From: sa114984@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Steven Arnold)
Subject: Re: Health Care Rights?
Date: Sat, 02 Jan 1993 07:37:38 GMT
Organization: Colorado State U. Engineering College

In article <LV5VB4ND@cc.swarthmore.edu>, Andrew@cs.swarthmore.edu (Andrew Rieger) writes:
|> dege@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dege Jeffrey Charles) writes:
|> 
|> >In <1992Dec28.191410.299@news2.cis.umn.edu> rob@dexter.psych.umn.edu (Robert Stephens) writes:
|> 
|> >>One issue which I has given me considerable
|> >>trouble is the health care issue.
|> 
|> >>I agree with the notion that one person cannot lay a claim
|> >>on another's life.  for example, most people are under the
|> >>impression that, "It's everyone RIGHT to be healthy", but
|> >>these people have yet to explain to me AT WHOSE EXPENSE this
|> >>would be.  
|> 
|> >>Am I incorrect in assuming that one is not born with the
|> >>RIGHT to good health care and that to believe this 
|> >>contradicts capitalism?
|> 
|> 
|> >    One individuals rights is a constraint on the behavior of others.  My
|> >right to life constrains you from killing me.  A right cannot, by its very
|> >nature, impose an obligation upon another.  My right to life does NOT obligate
|> >you to run into a burning building to drag me to safety.
|> > 
|> >    Given this, it becomes clear that there can be no right to health care.
|> >Any such right would inherently provide an obligation upon some other individual
|> >to provide such care.  Which a right can't do.  So there is no such right.
|> > 
|> >    This does NOT, on the other hand, mean that there are no societal
|> >obligations in this area.  While my right to life cannot compel you to
|> >pull me from that burning building, You have an obligation to do so, 
|> >nontheless.  Every member of society assumes an obligation to help those in
|> >need as a part of membership in that society.  Of course, every member of
|> >society assumes many other obligations, which often conflict.  So you
|> >might not pull me from that building, despite your obligation to do so,
|> >because you determine that other conflicting obligations are more important.
|> >And if you do save me, it won't be because of me, and anything I deserve,
|> >but because of you, and what you value.
|> 
|> >    So while I don't believe that any individual has a right to health care,
|> >and I often get peaved listening to folks talking as if they did, I do believe
|> >that society has an obligation to provide healthcare to those who need it.
|> >This obligation is, however, one among many, and is independent of the rights
|> >or worthiness of the recipients, and is based upon the values of the society.
|> 
|> 
|> >========================================
|> 
|>   I find this distinction between "rights" - which I find to be an
|> evasive concept - and "obligations" to be quite interesting.  Do you know
|> of any books, articles, etc. which discuss a formal difference between
|> the two. I understand what you are saying, I am just interested in
|> reading a formal theory that takes the two into account and produces a
|> coherent social philosophy.  Thanks for any references.

	I don't have any references except for the twisted thought processes of
my mind.  Hope that'll do.
	An "obligation," in my humble opinion, is something which somebody is
either legally or morally required to do.  Let's simplify things by not talking
any more about simple "obligations"; now we have "legal obligations" and "moral
obligations."
	It is certainly possible for something to be both a legal and a moral
obligation.  For example, not murdering is both a legal and a moral obligation.
	A strictly legal obligation can be enforced.  That is, you can be
required, forced, to fulfil a legal obligation.  A strictly moral obligation, by
contrast, is a matter of individual conscience and cannot be enforced except by
individual conscience.
	To me, all rights boil down to issues of ownership.  Who can do what to
what physical objects?  I suppose this is a rather behavioristic approach, and
frankly I don't much like behaviorism, but then I never much claimed to be
emotionally consistent.
	Anyway, to have a right is to have the moral authority, an authority that
can and should be enforced by government, to manipulate a given object in a given
way.  Your body, for instance -- that's probably the most important object in the
universe, at least to you personally.  You have a right to use your body as you
will, to live in peace without being molested, to do what you will provided you
do not violate the rights of others, to produce and to enjoy the benefits of
producing.
	If you have a right, then, the fact that you have that right puts a
PASSIVE legal obligation on everybody else -- the obligation that they must not
do anything with what is yours unless you agree, either explicitly or implicitly,
to allow it.  Having a right does not put an ACTIVE legal obligation on anyone --
it does not tell anyone what to do -- but it does impose a PASSIVE legal
obligation in that it tells them what they must NOT do.
	Furthermore, having a right does not impose any legal obligations
whatsoever on the person who has that right, although it may well impose moral
obligations.  For example, if I have money, I have a right to be greedy and not
help others with that money.  But I have a very real MORAL obligation to help
others.  I SHOULD help them; morally, I am required to help them.  But I have the
right to choose to ignore that moral obligation.
	Many people view abortion as a prime example of that conflict.  They
maintain that women have a right to abort, but that morally they should choose
not to.  I have my problems with that argument, but let it pass: I offer the
example only to illustrate the point.

Steve
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism