The Sephiroth of Objective Utilitarianism versus the Final Aeon of the Social Moralist

[your_excellency]

Just recently, I was engaged in a brief conversation with a good friend of mine who has been awarded a substantial number of respect points in the past. I find it a bit troubling since this is a friend who is really intelligent, highly educated, the sort of person whom you'd expect to have a high moral standard. Here she argues that some people, by virtues of their circumstances, or choice, enters into walks of life that are counter-productive or detrimental to the functioning of a desirable society, do not deserve public resource that are put forwards to ensure that all members within this society receives a basic level of protection and rights. The more specific case here, is the right to health. To paraphrase my friend, I think she argues that because the functional value of these undesirables(eg. bums, drug dealers) are too low, they are not worth the public investments that we as a society can bestow upon other, more potentially rewarding ventures(i.e. children.)

I hereby offer my rebuttal. Although I am certain that all my arguments will have been put forth before by some more prominent and articulate members of academia and the press, I opt to do this as an intellectual exercise.

1. The first of my argument is a technical one. Since the process of assigning values to individuals is necessarily fuzzy and arbitrary, one cannot reasonably say with certainty, that helping one person is superior to helping the next. This is due to the fact that life is uncertain, and you cannot conclusively prove that a child is not going to grow up into a child molester, or that a drug dealer is not going to stop dealing and become an international pop sensation. Even if you can show that one is statistically superior than the next, you still cannot convince me that we should write off the entirety of the potential of individuals who some may view as unproductive


2. The second of my argument is more of a fundamental one. If one were to determine the resource one receive solely on the merits of his worth to society alone, we should reasonably expect to legalize euthanasia, stop giving food to all life prisoners, celebrate our honored yet crippled war heroes with a bullet to the head, and kill off any baby that does not have a reasonable chance of reaching adulthood.



3. Even if you do agree that we have to kill off all useless individuals, you still run into the problem of who gets to decide who deserves to live more and who doesn't. If you give authority over life over to individuals or the states, the repercussions will be onerous. Perhaps, the majority of people will decide that people with cystic fibrosis is not worth saving, or worse, people of your ethnicity are not worth saving either. Once the precedence is set, you embark on a slippery slope where people's lives depend on the morality of the majority, and that brought us the Bush Administration.


4. I believe, that drugs and health care are two separate issues, where as drugs is a symptom of societal ills, health care is a moral issue. Many addicts may be disadvantaged due to other factors in a cycle of poverty, and drug dealers may be in that profession because most other avenues of social mobility have been closed off. We should look at systematic issues relating to how bums and addicts come about, rather than just do away with them and let others take their places. I believe, that society is a collection for all individuals, not just certain portions who fit certain criteria. An ideal society is one everyone's needs can be accommodated and taken care of, with everyone contributing in a productive way. Perhaps, perfection is idealism, but giving up on improvements is less than what we should strive for.


5. The last one is a moral argument. I believe everyone, regardless of race, creed, occupation, taste in music, and snobbishness has a right to access of health care. I say this for the simple reason that one day you and I may need to have access to this service, even if we are unable to be of value to our society. On that day, we will not wish for someone to deem us unworthy of medical treatment. For that reason, I will refrain from condemning people to a lower standard of health care service. This is not surprisingly one of the major argument against privatization of health care. How much we deserve to live should never be predicated on how rich we are, or how many jobs we hold, or how good we perform in bed.

These are the things I can think of right now. This is not to say that I agree with dealing narcotics or using mind-altering substances to the point of addiction, and that includes cigarettes. In fact, I deplore people who willfully abuse them(I'm looking at you, a certain former member in my life.) That's it, I hope you were not bored to tears.