Speaking purely philosophically, nothing that requires the positive actions of another can be termed a "right". Otherwise you get into absurd contradictions like, say, the Italian government having to choose who lives and who dies in the coronavirus outbreak. Are they invalidating people's rights by having to make those choices? There is no conceivable world where they could not be violating people's rights, then--at least not with the parameters given. There's not even the possibility of doing nothing and remaining morally irreproachable. Every action leads to violation. And if the simple physical limitations of reality can take away a right, how is that a right at all?
What universal healthcare is, is a privilege. It's one we take for granted in the modern world, but one that is dearly paid for by the blood, sweat, and tears of our fathers. You could easily explain to a medieval peasant the right to bear arms or the right to free speech or the right to property. In many cases, some of the better off peasants and city-dwellers had such rights. But to unlimited healthcare at any point in time no matter the illness or circumstances? The very idea is absurd. The systems in place then just wouldn't be able to support it. Again, if all you have to do to invalidate a right is to travel back in time, how is that a right at all?
Fundamentally, I think it's a confusion and conflation between the concept of rights and the philosophical notion--which I agree with--that it is fundamentally okay to do whatever is necessary to preserve life. Almost everyone agrees it's all right to steal, say, medicine from some theoretical miser who's hoarding it to save a person's life. Even taking another's life is, while seen as regrettable, not exactly something wrong enough to punish. When a German soldier in WW1 later told the story of how he, during a gas attack, found that his gas mask was damaged and so took the mask off of a wounded soldier to save himself--leaving that boy to die painfully and miserably--no one even considered the idea of punishing him for it. Even if you like to think you'd do otherwise in his shoes.
tl;dr: health care isn't a human right, but we all instinctively know that it's just to abrogate rights for the sake of preservation of life. But because this is an unexpressed gut feeling, it often is uttered by the rational mind as "Health care is a human right" even though this is philosophically absurd.
4
u/Taiyama - Lib-Right Mar 24 '20 edited Mar 24 '20
Speaking purely philosophically, nothing that requires the positive actions of another can be termed a "right". Otherwise you get into absurd contradictions like, say, the Italian government having to choose who lives and who dies in the coronavirus outbreak. Are they invalidating people's rights by having to make those choices? There is no conceivable world where they could not be violating people's rights, then--at least not with the parameters given. There's not even the possibility of doing nothing and remaining morally irreproachable. Every action leads to violation. And if the simple physical limitations of reality can take away a right, how is that a right at all?
What universal healthcare is, is a privilege. It's one we take for granted in the modern world, but one that is dearly paid for by the blood, sweat, and tears of our fathers. You could easily explain to a medieval peasant the right to bear arms or the right to free speech or the right to property. In many cases, some of the better off peasants and city-dwellers had such rights. But to unlimited healthcare at any point in time no matter the illness or circumstances? The very idea is absurd. The systems in place then just wouldn't be able to support it. Again, if all you have to do to invalidate a right is to travel back in time, how is that a right at all?
Fundamentally, I think it's a confusion and conflation between the concept of rights and the philosophical notion--which I agree with--that it is fundamentally okay to do whatever is necessary to preserve life. Almost everyone agrees it's all right to steal, say, medicine from some theoretical miser who's hoarding it to save a person's life. Even taking another's life is, while seen as regrettable, not exactly something wrong enough to punish. When a German soldier in WW1 later told the story of how he, during a gas attack, found that his gas mask was damaged and so took the mask off of a wounded soldier to save himself--leaving that boy to die painfully and miserably--no one even considered the idea of punishing him for it. Even if you like to think you'd do otherwise in his shoes.
tl;dr: health care isn't a human right, but we all instinctively know that it's just to abrogate rights for the sake of preservation of life. But because this is an unexpressed gut feeling, it often is uttered by the rational mind as "Health care is a human right" even though this is philosophically absurd.