Research: The philosophy of hospitableness
Chapter (2001) by: Elizabeth Telfer. Source: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-7506-5431-9.50007-X Book: In search of hospitality; Theoretical perspectives and debates - https://www.sciencedirect.com/book/9780750654319/in-search-of-hospitality.
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Hospitableness is the name of the trait possessed by hospitable people. [...] The nature and importance of hospitality has varied very much in different times and places.
Does 'entertain a guest' mean the same as 'provide hospitality'? There are contexts in which it is natural to speak of hospitality rather than entertaining, and giving a meal to a stranded traveller is hospitality but not entertaining, but giving smart dinner-parties seems like entertaining rather than hospitality. Where there is a difference, then, hospitality is associated with the meeting of need, entertaining with the giving of pleasure. But this difference is only a matter of nuance.
Hospitality as a private affair is based on a private home and given, not sold, to chosen guests. From this perspective the idea of commercial hospitality seems like a contradiction in terms; the location of it is not a home, the hospitality is not given, the guests are not chosen. 'The American usage "hospitality industry" suggests an immediate paradox between generosity and the exploitation of the marketplace' (Heal, 1990, p.1).
One might say (starting with the private host) that a good host is one who fulfils all the tasks of a host , and give a list of these tasks: he or she refills empty glasses, makes sure that guests are offered second helpings, and so on. However, any such list cannot describe the essence of a good host, since it applies only to the conventions or a particular time and place.
Being a good host involves skills as well as effort. Some of these skills, like the tasks of a host, are clichés: for example, a good host can prevent a heated argument from becoming a quarrel. If we want a general formula for these skills, it must be this: what good hosts are good at is making their guests happy. In other words, they know what will please them and are able to bring this about. [...] But being a good host is not really enough for being hospitable.
Genuine hospitable behaviour, then, requires an appropriate motive. However, whether someone should be described as a hospitable person depends not only on his or her motive but also on how often hospitable behaviour occurs.
A good host has to be skilful as well as attentive. Hospitable people are attentive, but they are not necessarily skilful and therefore may not be good hosts.
[There are] three kinds of guest: Those in a relationship to the host which is not simply that of guest to host, those in need, and friends proper.
A second kind of guest is the person in need of hospitality - either a need for food, drink or accommodation as such, or a psychological need of a kind which can be met particularly well by hospitality, such as loneliness or the need to feel valued as an individual.
['Good Samaritan hospitality' is] the activity of entertaining people because they seem to have such a need. Good Samaritan hospitality can be shown to anyone, whether connected to the host or not. But the clearest cases of it are those where the guest is a stranger and the only possible reason for offering it is the perception of the guest's need. This kind of hospitality is perhaps the most fundamental kind of all.
Foot (Foot, 1978, pp. -18) claims that moral virtues possess three features. First, moral virtues are qualities which 'a human being needs to have, for his own sake and that of his fellows'. Second, they are qualities of ill, rather than of intellect, situation or physique. Third, they are corrections of some common human tendency to either excess or deficiency of motivation.
[Hospitableness] does not seem to fit the idea of being necessary for tolerable human life: what is needed for that is only avoidance of inhospitableness. [...] I may have to choose not only whether to try to be a hospitable person but also what sort of hospitable person to try to be.
If hospitableness is an aspect of various moral virtues, it can also be so in the commercial host. But there is a sense in which hospitableness is not an optional virtue for commercial hosts. In choosing that kind of job they have in effect chosen hospitableness as one way in which they will try to show generosity, kindness and so on, since so much of their life is spent in contexts where hospitableness is called for.