Olen: What are the attractions of giving money away while alive?

Levmore: It’s unsurprising when you see the Bill Gateses of the world give away a lot of money while they’re still alive, because you can watch what people do with it—you can see who’s doing and a good job and a bad job, and then give more to some places than to others, and so forth.

Nussbaum: It’s also that people want to give it away before they die in order to avoid the estate tax—which may disappear, shortly. Therefore universities hate the idea that the estate tax would go away. But this is also influenced by social norms. I find that in Europe, it’s much harder to get rich people to give money away, because their peer community of rich people doesn’t honor that, as much.

Olen: So there’s something very American about it?

Levmore: It’s also tax-related. They’re taxed a little bit more heavily than we are during their lives and the taxation system has a very, very strong redistribution element.

Read the full interview with Martha Nussbaum and Saul Levmore on the philosophy of philanthropy by Helaine Olen at The Atlantic