From: dege@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dege Jeffrey Charles)
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism
Subject: Re: Health Care Rights?
Date: 30 Dec 92 02:26:09 GMT
Organization: University of Minnesota

In <1992Dec29.163843.14703@nynexst.com> baruch@nynexst.com (Robert Baruch) writes:


>> dege@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dege Jeffrey Charles) writes:
>> 
> 
>> >    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.

>Ooh, I think you're going to get jumped on for that one!  "need"?  Is that your
>measure of worth?  Because one person needs something, other people are not
>merely motivated, but _obligated_ to give it?  Then where is the incentive
>to produce that something which is so direly needed?  Can we then say that
>because you produce something, or have something that you don't strictly need
>but someone else does, other people can just take it away from you?  After
>all, if you are _obligated_ to do something, and you don't do it, what other
>recourse is there but force?

>Who decides who is to give and who is not to give?  Who decides how much?  Who
>enforces it?  Who will be given the power to TAKE what is needed?  Are we
>to replay the Robin Hood Syndrome all over again?

>--Rob

    I don't see why even the most extreme libertarian would disagree with this,
unless, of course, I didn't explain myself well.
 
    Are you saying need does not impose an obligation upon those who are not
in need?  That is morally unsupportable.  You DO have an obligation to help
those who need help, as do I, and every other human being.  But the reason
I use "obligation" rather than "right", is because rights are, in my opinion,
absolutes, with little room for judgment.  My rights are limited only by
your rights.  My right to life means that you cannot kill me unless I am posing
an immediate threat to your life.

   As I said, you have an obligation to help those who are less fortunate than
you.  But you also have an obligation to feed your family, to help your
grandmother put up her storm windows, and to do many other things.  Most of
us are always facing simultaneous conflicting obligations, with no way to
fulfill all of them.  Who decides which ones to meet?  You do.  Based on
your own personal values.

    Society as a whole has an obligation to help those in need.  The amount
of effort that society puts into meeting that obligation is detemined by
the society, based upon the values of that society.  Your question as to
whether a society is justified in using force to extract resources from
its members to use to provide that effort is one I hadn't addressed at all.
Mainly because I haven't really made up my mind.

    But I certainly do get pissed at certain people who confuse working to raise
funds to support a lobbying effort to convince Congress to take money out of the
pockets of ordinary working stiffs in order to finance a bloated organization of
government bureaucrats whose purported purpose is to help those in need, with 
actually helping those in need.  It's not the same thing at all.
 
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Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism