obli-

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THE MORALITY OF TIPPING 237

gated to donate a designated amount some time during the year. Like all donors, she is aware that the charity depends on individual donations to supplement major corporate gifts. The custom of giving will stand unvio- lated even when only a sufficient number of customers (or donors) and sufficient money validate the custom and the charity survives. Large tips and large donations reinforce this dependence, and may make it much stronger, (though it's recognized that small amounts add up.) No doubt, there are important differences between the system of tipping and charities, (such as giving to a whole, as opposed to an individual in decent health), but the idea of morality presupposes sufficient similarity. Furthermore, if enough customers tip large enough sums regularly to specific workers (or charities), then their income will not suffer from those customers who under tip or do not tip. The ethics of charitable giving deserves a more detailed study.

My last argument against the moral justification of tipping is more radi- cal, and has its roots in the Marxist analysis of the wage-labor system.8 Consider:

A. Service workers often depend on tips for a significant portion of their wages.

B. Through tipping, customers are then paying the wages of these workers.

C. The vast majority of customers of a service business earned their wages by laboring at work. By paying a portion of these worker's wages, cus- tomers are therefore spending their labor for them.

Whether the gratuity is added directly to the bill, or given to the workers, there is no difference between paying for the purchase with their labor, or for the tip with their labor; for both, customers worked for the money spent a determined amount of time. (Perhaps a tiny fraction of the customer's total wages, but maybe a significant sum over a year or several, depending on individual habits and lifestyle. For example, a teen who works for $5.00 an hour purchases a meal for $10.00 and leaves a 15% tip - $1.50. He has worked over 15 minutes to pay for this tip.)

D. It follows directly, then, that the customer is "working for" the worker whenever he leaves a tip and in proportion to its size.

E. In so doing, the customer is also working for the worker's employer - management which pays his wages. This is not a symbolic relationship; it is very real. Customers are quite literally working for these workers, and in this way, for management itself.

This relationship prescribes or permits an implied, free and autonomous power to evaluate each worker's performance in order to determine the tip, i.e., the labor spent to support the worker. Each customer may well ask: "how many minutes do I wish to work to pay the wages of this worker?"

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238 PUBLIC AFFAIRS QUARTERLY

"Or all workers?" This power of choice and questioning is within each of us to use or not as we wish. Thus, as management sets the hourly wages and service standards, and just as we work for management in our own small way through tipping, we also determine this part of their wages and service standards in situations where tips are expected. In fact, when the tip is determined by the price of goods purchased (as in restaurants), the tip can often be in disproportion to the actual work involved. Tipping seems unobjectionable to many customers probably because one spends a relatively small amount each time, and the total spent is usually not calcu- lated. It could total several hundred annually, or more, depending on the individual, and one doesn't consider the goods or services which could've been purchased instead.

The reasons for tipping combine sympathy with the customer's personal gratifications, and it can be difficult to clarify one's true motives. Tipping for egoistic reasons, such as from guilt, fear of disapproval, for friendly speedy service, or the pleasure in giving, is individually relative, and es- tablishes no strong valid universal principle. So, too, sympathy, though an admirable virtue, by itself in this context, is based on an emotional con- sciousness, and thus too subjective and insufficient to ground or imply a prescriptive moral rule for all.

The practice of tipping has always been a matter of personal judgment, grounded in custom and expectation in most industrialized nations, though some have a public policy against it.9 In certain circumstances, tipping appears mandated, as if it was a moral obligation which ought not be ig- nored or violated. But this sense of obligation is based only on custom, the collective praxis of ordinary individuals. From this custom, no universal moral obligation should be inferred.

William Rainey Harper College

Received June 30, 1992

NOTES

1. According to a survey conducted by Tippers International of a cross-section of people, in Schein, J., The Art of Tipping (Wausau, WI: Sun Press, 1984), p. 31.

2. Ibid, preface.

3. William Frankena suggests some of the weaknesses of this position in his Ethics (Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963), pp. 16-18.

4. Schein, president of Tippers International, writes "People lose out on good service in the future when they fail to use tipping as a way of encouraging good service, but keep tipping about the same no matter what kind of service or treatment they receive." (Schein, p. 31.)

5. Since tipping occurs in non-essential services, those customers who will not or

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THE MORALITY OF TIPPING 239

cannot accept the higher prices will make alternative choices. For instance, travelers may choose motels, not full service hotels, buses instead of taxis. In order to keep their customers, businesses may find it necessary to expand or enhance their existing services.

6. Approximately $5 billion are spent on tips annually. 7. We have in mind factors such as the number of children supported by the worker

and customer, family income, other dependents, the suffering possibly caused by lack of tips, or the pleasure gained by the tips, weighed against the relative happiness of both parties. This can be figured for the cumulative effect of all tips.

8. S. Jhally, The Codes of Advertising (New York: St. Martins Press, 1987), pp. 83-90. Jhally develops a similar argument for viewers watching commercials and their sponsors from a Marxist perspective.

9. New Zealand, the former Soviet Union, China, and many South Pacific nations have or have had policies against tipping. The Chinese considered tipping to be rude, according to Schein, p. 138.

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