[lit-ideas] Re: Paying taxes for months on end
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 12:01:03 -0400
Robert Paul is right when he notes that not knowing "a priori what some
endeavour’s limits are doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be undertaken (or that
it has no limits)." However, my concern is not with limit cases but with
the mere application or instantiation of the right to life as maintenance of
life. It seems to me that the cases given by others on this list, for
example that of the pregnant, poor, single mom, have all been limit cases.
In these cases, the relevant concern is not maintenance of life per say but
the need for the same. While we would like the government to step in and
support such a woman, we feel no such thing when Melinda Gates, Bill Gates'
wife, has her child. It would seem odd to insist that Melinda has a right
to government support because we would want to say that she doesn't need it.
And the same could be said for many people. It makes sense to have
workplace standards of safety but it doesn't make sense to regulate homes
for standards of safety. It couldn't be that health and welfare concerns
don't apply in the home but rather that places of employment are the sorts
of places where there is a need for safety standards. Here again, the
workplace is a limit case that appears to need government intervention
regarding health and welfare.
However, a right, and certainly an inalienable right, is not conditional.
It seems that there is a problem with the application of this right to
maintenance of life in that in particular cases, the right doesn't seem
appropriate. What makes it problematic is that the application of the right
seems to depend on need but rights cannot be contingent. If I have a right
to education, I have that right whether I can afford education or not. If I
have a right to health, then I have that right whether I can afford it or
not. And if the government has a duty to act on these rights, ideally, all
health and education should be free. Yet, resources are limited so the
temptation is to say that those who can afford to pay for education and
health should. But wealthy people have those rights as much as poor people.
So, as I see it, it returns to the matter of need. But rights don't apply
to needs. It seems to me that there is a fundamental contradiction in
building a case for a right to maintenance of life with reference to a
contingent need. (This was what I was aiming at when I brought up the
problem of the extent and intrusiveness of a right to maintenance of life in
that such issues ought to be irrelevant in light of the nature of an
inalienable right.) But, as I said before, this is a practical, though
still philosophical, issue because it addresses particular cases.
In my opinion, all talk of rights is nonsensical but I can make some sense
of a right to life where that right is protection of life and property from
another. What gives it a degree of sense is an idea of the conditions under
which such a right is satisfied. A government is fulfilling its duty when
it protects its borders from invaders, enforces a set of laws that punish
those who do steal and injure, and establishes a policing force to prevent
theft and injury. The satisfaction lies in its universality (i.e. it
applies to all of the citizenry) and establishment of criteria (i.e. rule of
law). But under what conditions does the government satisfy its duty to the
right of maintenance of life? In Canada we have universal health care which
aims to satisfy the condition of universality. The problem lies in the
criteria for determining its application. At one point, and here others
from Ontario can correct me, it was possible to get breast augmentation for
free. When this became public knowledge, there was an outcry because many
people felt that getting a boob job was not a matter of maintenance of life.
But why not? How could this issue be settled without, at some point,
referring to particular goods? And here is the problem: what counts as
satisfying the right to maintenance of life cannot be articulated with
reference to particular goods. That is, the universality of inalienable
rights is inimical to the particularity of goods but I don't know of any way
to articulate a satisfactory account of health and welfare without reference
to goods. Anything beyond the most minimal account of life as survival
strikes me as involving the language of goods. For this reason, I would
argue that the right to life ought to be understood as minimally as
possible. Again, this does not mean that government shouldn't help those
who need help, but this should not be understood according to the discourse
of rights.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Toronto, ON
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