[lit-ideas] Re: Ye Olde Dialectic
- From: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 03:31:40 -0400
Phil: Let me make my points similarly to Eric's.
1. Government does what the people cannot.
1a. If the people cannot do it, then the government should.
1b.If the people can do it, then the government need not do it.
2. The question of what the people can and cannot do is largely an
empirical one.
3. What the government should do is settled by 2 insofar as it takes
up what cannot be done by the people.
Eric: When declaring what is appropriate for government action,
Lincoln speaks of the "desirable things which the individuals of a
people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves."
Lincoln's quote qualifies 1a. and 1b. rendering them questions of
degree rather than absolutes. Lincoln's "not do well" combines with
point 2 to make it a speculative as well as an empirical issue.
For how do we know what the people can or cannot do well? What
empirical values do we have to judge their performance against?
What is our baseline? Merely the status quo? Or that which is possible?
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