Why protects rights just against people?

The government is there to protect people's rights, but why, under Objectivism, is it limited to protecting rights just against other people, as opposed to, say, disease or disaster? People's rights can get just as mangled by the "hands" of influenza or a hurricane.

Let my anticipate two responses:

1. One might argue that influenzas and hurricanes can't compensate their victims, so restoration by restitution is out. I can see an Objectivist argument that the guy whose house is smushed by the hurricane has no government recourse for restoring his rights.

But rights protection isn't just about restoration. It's also about preventing the loss in the first place. After all, that is a big reason for why we have police. So why wouldn't Objectivism support government disease and disaster police?

2. One might also argue that protecting our rights from disease and disaster is what insurance is for. Insurance is usually good for restoration, but it's lousy with prevention. So it solves only half the problem.

We could appeal to private industry of some sorts to solve the remainder, but then we get to the hackneyed anarchist-type question as to why we have to go private for protection against disease and disaster while protection against people is privileged with government force?

**

This popped into my head on account of the new swine flu pandemic. Governments are handing out Tamiflu to contain the spread of the disease, probably mostly to the poor and uninsured. Under Objectivism, I'd think this government action would be condemned.

Jordan

(Edited by Jordan on 4/26, 3:41pm)

Post 1

Monday, April 27, 2009 - 5:08am

Jordan,

I think you think we have a right to thrive or flourish -- a right to a life free of pain and disease. A right to happiness (rather than to the pursuit of happiness). On the right-to-happiness view, anything that harms our well-being violates our rights.

Is that your view?

Ed

Post 2

Monday, April 27, 2009 - 8:13am

Storms, floods, diseases, etc. don't violate your individual rights. Protection against such calamities is logically something that needs to be addressed by cooperation among individuals. Organizations can be set up independent of government to handle the different aspects of such crisis. Insurance carriers are one example.

Considering the overwhelming force of nature, I think it is reasonable to consider that private organizations might not be able to adequately raise reasonably reliable defenses (and recovery systems) against nature. In this respect, governments might serve a legitimate purpose in advance planning, ordering of assets - dams, roads, levies, etc. - at the express consent of the people.

This is not to say that such protections could not be done privately, only that these plans require such a scale of effort that they need support from more than one community, city, or state. Government makes sense in these cases not because it is their proper responsibility, but because they already have the broad organizational infrastructure to coordinate such efforts. They are, simply, a more practical solution.

jt
(Edited by Jay Abbott on 4/27, 8:13am)

(Edited by Jay Abbott on 4/27, 8:15am)

Post 3

Monday, April 27, 2009 - 9:46am

also security becomes a more significant issue during disasters, so yes things like national guard and the like or rescue efforts from the military are quite reasonable

Post 4

Monday, April 27, 2009 - 3:16pm

JA: Storms, floods, diseases, etc. don't violate your individual rights.

You are begging the question. Jordan asserts that such things do violate your rights. I assert that an individual who comes to the workplace sick has come to the workplace waving a loaded gun. If people can be culpable and liable for carrying diseases, how then do we address the fact they may originate with other creatures, as in the case of swine flu? Does the government act against swine?

The essential point is that the government acts against people rather than against storms and swine because people are volitional. We have agency. We are capable of making choices and thus can choose to do the right thing and our wrongful actions, the harms we cause, must be mitigated or corrected or stopped, by some human institution. Thus, "governments are instituted among men." We come together in a social contract to secure our rights against other people.

Jordan wants to know if that is necessary and sufficient. Kurt Eichert suggests that to prevent a break down in law, the national guard can be deployed in times of disaster. On that theory, the government could be empowered to act against non-volitional entities such as storms. It is not to protect your rights, but to maintain the essential chararcter of lawful society.

(Edited by Michael E. Marotta on 4/27, 3:17pm)

Post 5

Monday, April 27, 2009 - 3:50pm

Thank you for the replies thus far.

Hi Ed,

Nah, that is not my view, but hey, my view is of little consequence to this thread. I'm just interested in knowing what Objectivism's take is per this issue. It doesn't look like protection from disease and disaster entails a right to happiness (as opposed to the pursuit of happiness) anymore than protection from people. So to me it's an interesting question for Objectivism -- If the government is there to protect rights, and if rights are equally vulnerable to disease and disaster as they are to people, then what is the justification for limiting government's protection of those rights just to protection against people?

Jordan

Post 6

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 6:54am

Jordan,

So to me it's an interesting question for Objectivism -- If the government is there to protect rights, and if rights are equally vulnerable to disease and disaster as they are to people
It is your assumption (above) that is wrong.

Michael,

Not begging the question - the question starts with a faulty assumption. Certainly you can make a legitimate case (Objectively, and maybe even legally some places) that if a diseased individual knowingly enters a workplace where he or she may spread their disease, it may well be looked upon as a loaded gun. Your example is far more specific than Jordan's, involving specific volitional human action. "Disease" by itself can, I think, be lumped into the same category as storms and floods.

Government action in these events is not a question of securing rights. It is a question of taking practical and responsible cooperative action to protect life and property.

jt

PS: How does one place quotes inside those gray boxes for posting?
(Edited by Jay Abbott on 4/28, 6:56am)

Post 7

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 10:37am

Hi JT,

Use Internet Explorer if you want to post quotes in the gray box. When you're in AE, you get a nice set of tools to the right of your text box. Just highlight the text you want in the gray box, and click the "Quote" button. Otherwise, use basic html coding.

That said, what assumption, and why is it wrong? (You could replace "are equally" with "can be," but I'm guessing that won't help.)

Jordan

Post 8

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 12:00pm

Jordan:

Hi Ed,

Nah, that is not my view, but hey, my view is of little consequence to this thread.

Actually I agree with Ed and disagree your view is of little consequence. You can't absolve yourself of stating your position on what rights are while asking a question that implies a premise of what rights are. By saying: "People's rights can get just as mangled by the "hands" of influenza or a hurricane.", is a declarative statement. Why would you think everyone would agree with this? Because I don't. Your rights are not mangled from a hurricane, as Marotta correctly observes, things like a hurricane are not moral agents, they don't consciously decide to destroy property and kill people. That's why Ed asks, do you think rights mean you have a right to thrive and flourish, as opposed to having the right to pursue a flourishing life, because it appears you think rights are the former. You can't pretend your view is not important to the discussion while stating your view in the second sentence of your first post.

Post 9

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 12:10pm

John,

Nope, my view is still irrelevant. It is *prima facie* the case that you can lose your rights (or have them diminished or impaired or damaged or have fewer of them afterward - I really don't want to split semantic hairs here) when subject to a disaster, a disease, or an aggressive person.

Jordan

Post 10

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 1:06pm

Jordan:

John,

Nope, my view is still irrelevant.

To this thread? No it's not irrelevant. If it was, you wouldn't have provided it in the second sentence of your first post, and you are now restating by saying:

"It is *prima facie* the case that you can lose your rights (or have them diminished or impaired or damaged or have fewer of them afterward - I really don't want to split semantic hairs here) when subject to a disaster, a disease, or an aggressive person."

It is your view it is prima facie. I don't agree it is. Nor do several of the posters here agree either. So unless you are addressing this question to someone who already agrees with this premise, you can't credibly expect an answer from people who don't agree with your view to begin with.

Post 11

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 1:38pm

I treat that second sentence as fact, not just "my view." It's a fact that bad stuff can happen to you and leave your rights in a crappier state, and that such "bad stuff" might include disease, disaster, and aggressors. I have no idea how you can disagree with this, but go ahead and try.

Jordan

Post 12

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 2:10pm

Jordan:

I treat that second sentence as fact, not just "my view." It's a fact that bad stuff can happen to you and leave your rights in a crappier state, and that such "bad stuff" might include disease, disaster...

It's a fact that bad stuff, like natural disasters, can happen to you. That it is a fact natural disasters mangle your rights, I wouldn't agree. You're asking me to try and disagree with this, and I have. I don't need to try, I did disagree. Since you're making the claim a hurricane mangles your rights, please explain how that is possible. You claim it is a fact, your responsibility to prove this.

(Edited by John Armaos on 4/28, 2:10pm)

Post 13

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 3:14pm

John,

I said: "It's a fact that bad stuff can happen to you and leave your rights in a crappier state, and that such 'bad stuff' might include disease, disaster, and aggressors."

Upon what basis do you disagree? I can see none. When the mafia comes over and breaks your legs, your rights are left in a crappier state. When a tree blows over in a hurricane and breaks your legs, your rights are left in that *same* crappier state.

How on Earth can you think that the tree fall leaves your rights in a same or better state as they were in prior to the tree fall? And then to think that of the tree fall but somehow not the mafia? I suppose weirder views have been taken.

Jordan

Post 14

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 3:32pm

Jordan, trust me, no one has a weirder view of rights than you do. And you are alone on this forum in your view.

Upon what basis do you disagree? I can see none. When the mafia comes over and breaks your legs, your rights are left in a crappier state.

When the mafia breaks your legs, they are violating your rights. I don't understand what it means to have them "in a crappier state", that's definitely a Jordanism, and a characterization of rights I've never come across before.

When a tree blows over in a hurricane and breaks your legs, your rights are left in that *same* crappier state.

No, your legs are broken in both instances, but the tree and the hurricane didn't violate your rights, but the mafioso did. Because the mafioso is a person, and only people can violate your rights, not a weather phenomenon.

If you stubbed your toe on a piece of furniture, were your rights violated? Did the furniture violate your rights? Should the government offer protection for you from your evil toe smashing furniture?

(Edited by John Armaos on 4/28, 3:35pm)

Post 15

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 4:22pm

John,

My view of rights is still irrelevant, even if you think it's weird (and how could you? You don't even know it.) and that I'm alone in it (I guess you speak for everybody?).

Saying that only people can "violate" your rights is fine. That qualifier suggests moral culpability behind what caused your rights' loss, lessening, compromised state, (insert whatever goofy qualifier you like here, henceforth to be called "F"). But it doesn't change the problem. Your rights are still "F"ed when your legs are broken. Why should the government only protect your rights against "violators" who "F" your rights as opposed to non-violators such as diseases and disasters that do the same thing?

It's worth asking again: How on Earth can you think that the tree fall leaves your rights in a same or better state as they were in prior to the tree fall?

**

Here is a view that I think works under Objectivism, and it allows for the plain fact that you refuse to accept. Perhaps Objectivism is not *primarily* concerned with protecting rights and the moral actions congruent therewith. Rather, perhaps Objectivism is concerned primarily with preventing *immoral* actions that translate into the "F"ing of others' rights. Since disease and disaster aren't immoral, then Objectivism refuses any government defense against them.

It's a subtle difference, but it changes the Objectivist government's function from one of primarily protecting rights (since it's okay if rights are "F"ed a certain way) to one of curbing divergence from certain moral obligations that we hold in relation to one another. In a sense, it'd be a government that primarily "protects" obligations. And that is sort of similar to Nozick's notion modern Retributivist theory (paraphrasing liberally here) that government punishes people to restore the obligations they broke. It punishes them "for their own good."

Jordan

(Edited by Jordan on 4/28, 4:29pm)

Post 16

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 5:13pm

Jordan, yep, I think John Armaos pretty much speaks for everybody when he says that you're alone in your view of rights.

You keep saying that your view of rights is irrelevant, but then you go on assuming that your view of rights is correct when you ask why shouldn't the government protect us "when hurricanes or diseases violate our rights"!

A hurricane and a mafioso can both break your legs. They both leave your LEGS in a crappier state. When it comes right down to it, your rights are actually undisturbed in either case. The mafioso has VIOLATED or IGNORED your rights, but you still HAVE them, in either case.

What is meant by "protecting rights" is that the government provides a deterrent to and a restraint on rights-violating actions by people, that's all.

Post 17

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 5:13pm

Jordan:

My view of rights is still irrelevant, even if you think it's weird (and how could you? You don't even know it.)

Of course I know your view, not only did you state it here, you've stated it in another thread discussion I had with you about rights.

and that I'm alone in it (I guess you speak for everybody?).

Yeah I'm willing to bet no one here thinks a hurricane can violate your rights.

Saying that only people can "violate" your rights is fine. That qualifier suggests moral culpability behind what caused your rights' loss, lessening, compromised state, (insert whatever goofy qualifier you like here, henceforth to be called "F").

You see this is the problem, you characterize this as "losing" your rights. If you could explain what does it mean to have your rights "F'ed" up, because this is nothing more than a floating abstraction on your part. I don't think it makes sense to say you lose your rights, especially if we're talking about actions of which you nor any other human being have any control over, like a hurricane. This characterization of rights that you go by leads you into starting all these bizarre "what if" questions because your own view of rights is non-sensical, and leads to the kind of questions that ask if an inanimate object can affect your rights. The only legitimate rights you have exist in a political context. You don't have a right to be free from the forces of gravity anymore than you have the right to be free from hurricane winds.

Why should the government only protect your rights against "violators" who "F" your rights as opposed to non-violators such as diseases and disasters that do the same thing?

Take that to its logical conclusion Jordan, if the government is supposed to be responsible for protecting you against non-volitional events and entities, why not say they should protect you from that coffee table in your living room that you occasionally stub your toe on? The fact is it makes no sense to say you have a right to be free from the constraints of nature or from any other non-volitional object. Since rights are moral principles, only moral agents can violate them, not inanimate objects or forces of nature.

Since disease and disaster aren't immoral, then Objectivism refuses any government defense against them.

Objectivism doesn't prescribe government defense for anyone. It does however prescribe a monopoly government that defines rights and codifies them into laws. But it doesn't say the government needs to be the provider for defense.

Post 18

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 5:19pm

John & Laure, you have both amazingly failed to understand me and rather onoxiously so. It is no longer worth my time to continue on in this discussion with you.

Jordan

Post 19

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 - 5:29pm