[lit-ideas] Re: Paying taxes for months on end
- From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 21:49:36 -0700
Phil writes:
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.
*I take this to mean that Phil is not concerned with clear cases, cases
about which there would very likely be generous agreement but with
whether if a right to life exists there is a derivative or corollary
right to the maintenance of life. I think there is. Phil is not so sure.
While we would like the government to step in and support such a woman
[a poor, pregnant mom], 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.
*Yes, it would be. But it doesn’t follow from her not needing it that
she has no right to it. I don’t need to drive to Seattle, because a
friend has offered to take me; but I still retain my right to travel
about freely. Phil may be playing on our intuition that it would be
piggish of Melinda to insist that the government pay her medical bills
(as long as all goes well with Microsoft), but in general, that A
doesn’t need x doesn’t entail that A has no right to x.
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.
*We simply disagree, I think. But in any event, there are already
requirements that homes be safe: building codes are supposed to assure
that houses are, e.g. asbestos-free; there are safety codes for home
appliances (‘UL approved’); and so on. Not all that long ago (David
Ritchie would know about this) Scotland passed legislation to require
that fireplaces have screens because of the number of children who died
by falling into or coming too close to open fireplaces. Gas lines, power
lines, etc., must be installed correctly. There’s quite a long list.
*I don’t know why Phil says that homes are not ‘places where there is a
need for safety standards.’
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.
*Is this the Melinda Gates case again? Why not say that a right to
something exists even when one doesn’t need the benefits gained through
the exercise of it? One could reasonably say that I have a right to free
speech even though as a matter of fact nothing I say offends anybody or
goes counter to anyone else’s beliefs.
What makes it problematic is that the application of the right seems to
depend on need but rights cannot be contingent.
*This strikes me as a muddle. Of course one’s right to maintain one’s
life remains even though one at the moment doesn’t need the help of
others to remain healthy, just as my First Amendment rights remain even
though no one is threatened or disturbed by what I say or write.
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.
*I think I’ve been saying much the same thing. Where Phil and I seem to
part is that I believe that if I have a right to education even though I
cannot afford it (let’s pretend that we’re in a world where there is no
public elementary and secondary education, no scholarships, and no
student loans), so that it really is impossible for me to get it, then
to go on claiming I have such a right is nonsense. (I’m not even saying
that everyone does have a right to an education, although I would like
to bring it about that something like that were true.)
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.
*Yes. I’ve tried to discuss this above. Maybe all education and
healthcare should be free, but this has never been my claim (nor did I
mean this to become a discussion of rights in general). To take a
simpler example, the First Amendment doesn’t give me the right to free
stamps and stationery.
So, as I see it, it returns to the matter of need. But rights don't
apply to needs.
*I’m not quite sure what this means. Both these things seem to me to be
true: If someone has a right to something, then he or she need not
exercise that right (because there is no need to in certain
circumstances), and one retains a right even though one doesn’t need (in
certain circumstances) to exercise it.
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.
*The right isn’t derived from an accumulation of particular cases of
need. It is a clear inference from the reality of a right to life as
found in the Constitution. By ‘the reality’ of this right, I mean that
the Founders did not mean to palter with us in a double sense, keeping
the promise to our ears, and breaking it to our hopes. What I’ve said
about the right to health as a corollary of this right to life is
entirely parochial. It was prompted by someone’s having said that there
was no Constitutional right to healthcare. I’m not talking about how it
is or ought to be in other times and places but about rights in the US
only. I think this discussion has wider relevance (if it has any) to the
human condition, but unlike Kant, I’m not presuming to legislate for all
mankind. The logical and conceptual connections are what interest me.
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.
*The right to property and the right to life may be cousins (e.g. a
right to shelter bears on a right to life) but they aren’t identical twins.
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.
*This is certainly a minimalist interpretation but I have no arguments
to show that it should be extended other than those I’ve sketched above.
This 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?
*I doubt this can be decided by sitting in a room with the shades drawn.
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.
*This would be an empirical question. I don’t myself see how enhancing
one’s profile this way would be a matter of life and death.
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 a right is universal, absolute, or inalienable doesn’t mean that
it applies only to goods and conditions that cannot be described, lest
the right suddenly become itself contingent.
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.
*The ‘language of goods’ means, I think, talk about particular things
and circumstances. Since it’s hard to talk about what things and
circumstances are like ‘in general,’ I cannot see the problem Phil says
he sees. It’s as if one thought that the concept quadruped would somehow
cease to be a real concept if one mentioned the things that fell under
it, its extension.
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.
*I don’t know why one should understand it as minimally as possible
simply because in explicating and applying it one must, and
pedagogically should) talk about examples in the real world.
*I share Phil’s distrust of explanations that reduce everything to
rights—usually. Deontology was always my worst subject. But as this
discussion came about when someone denied that a certain right did not
exist, it essentially involves such things.
Again, thanks.
Robert Paul
Reed College
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