Obviously, you did not read all my posts in my dialogue with Wildstar:
No, I read them.
Instead, you chose to focus on one of my earlier isolated posts (to Wildstar) where some of your questions to me where answered in these later posts.
The questions or points where not answered. Also Wildstar solidly refuted your main arguments in them.
The two posts you link to deal with a weak argument using the idea of "the Categorical Imperative". You base this argument on the your proposed maxim that Human Health is a priority and should be implemented at all costs.
The problems with this argument.
1 - "Human health" is a vague concept.
2 - "above all else" is a very high standard, and human health is not the only important consideration. Taking any "positive right" to be an absolute is incompatible with freedom.
3 - Asserting any "positive right" as an absolute above all else maxim means that anything is justified to achieve it. If one such maxim can be interpreted as providing a positive obligation on anyone and everyone to provide something to you (in this case health care) then you are saying its ok to take away people's freedom in the name of maximizing human health. You could ban cigarettes, make the speed limit (for not emergencies) maybe 10mph, force doctors to make heroic efforts to increase patients health even if the patient can't afford it, ect., and try to justify it under maximizing health.
4 - Attempts to provide an extensive level of government provided health care can lower human health because socialized medicine often doesn't work well, but even if the system does work well and in the short run the average person becomes healthier, in the long run you are likely to reduce economic growth and thus reduce wealth and eventually health.
The other argument you make is that a UN declaration calls health care a human right, but unless you think the law decides what is truly a right and what isn't, and unless you accept UN declarations as law, that argument is meaningless.
Health care is a social benefit that is particularly important because it affects everyone in a community. Whether a person is an "illegal alien," permanent resident or a full-fledged citizen does not matter when an issue about health is concerned. An outbreak of tuberculosis spread by an illegal alien will not be selective on who it infects.
Not every health problem is communicable. Also even when you have a communicable disease and when helping one person helps everyone, that might make it "a social benefit", but it doesn't make it "a human right".
Tim |
