[lit-ideas] Re: Ye Olde Dialectic
- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 8 Sep 2005 01:36:31 -0400
Eric Yost writes:
"I introduced Lincoln to reply to one of your questions. To turn Lincoln
against me, when his words do not address my point, is to again miss the point."
Again, nope. See below.
Eric continues:
"1) Charities are doing what people can. (We agree on that.)
2) Charities are also doing what they can because government does not do it
well enough."
The introduction by Eric of the Lincoln definition came at the point when I
challenged him regarding the idea that government ought to be doing the kinds
of things charities do. Whatever Eric's point is, it turns on the assumption
that government should be doing the kinds of things charities do. When I
suggested that perhaps this was a faulty assumption, Eric introduced the
Lincoln quote. If the quote is relevant, and I assume it is otherwise Eric
wouldn't have introduced it, then Eric's concern is moot. My comments on the
quote are to Eric's point insofar as the distinction between what people can do
and what government does can be made on empirical grounds: if the people can do
it, and are doing it in the form of charitable activity, then this is not what
government should be doing, though it may in fact do it.
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.
Now to Eric's 'point'. The mere existence of charities cannot determine what
government should or should not be doing since the empirical question of what
needs to be done has not yet been addressed. In the case of Katrina, we are
dealing with a matter of scale such that no charity or group of charities could
deal with the catastrophe. Whether one contributes to the Red Cross or not
won't change that fact. In the case of the homeless people in my
neighbourhood, more money to local charities might be sufficient. Or it might
not be. Whatever the case may be, Eric's concern is moot because it no longer
makes sense to ask, in the abstract, what government should be doing. This
does not mean the point where charitable activity ends and government work
begins is clear or even easily resolved. Instead, it is to suggest that the
matter is largely an empirical one. What makes no sense is the claim that
giving to charity lets the government off the hook since, as I have argued
above, there is no hook.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Toronto, ON
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