P
Pudd'nhead Wilson
Guest
Simon Brooke wrote:
> in message <[email protected]>, Robert Chung
> ('[email protected]') wrote:
>
> >> At the base of this (as has probably been mentioned several times in
> >> this thread) is the question of whether health care is a right or a
> >> privilege. A person's answer to this question will determine to a
> >> great extent their reactions to any other point in the argument about
> >> social welfare.
What most people call "social welfare" is simply using the hammer of
The State to satisfy some groups idea of what is "good." Therefore, it
really isn't social welfare, it is always the mask of tyranny.
> >> Can our healthcare dollars be used more efficiently?
They are not "our" dollars. "You" are implying the dollar (property)
of one person's is the dollar (property) of another's. By what ethical
justification is my dollar your dollar? If one draws a legal line of
how much one holds and how much is taken, where and why?
> >> Of course, but
> >> not without regulation.
No modern society has an unregulated health care market. What
unregulated modern society is being compared against? What is "health
care" supposed to cost?
> >> I've heard that 1/3 of healthcare dollars are
> >> spent on the last 6 months of life...
Is that "right" or "wrong.?"
> > I'm not sure the "right vs. privilege" thing is central.
It is central because it roots out the underlying value judgements,
including what the sense of justice is and "right" from "wrong."
> I'm not sure it's even meaningful.
This is, of course, a good lead-in to positivist dogma. While
everything else in nature, has a nature, and the nature can be
scientifically studied, the positivist says humans uniquely have no
nature -- their nature is "whatever." This is the dogma that can
justify "killing redheads" because of transient expediency for the
local dictator.
> What is a 'right' and who gets to
> decide what is a 'right'?
There are essays to treatises written on the topic. A (negative) right
is something one is born with due to the nature of being human. (You
can see why positivists need to do away with natural right -- they can
impose any policy they fancy, at whatever time they wish, if there is
no such thing as a right.)
Natural rights/law claims you have a right to an _independent_ life,
and that you have a right to property. You won't get a treatise on
natural rights/law in a usenet post.* The right to property even has
utility, if that satisfies some (See Epstein
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738200417/) Also Kinsella embedded
some interesting ideas on property in his essay _Against Intellectual
Property_
(http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf#search="against intellectual property"see,
p.19 under the heading _Property and Scarcity_: "The very possibility
of conflict over a resource renders it scarce, giving rise to the need
for ethical rules to govern its use. Thus, the fundamental social and
ethical function of property rights is to prevent interpersonal
conflict over scarce resources... Were we in a Garden of Eden where
land and other goods were infinitely abundant, there would be no
scarcity and,therefore, no need for property rules; property concepts
would be meaningless. The idea
of conflict, and the idea of rights, would not even arise.").
> Any rights theory really comes down to consensual
> acceptance of a single non-human authority, and, in a
> multi-faith world, we don't have one.
It is true that in older natural rights/law theory, the thinkers did
include language of a "God." However, a deity is unnecessary to the
theory, and more modern readings would reveal this to you.
> So any talk about 'rights' is
> either simply woffle or else a bid for hegemony.
Actually, to *not* talk about it is the track to hegemony. If there
are no foundations in boundaries ("free spheres") and regulation of
human behavior and exchange, *anything goes*. Postitivist doctrine,
left to rule by itself, is dangerous for exactly this reason.
It isn't woffle; is that it is extremely difficult to frame well due to
the foundational nature of the problem.
> Which brings us back to utilitarianism, which someone upthread cast scorn
> on. Well, I'm happy to agree that it's inelegant and often produces
> results which are uncomfortable or seem at variance with our instinctive
> sense of natural justice, but it's the only moral system which has any
> real intellectual credibility.
Rawls (a positivist) wrote something like (on p.141 of TOJ): "we define
the original position such that we end up at the desired result." Such
a tact is one that defies science and nature. Humans are part of
nature, and they are studied under the science of natural law. A real
research scientist doesn't start out with a desired result and then
work the problem to fit the result.
The postitivist doctrine is difficult to systematically refute. But
it, at best, only gives partial answers. Natural law is more
encompassing, and in my opinion, it can actually suck up positivism and
utilitarianism into it.
I personally believe the problem attacking these philosophpical and
moral/ethical matters is language itself. When one digs very deep the
language becomes tautological, and many just wave things off as
"definitional." But this hardly lends justification to postitivism.
There is a reason philosophers struggle. The tool itself -- language
-- is not up to the task. I think this is why many throw up their
hands and finally resort to mysticism and supernaturalism. I cannot.
-----
* Following is from the recent Norwood case. Obviously I disagree
that "Government is the necessary burden."
CITY OF NORWOOD, APPELLEE, v. HORNEY ET AL., APPELLANTS. (TWO
CASES.)
CITY OF NORWOOD, APPELLEE, v. GAMBLE ET AL., APPELLANTS. (TWO
CASES.)
excerpt:
{¶ 35} Believed to be derived fundamentally from a higher authority
and natural law, property rights were so sacred that they could not be
entrusted lightly to "the uncertain virtue of those who govern."
Parham v. Justices of Decatur Cty. Inferior Court (Ga.1851), 9 Ga. 341,
348. See, also, Bank of Toledo v. Toledo (1853), 1 Ohio St. 622, 664;
Proprietors of Spring Grove, 1 Ohio Dec. Reprint 316; Joseph J.
Lazzarotti, Public Use or Public Abuse (1999), 68 U.M.K.C.L.Rev. 49,
54; J.A.C. Grant, The "Higher Law" Background of the Law of Eminent
Domain (1932), 6 Wisc.L.Rev. 67. As such, property rights were believed
to supersede constitutional principles. "To be * * * protected and *
* * secure in the possession of [one's] property is a right
inalienable, a right which a written
constitution may recognize or declare, but which existed independently
of and before such recognition, and which no government can destroy."
Henry v. Dubuque Pacific RR. Co. (1860), 10 Iowa 540, 543. As Chief
Justice Bartley eloquently described more than 150 years ago: {¶ 36}
"The right of private property is an original and fundamental right,
existing anterior to the formation of the government itself; the civil
rights, privileges and immunities authorized by law, are derivative -
mere incidents to the political institutions of the country, conferred
with a view to the public welfare, and therefore trusts of civil power,
to be exercised for the public benefit.
* * * Government is the necessary burden imposed on man as the only
means of securing the protection of his rights. And this protection -
the primary and only legitimate purpose of civil government, is
accomplished by protecting man in his rights of personal security,
personal liberty, and private property. The right of private property
being, therefore, an original right, which it was one of the primary
and most sacred objects of government to secure and protect, is widely
and essentially distinguished in its nature, from those exclusive
political rights
and special privileges * * * which are created by law and conferred
upon a few * * *. The fundamental principles set forth in the bill of
rights in our constitution, declaring the inviolability of private
property, were evidently designed to protect the right of private
property as one of the primary and original objects of civil society *
* *." (Emphasis sic.) Bank of Toledo, 1 Ohio St. at 632.
> in message <[email protected]>, Robert Chung
> ('[email protected]') wrote:
>
> >> At the base of this (as has probably been mentioned several times in
> >> this thread) is the question of whether health care is a right or a
> >> privilege. A person's answer to this question will determine to a
> >> great extent their reactions to any other point in the argument about
> >> social welfare.
What most people call "social welfare" is simply using the hammer of
The State to satisfy some groups idea of what is "good." Therefore, it
really isn't social welfare, it is always the mask of tyranny.
> >> Can our healthcare dollars be used more efficiently?
They are not "our" dollars. "You" are implying the dollar (property)
of one person's is the dollar (property) of another's. By what ethical
justification is my dollar your dollar? If one draws a legal line of
how much one holds and how much is taken, where and why?
> >> Of course, but
> >> not without regulation.
No modern society has an unregulated health care market. What
unregulated modern society is being compared against? What is "health
care" supposed to cost?
> >> I've heard that 1/3 of healthcare dollars are
> >> spent on the last 6 months of life...
Is that "right" or "wrong.?"
> > I'm not sure the "right vs. privilege" thing is central.
It is central because it roots out the underlying value judgements,
including what the sense of justice is and "right" from "wrong."
> I'm not sure it's even meaningful.
This is, of course, a good lead-in to positivist dogma. While
everything else in nature, has a nature, and the nature can be
scientifically studied, the positivist says humans uniquely have no
nature -- their nature is "whatever." This is the dogma that can
justify "killing redheads" because of transient expediency for the
local dictator.
> What is a 'right' and who gets to
> decide what is a 'right'?
There are essays to treatises written on the topic. A (negative) right
is something one is born with due to the nature of being human. (You
can see why positivists need to do away with natural right -- they can
impose any policy they fancy, at whatever time they wish, if there is
no such thing as a right.)
Natural rights/law claims you have a right to an _independent_ life,
and that you have a right to property. You won't get a treatise on
natural rights/law in a usenet post.* The right to property even has
utility, if that satisfies some (See Epstein
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0738200417/) Also Kinsella embedded
some interesting ideas on property in his essay _Against Intellectual
Property_
(http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf#search="against intellectual property"see,
p.19 under the heading _Property and Scarcity_: "The very possibility
of conflict over a resource renders it scarce, giving rise to the need
for ethical rules to govern its use. Thus, the fundamental social and
ethical function of property rights is to prevent interpersonal
conflict over scarce resources... Were we in a Garden of Eden where
land and other goods were infinitely abundant, there would be no
scarcity and,therefore, no need for property rules; property concepts
would be meaningless. The idea
of conflict, and the idea of rights, would not even arise.").
> Any rights theory really comes down to consensual
> acceptance of a single non-human authority, and, in a
> multi-faith world, we don't have one.
It is true that in older natural rights/law theory, the thinkers did
include language of a "God." However, a deity is unnecessary to the
theory, and more modern readings would reveal this to you.
> So any talk about 'rights' is
> either simply woffle or else a bid for hegemony.
Actually, to *not* talk about it is the track to hegemony. If there
are no foundations in boundaries ("free spheres") and regulation of
human behavior and exchange, *anything goes*. Postitivist doctrine,
left to rule by itself, is dangerous for exactly this reason.
It isn't woffle; is that it is extremely difficult to frame well due to
the foundational nature of the problem.
> Which brings us back to utilitarianism, which someone upthread cast scorn
> on. Well, I'm happy to agree that it's inelegant and often produces
> results which are uncomfortable or seem at variance with our instinctive
> sense of natural justice, but it's the only moral system which has any
> real intellectual credibility.
Rawls (a positivist) wrote something like (on p.141 of TOJ): "we define
the original position such that we end up at the desired result." Such
a tact is one that defies science and nature. Humans are part of
nature, and they are studied under the science of natural law. A real
research scientist doesn't start out with a desired result and then
work the problem to fit the result.
The postitivist doctrine is difficult to systematically refute. But
it, at best, only gives partial answers. Natural law is more
encompassing, and in my opinion, it can actually suck up positivism and
utilitarianism into it.
I personally believe the problem attacking these philosophpical and
moral/ethical matters is language itself. When one digs very deep the
language becomes tautological, and many just wave things off as
"definitional." But this hardly lends justification to postitivism.
There is a reason philosophers struggle. The tool itself -- language
-- is not up to the task. I think this is why many throw up their
hands and finally resort to mysticism and supernaturalism. I cannot.
-----
* Following is from the recent Norwood case. Obviously I disagree
that "Government is the necessary burden."
CITY OF NORWOOD, APPELLEE, v. HORNEY ET AL., APPELLANTS. (TWO
CASES.)
CITY OF NORWOOD, APPELLEE, v. GAMBLE ET AL., APPELLANTS. (TWO
CASES.)
excerpt:
{¶ 35} Believed to be derived fundamentally from a higher authority
and natural law, property rights were so sacred that they could not be
entrusted lightly to "the uncertain virtue of those who govern."
Parham v. Justices of Decatur Cty. Inferior Court (Ga.1851), 9 Ga. 341,
348. See, also, Bank of Toledo v. Toledo (1853), 1 Ohio St. 622, 664;
Proprietors of Spring Grove, 1 Ohio Dec. Reprint 316; Joseph J.
Lazzarotti, Public Use or Public Abuse (1999), 68 U.M.K.C.L.Rev. 49,
54; J.A.C. Grant, The "Higher Law" Background of the Law of Eminent
Domain (1932), 6 Wisc.L.Rev. 67. As such, property rights were believed
to supersede constitutional principles. "To be * * * protected and *
* * secure in the possession of [one's] property is a right
inalienable, a right which a written
constitution may recognize or declare, but which existed independently
of and before such recognition, and which no government can destroy."
Henry v. Dubuque Pacific RR. Co. (1860), 10 Iowa 540, 543. As Chief
Justice Bartley eloquently described more than 150 years ago: {¶ 36}
"The right of private property is an original and fundamental right,
existing anterior to the formation of the government itself; the civil
rights, privileges and immunities authorized by law, are derivative -
mere incidents to the political institutions of the country, conferred
with a view to the public welfare, and therefore trusts of civil power,
to be exercised for the public benefit.
* * * Government is the necessary burden imposed on man as the only
means of securing the protection of his rights. And this protection -
the primary and only legitimate purpose of civil government, is
accomplished by protecting man in his rights of personal security,
personal liberty, and private property. The right of private property
being, therefore, an original right, which it was one of the primary
and most sacred objects of government to secure and protect, is widely
and essentially distinguished in its nature, from those exclusive
political rights
and special privileges * * * which are created by law and conferred
upon a few * * *. The fundamental principles set forth in the bill of
rights in our constitution, declaring the inviolability of private
property, were evidently designed to protect the right of private
property as one of the primary and original objects of civil society *
* *." (Emphasis sic.) Bank of Toledo, 1 Ohio St. at 632.
which is a little funny because i didn't
