I am a swede, that is new to this forum. I view myself as a libertarian, even if view of libertarianism differ a great deal from mainstream libertarianism. I have found few that shares the concerns I have about liberalism, libertarianism and the question of rights, thus I have been forced to redefine some parts of standard libertarian thoughts.
But now I find it necessary to deal with this, philosophically and politically, and develop my view of libertarianism further.
The paradox is that standard versions of libertarianism would make me a slave. According to standard views of libertarianism my negative rights would be severely crippled.
Why?
Because I am disabled. I wear hearing aid.
And I have good friends that needs computers and electric wheelchairs to be able to participate in the society. They would face the same problem according to standard libertarianism.
(Please bear in mind that I come from Sweden. In sweden disabled have rights to wheelchairs, computers, etc. And people with problems hearing get hearing aid from the government.)
According to standard libertarian view children (as well as grownups) that suffer from disabilities have no RIGHT to hearing aid/electric wheelchairs etc. The relatives or private charity should help them. THAT is what bothers me. That is the paradox I am fighting with..
Because in the same moment as one says that private charity should take care of these things, and other disabled, are actively deprived from these things and do not have the RIGHT to them.
(Yes, many people are helpful and goodhearted and want to give money to disabled. But to get money via charity, is not the same as a RIGHT. Just imagine if we were to go to a private foundation and beg in order to be able to speak freely. Would that be freedom of speech? Hardly! Or to beg for the right to live?)
This bothers me. My mum was very poor and if I were born in a libertarian nation I would not, as a child, have had a RIGHT to hearing aid. I would perhaps have gotten it anyhow, but that is uncertain. We cannot say that I WOULD have gotten it anyhow, because charity is still not the same thing as a RIGHT.
For me it would have meant a kind of servitude!
Disabled people without a RIGHT to wheelchairs and computers would be far worse off than the slaves in the caribbean Sea 300 years ago! Bear in mind that without wheelchairs and computers many can basicly cant do NOTHING. Forget freedom of speech, freedom to live och property rights or anything for them! Yes they MIGHT get charity... MIGHT!
This bothers me so much that I, in my version of libertarianism has to include certain positive rights, otherwise the negative rights of all would not be protected. (I can explain that further some other time...)
So what do I, and other disabled, do that believe that our NEGATIVE RIGHTS needs to be protected, and that thinks that the only way we can ever protect our negative rights is via some positive rights?
/Torbjörn Jerlerup
PS
I know that the "welfare" system differs much in Europe and USA. I know that certain things are considered a right in Europe that is not so in USA...
Before I get into the specifics of the issues you raised; Can you give a clue why you consider yourself in the libertarian tradition?, and could you point to a few things associated with the progressive tradition that you oppose?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
I view myself as libertarian, because my view is that the state should be as little as possible and has as its aim the protection of negative rights.
BUT I have come to the, somewhat problematic, conclusion that this would mean that this means that the state needs to pursue some positive rights too. If disabled people should have RIGHTS (not free speech and right to property, etc as charity only) on equal footing with other people it would mean that they need government support, some kind of welfare. (I really hate that word, welfare!)
(One could expand this further, but I keep it simple to begin with.)
I dont understand what you mean with your second question.
/T
While I would like to see answers to niaghram's questions, I would like to ask a few basic ones myself more in direct response to your own concerns:
1. What gives you the impression that charity would be less reliable or less ample in a free market society for these services than the government in, say, Sweden is now?
2. How does government provide a certainity that charity does not? A government is just as much in risk of collapse, change due to voter opinion, takeover, lack of funding due to economic situations, or any number of other things as a voluntary charity is.
3. In regards to a 'slavery' type situation, it would be no different from your situation now. As it stands, some people (perhaps you) were and are reliant on government to provide you with an assisted-living device. However, there is no 'guarantee' of such. 'Rights' as such can be challenged in court, voted away, or the government can simply run out of the necessary funding to provide such. Likewise, there is no 'guarantee' where voluntary charity is concerned. The difference is in the manner of funding. Disabilities are unfortunate, but do they give you 'rights' over another person? Is having a disability an excuse to tell someone else what to do with their well-being for the sake of your own? These questions can be answered from both a moral standpoint and an economic standpoint--that is, the morality of doing so, and the effect on the economy of doing so.
While I would like to see answers to the above questions, I would like to ask a few basic ones myself more in direct response to your own concerns:
To be more precise: I have seen few discussions, about the difference betwen charity and right, and about the problem that negative rights could be surpressed by lack of positive rights.
If the state didn't provide food there would be no way the selfishness of people would help us get it, we must make food a RIGHT.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
Jerlerup,
Welcome to the forums.
What you said is not a paradox. There is a paradox here, but it isn't that libertarianism would make you a slave (which it wouldn't). This is the paradox:
Jerlerup:This bothers me so much that I, in my version of libertarianism has to include certain positive rights, otherwise the negative rights of all would not be protected.
'Positive rights' always have associated 'duties'. If you have a right to an apple a day, then someone has a duty to provide you an apple a day. What you call negative rights have no such associated duties. So, if you are claiming a right to a hearing aid, you are immediately making it impossible to protect the negative rights of all. By demanding such accommodations you are saying that someone out there must provide you with this hearing aid or you will use violence against them. You are assigning yourself (and other people with disabilities) a priveledged position at the expense of the negative rights of those who are not disabled. It is you who is enslaving them, Jerlerup.
You are correct in saying that it is uncertain that you would end up with a hearing aid if nobody was forced to give you one. You are correct in saying that makes you disadvanted to some extent because of it. But are you enslaved by them? No, of course not. Nobody is forcing you to do anything and slavery requires that.
You think that an electric wheelchair is a right. Does this mean that disabeled people prior to last century were all denied from their rights?
Are computers, internet, cars, suits, mobile phones also rights because you need them to participate in society? And what about food? Should the government also provide this? Don't get me wrong: I do think that we should do whatever is possible to help people in need. But saying that it's a right doesn't make things better. In fact, why would you force other people through violence to help you? Wouldn't that disable other people in their freedom?
Things in the farmaceutical world would be A LOT cheaper in a free market society. I think you just make the error to compare the current situation with an identical situation just without government aid. That's an error a lot of people seem to make. The fact is that Sweden could have been a lot wealthier if the government didn't tread his citizens as elementary schoolchilds.
It makes me wonder. When do people should be free according to you? Because right now you're just cherry-picking the government aid that benefits you.
As a final note, a positive rights libertarian is just another fancy name for a contradictory ideology.
Welcome to the forum. Very brave of you to discuss your situation and state your feelings about such a delicate and important issue.
1. OK, to the heart of the matter. It is uncomfortable indeed to have to live by the good will of people.
The question is, is it a better feeling to know you are taking away their money by the use of force and violence? Because giving an invalid a right to a wheelchair really means someone else will have to work hard, make money, and then give the money to the invalid whether that worker wants to or not.
Although he worked for the money, he will not be allowed to spend it. If he refuses to give it to the invalid, he will be beaten and put in jail. If he resists going to jail, he will be injured and possibly killed. All because he worked hard and made money and wants to keep the money he earned. Your unfortunate circumstance, when turned into a right, has created misfortune for him as well. He is now a slave. His right to earn an honest living has been taken away to satisfy your right.
Would you feel better if the government, instead of giving you a wheelchair, gave you a machine gun? So you could invade people's homes personally and force them to give you money? Surely you could do that part by yourself, though it may not be enjoyable to a man with dignity. Why do you rely on the government to do that unplesaant task? Is it not enough that they made the law giving you a right to a wheelchair?
2. Another important aspect of this situation is the cost of the wheelchair and other accesories. When the government buys wheelchairs, or anything else, they pay a much higher price than a private person does. This is always the case. It is not their money, what do they care? And of course they buy it from the politically connected, meaning their is great corruption and theft involved. So the people who pay for your wheelchair are losing much more than you are gaining.
3. Also taxes collected for the wheelchair are not just for the wheelchair. They are also collected to open offices all over the country, fill them with staff to do paperwork, buy storage houses for the wheelchairs, and many other wastes of money.
4. If your parents or friends or a charity or a bank would lend you money to buy what you need, it will be much cheaper for all concerned. And you would enjoy the dignity of having paid for your own wheelchair, as opposed to have stolen one at gunpoint through your thugs.
5. A person's principles, if he has intellectual honesty, will lead him to conclusions as they may, whether they are convenient for him or not. If you are a libertarian because you think it profitable for you, then of course an exception must be made when you stand to lose a few dollars from the principle of liberty. But if you are a libertarian because you think and feel it right, then of course it is right even when you suffer some discomfort as a consequence.
My humble blog
It's easy to refute an argument if you first misrepresent it. William Keizer
Short answer: Buy your own darn hearing aid.
Hearing aids and wheelchairs aren't that expensive as they are now, imagine how cheap they would be in a free market. It sounds like you prefer complete nationalization of the healthcare industry - which would one to advocate nationalization of housing, agriculture, etc since they involve things people value highly and thereby think they have a "right" to.
What a lack of imagination - if the government doesn't give it to me I'll never get it.
- That a right is something more profound and far reaching than a charity. The right to free speech is something else than to need to beg for free speech, if you follow me! The same thing goes for the rights of a disabled person to a life. (Please remember that I still speak of some kind of libertarian society, not present day USA och SWeden)
- Yes it is in risk of collapse. But for better and worse many European governments provide ALL disabled with wheelchairs and such. So it is possible to create conditions that are extremly good for all. And hopefully a libertarian socielty would be a bit more stabile than the system of today.
Voluntary charity is still something else than a RIGHT.
3. In regards to a 'slavery' type situation, it would be no different from your situation now. As it stands, some people (perhaps you) were and are reliant on government to provide you with an assisted-living device. However, there is no 'guarantee' of such. 'Rights' as such can be challenged in court, voted away, or the government can simply run out of the necessary funding to provide such. Likewise, there is no 'guarantee' where voluntary charity ...
- Well government can deprive people of votingrights and freedom of speech too. But still we hold these rights as quite fundamental. By the way... Many governments and parliamanents here in Europe have voted yes to the data retention act!
Even if so, there is still a difference between a right and a charity.
Cporter. Thanks!
Jerlerup: 'Positive rights' always have associated 'duties'. If you have a right to an apple a day, then someone has a duty to provide you an apple a day. What you call negative rights have no such associated duties. So, if you are claiming a right to a hearing aid, you are immediately making it impossible to protect the negative rights of all. By demanding such accommodations you are saying that someone out there must provide you with this hearing aid or you will use violence against them. You are assigning yourself (and other people with disabilities) a priveledged position at the expense of the negative rights of those who are not disabled. It is you who is enslaving them, Jerlerup. You are correct in saying that it is uncertain that you would end up with a hearing aid if nobody was forced to give you one. You are correct in saying that makes you disadvanted to some extent because of it. But are you enslaved by them? No, of course not. Nobody is forcing you to do anything and slavery requires that.
Well. This is problematic. Yes! The negative right of others will be trampled upon (tax/welfare, etc). But if this is not done the negative rights of the disabled will be tramped upon. Do you see the problem? It seems as it is impossible to protect the negative rights of ALL, without some kind of basic positive rights.
Well I have money. Today I can buy a hearing aid easily on the market. But imagine children?! Children are completely dependent on either welfare or charity, or their parents.
To force people to do NOTHING can be regarded as slavery too.
I would have been enslaved in a "soft" way if I had not had hearing aid as a child. MANY disadvantages. . But imagine a person with CP, dempending on his or her computer. Without that he or she is worse of than a slave!
That is what I am bothered about...
>>But if this is not done the negative rights of the disabled will be tramped upon
why do you think a wheelchair is a 'negative right' , what does 'negative right' mean to you ?
MTN DEW: Imagine a child. You cannot say that to a child. One cannot say "buy your own equipment", to him or her! And... Some people are worse off than me and cant even survive without charity or some kind of support via government.
Right to vote? O my goodness, are you even a libertarian? What aspects of your philosophy do you consider libertarian?
Imagine an adult. You cannot say that to an adult. One cannot say "pay for some other persons wheelchair", to him or her!
Now I have to stop for a moment.
I seriously want to discuss this. But almost every time I try to do it I run into the same counterarguments.
1) "Children with need of hearing aid, and disabled people can get support via charity in the future."
- If you belive so, it is fine. But that means that we do not have the RIGHT to this. Thus disabled people would not have the right to live, would not be free to speak, etc. Because they would need to beg charity first, and THEN speak or live.
2) "Why are you libertarian, you seem to believe in welfare".
To which I can only answer that I wish to define libertarianism so that many disabled people do not become dependent on charity in order to excersice their fundamental rights in a libertarian society.
Can we please skip these two approaches to this question?
:-)
/Torbjörn
Its clear to everyone that you wish for various things and you wish for them to be assured/have the status of 'rights' but its not clear to anyone why you use the word 'negative', do you have criteria?
So you want to force people to pay for your medical care so that you're not a slave? You want to enslave others to stop yourself from being a slave? Do you not see the contradiction?
Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his ocr her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.
It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!
nirgrahamUK
yes I wish for various things. As freedom of speech, and such. We all do so! :-)
it seems that you have been fooled by the equivocation in common language and have confused 'force' in political philosophy sometimes with 'cause' and sometimes with other things..
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/force
In what way, nirgrahamUK?
To use force can be to say that someone should DO something specifik and should NOT do something, as I see it. To deprive of, or to not make sure that someone gets something is force too IF THE PERSON CANT GET IT AS A RIGHT in any other way..
Just because force is used to make people do thing, or to make them not do things does not mean that whenever anything happens to anyone that is because of 'force'.
If you want a big Mansion to live in, and I don't give it to you, it should be clear that I did not 'force' anything....
To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.
Your objection is not that someone has been deprived of thier rights... its that they have been deprived of their ability to excercise thier rights. But no human being has deprived or taken their rights or even thier ability to exercise those rights.
It would seem you are misplacing blame here. If someone is born dumb, deaf, and blind it is nature that has deprived you of the ability to exercise your rights. But in any case you have not been deprived of the right itself.
Defended from who?
Southern. If I, with some human help, can get back my rights and humans withhold it, then I am deprived of my right by force.
If a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island, and they are declared free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?
That is what I am thinking about.
It is still so that charity is not the same as a right.
Jerlerup:If a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island, and they are declared free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?
In this scenario there are masters and slaves. Since the slaves are only there due to being forced by the masters, there is a presumed obligation on the part of the masters to also get the slaves off of the island, return them to their original lands, or whatever (at the option of the slaves of course - some may want to stay on the island).
However, this is not the scenario you have been arguing. What you have been saying is this:
If a group of persons were born on an island, and are free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then?
If I punch you in the ear until you go deaf then no, I can't stop punching you, declare you "free" from further abuse, and call it a day. I have created an obligation to make you whole again; being forced to pay for surgery, buy you a hearing aid, or something similar. But that is not what happened. Nobody caused most of the disabilities you are worried about and therefore nobody is responsible for making you whole.
It is not force if they do not.
This article is not perfect, it features I think an unfortunate phrasing ('anarchic') but the force of the argument shines through:
George Reisman from Capitalism:
The concept of freedom when employed rationally,presupposes the existence of reality, and with it the laws of nature, the necessity of choice among alternatives, and the fact that if one resorts to force, one must expect to be met by force. Of particular importance is the fact that it presupposes the necessity of having the voluntary coop- eration of everyone who is to aid in an activity—including the owners of any property that may be involved. After taking for granted the presence of all this, the rational concept of freedom then focuses on the absence of one particular thing: the initiation of physical force—in particular, by the government. In sharpest contrast to the rational concept of freedom is the anarchic concept. The anarchic concept of freedom evades and seeks to obliterate the fundamental and radical distinction that exists between two sorts of obstacles to the achievement of a goal or desire: “obstacles” constituted by the ordinary facts of reality, including other people’s voluntary choices, and obstacles constituted by the government’s threat to use physical force. For exam- ple, by the nature of things, it is impossible for me to square circles, walk through walls, or be in two places at the same time. It is also not possible for me, in the actual circumstances of my life, to win the Nobel prize in chemistry or the Academy Award for best actor of the year, or to enter the automobile or steel business. There are all kinds of such things I simply cannot do. And among the things I could do, there are many I choose not to do, because I judge the consequences to myself to be highly undesirable. For example, I cannot arbitrarily decide to walk off my job in the middle of winter to take a vacation in the sun, without the very strong likelihood of being fired. I cannot drive down a city street at ninety miles an hour, nor can I strike or kill another, without running the risk of paying the penalty for violating the law. And then, there are things that are possible for me to do, and that I would very much like to do, but that would require the consent of other people, which consent they are unwilling to give. In this category, are such things as having my views published in The New York Times or having this book assigned in courses at leading “liberal” universities. Absolutely none of these facts constitutes a violation of freedom, a denial of rights, or anything of the kind. In order for a violation of freedom to exist, it is not sufficient merely that someone be unable to achieve what he desires. What is necessary is that the specific thing stopping him be the initiation of physical force; in particular, the government’s threat to use force against him in response to an action of his that does not represent the use of force. The stock-in-trade of the anarchic concept of freedom, however, is to construe precisely such facts as a violation of freedom and rights. On the basis of the anarchic concept of freedom, it is claimed that freedom is violated any time there is anything that, for whatever reason, a person cannot do, from flying to the moon, to being able to afford a house or a college education that is beyond his reach, to committing murder. Ironically, the anarchic concept of freedom is implicitly accepted by conservatives and fascists, as well as by anarchists and hippies. This is evident in the arguments they advance when they seek to establish the principle that it is necessary and proper to violate freedom. For example, they argue that we do not allow a man the “freedom” to murder his mother-in-law or to speed through red lights and thereby threaten the lives of others. In propounding such arguments, the conservatives and fascists casually neglect the fact that such acts constitute the initiation of force, and are so far from representing freedom that their prohibition is what actually constitutes freedom. The anarchic concept of freedom, of course, is present in the assertions of Communists and socialists that their freedom of speech is violated because they are threatened with arrest for attempting to disrupt the speech of an invited speaker by shouting him down or by speaking at the same time. This assertion by the Communists and socialists neglects the fact that their action constitutes the use of someone else’s property against his will namely, the use of the meeting room against the will of the owner or lessee, who wants the invited speaker to speak, not the disrupters. It is thus the action of the Communists and socialists which is a violation of freedom in this instance, a genuine violation of the freedom of speech. It follows from this discussion of the erroneous claims of the Communists and socialists that a prohibition on arbitrarily shouting “fire” in a crowded theater should not be construed as any kind of limitation on the freedom of speech. Arbitrarily shouting “fire” constitutes a violationof the property rights of the theater owner and of the other ticketholders, whom it prevents from using their property as they wish. When one holds the context of the rational concept of freedom, it becomes clear that it is no more aviolation of freedom of speech to prohibit such speech, than it is to prohibit the speech of disruptive hecklers, or the speech of an uninvited guest who might choose to deliver a harangue in one’s living room. Violations of freedom of speech occur only when the speaker has the consent of the property owners involved and then is prohibited from speaking by means of the initiation of physical force—in particular, by the government or by private individuals acting with the sanction of the gov- ernment. Because of the confusions that have been introduced into the concept of freedom, it is necessary to set matters right in a number of important concrete instances. Thus, freedom of speech is violated not when an individual does not receive an invitation to speak somewhere, but when he does receive it and is stopped by the government (or by private individuals acting with the sanction of the government) from accepting the invitation or exercising it. It is violated precisely by Communist and socialist disrupters whom the police refuse to remove. Ironically, in the case of a live theatrical performance, it is violated precisely when someone arbitrarily shouts “fire.” Such a person violates the freedom of speech of the actors on stage. The freedom of the press is violated and censorship exists not when a newspaper refuses to publish a story or a column that, for any reason, it regards as unworthy of publication, but when it is prepared to publish a piece and is stopped from doing so by the government. Thus, if I want to print my views in The New York Times, but can neither afford the advertising rates nor persuade the publisher to give me space, my freedom of the press is not violated; I am not a victim of “censorship.” But suppose I do have the money to pay the advertising rates or could persuade the publisher to print my views, and the government disallows it—that would be a violation of the freedom of the press; that would be censorship. It is a violation of my freedom of the press if the govern- ment stops me from mimeographing leaflets, if that is all I can afford to do to spread my ideas. Again, censorship exists not when the sponsor of a television program refuses to pay for the broadcast of ideas he considers false and vicious, but when he does approve of the ideas he is asked to sponsor and yet is stopped from sponsoring them—for example, by an implicit threat of the govern ment not to renew the license of the television station, or arbitrarily to deny him some permission he requires in some important aspect of his business. In the same way, if I ask a woman to marry me, and she says no, my freedom is not violated. It is only violated if she says yes, and the government then stops me from marrying her—say, by virtue of a law concerning mar- riages among people of different races, religions, or blood types. Or, finally, if I want to travel somewhere, but lack the ability to pay the cost of doing so, my freedom of travel is in no way violated. But suppose I do have the ability to pay the cost, and want to pay it, but the government stops me—say, with a wall around my city (as existed until recently in East Berlin), a passport restriction, or a price control on oil and oil products that creates a shortage of gasoline and aviation fuel and thus stops me from driving and the airlines from flying—then my freedom of travel is violated. What is essential in all these cases is not the fact that there is something I cannot do for one reason or another, but what it is, specifically, that stops me. Only if what stops me is the initiation of physical force—by the gov- ernment in particular—is my freedom violated.
So being born with a natural disadvantage bestows the right to make other people slaves? By denying those born with natural disadvantages to steal property, time, and labor from others somehow makes disabled people slaves?
It would seem we disagree on the definition of slave.
Furthermore, it seems that our anxiety here is that your ability to use the violence of the state to steal from others for your own personal gain would be reduced in a libertarian society. I don't think liberalism, or libertarianism are ideologies that represent you as your grievence here couldn't be more opposed to the concepts.
See OP, if you were the other type of libertarian (from the other side of the aisle), we advocate voluntary communities with it written in the "contract" (you accept to be a member of the society) that assholes who want the disabled to fend for themselves are not welcome in our communities.
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
Laotzu del Zinn:See OP, if you were the other type of libertarian (from the other side of the aisle), we advocate voluntary communities with it written in the "contract" (you accept to be a member of the society) that assholes who want the disabled to fend for themselves are not welcome in our communities.
Yeah, the disabled are going to hang out with a bunch of broke ass whiners who don't understand economics. That will put hearing aids in their ears!
You'll show those damn capitalists!
@OP, I am sorry you are deaf, and I would do what I can to help you, but you have no right to demand anything from me. Your "rights" cannot violate mine and still maintain the pretense that some things are rights, unless you want to claim you are a superior being and I should be subservient to you.
"Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his ocr her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.
It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!"
You have all sorts of "rights" that you may or may not be able to actually use. You have a "right" to fall in love and spend the rest of your life with someone - but if you're ugly and no one can get past that, do you have the "right" to force me to pay for your plastic surgery?
You have an incredibly skewed view of rights. I don't think you need to call yourself a libertarian.
unless you want to claim you are a superior being and I should be subservient to you.
Don't tempt us, LS.
Leibniz had an article on this question. Read this article. (Its in French, but if you don't know French, google translate I think will do pretty good job, since its easier language to translate from).
http://www.archive.org/details/mittheilungenau00mollgoog , pp. 41-70.
Leibniz said that Golden Rule, which is only rule of law, since it imposes no privledges on anyone, not only protects people from violence, but also requires people to give charity where it is not much difficulty or cost to person whose help is asked.
Leibniz was first to bring up this question from libertarian perspective (he denies any law not in accordance with Golden Rule, which pretty much is everything we have today).
But he clarified that this is not absolute law that can be will nilly extended to anything that people want other people to give them.
His examples are all of sort: I am standing with rope and you are in hole; help you get out of hole, because I would expect same.
Because it is violating golden rule to require anything that is inconvenient to people who are supposed to provide it. What or what is convenient can only be voluntary.
Leibniz is clearly defending only voluntary charity, since if government must force you, it is clearly inconvenient for you.
To extend Leibniz's idea beyond what is voluntary and at discretion of person giving aid is to make what other posters here have already written (besides as several books do, misinterpreting Leibniz):
If B gives X to A voluntarily, and A expects B to give X to A, this is voluntary charity and in accordance with Golden Rule; it means, although A and B have different preferences, it is convenient for B to give this to A, according to B's preferences, which determine foregone opportunity of giving up X, i.e., X's cost.
If A and B have different preferences, what is cost to A and cost to B differ, then A cannot expect B to give X to A and force B to do this, simple because he would do same if B asked this of him. A's cost (foregone opportunity) of doing this differs from B's, so how can he claim that, by forcing B, "he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him"? A cannot.
If A were willing to give X to B if B was in A's circumstances and A was in B's, this does not imply "he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him" when he forces B to give up X to A, becuase preferences vary and costs vary, and A certainly cannot abide by "he not is doing to others what he wants others not to do to him" if A forces B to give to A what is more costly to B while A forces A to give to B what is less costly to A. Costs cannot be compared, so how can they be equal. Costs being unequal, A cannot claim reciprocity. He is willing to give less and receive more, but B is supposed to be giving more and recieving less.
If A and B exchange something, then even though they both gain, giving less for more, in this case, so Golden Rule is satisfied and consistency is satisfied.
Contractual communities that keep the unwanted out? When did left libs become Hoppeans?
Liberty Student:Yeah, the disabled are going to hang out with a bunch of broke ass whiners who don't understand economics. That will put hearing aids in their ears! You'll show those damn capitalists!
When will you understand that socialism will turn the oceans to lemonade, fly roasted pidgeons into our mouths, and create the right amount of hearing aids and wheelchairs.
they said we would have an unfair fun advantage
Southern. If I, with some human help, can get back my rights and humans withhold it, then I am deprived of my right by force. If a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island, and they are declared free, but have no way to leave the island, are they REALLY free then? That is what I am thinking about. It is still so that charity is not the same as a right.
Reread the words that you use. "if a group of persons are kept as slaves on an island", those peoples rights have been violated by the slave master and have the right to be compensated.
A more realistic analogy would be: someone is born on an island where the technology to leave does not exist. The people of this island can see ships sail by everyday. The people on the ships can see the people on the island, but never stop.
You declare that those people on the island have a right to leave the island, this in someway entitles them to the the technology and ships of those who sail by everyday. Because without it those on the island who wish to leave are slaves, because they are unable to excise thier right to leave. The people on the ships are violating thier rights somehow by not giving them either the technology/boats to leave.
Here are my own thoughts: nobody on this earth is born perfect and we are all wanting for one thing or another. In comparison with our highest values, we are all disabled to a certain degree. I would certainly live a better life in some senses if I was more attractive, more charismatic, more whatever. Perhaps my life would be better if I had been born into a different family too, who knows?
Our starting circumstances are all due to chance. However, your logic is the logic that a person born into this world has the right to take from others in order to help themselves. So, an ugly person would have the right to make a beautiful person pay for their surgery. A disabled person would have the right to force a healthly person to buy their wheelchair. A short person would have the right to force a tall person to pay for leg lengthening surgery.
You can't say that you have the right to restitute your type of disability by enforcing a claim on others, but that other people don't have the right to make the same claims. Do you see where that would lead? Everyone would have claims against everyone else and everyone would be making a slave out of everyone else. If you restrict your claims to a subset and say that only THESE disabilities are deserving of a right to restitution, then you are simly placing your own values above other people's values.
The only way out of this in my opinion is to recognize that none of us has a claim on other people for our own situation because others did nothing to cause how the genetic and life lotteries played out for us. Likewise, it is not our own fault, either. Nobody ever said that it's a disabled person's fault that they're disabled. You can blame the universe and random chance if you want, but there is no way to get restitution from the universe. To the extent that you can blame another person for your misfortune then you perhaps have a claim against them, but to the extent that you can only blame the universe or random chance you cannot fairly force someone else to pay for that misfortune.
Think about ithis: A ship is sinking and one person struggles onto a floating piece of plywood that can only hold one person. A struggling swimmer comes over and fights over the same piece of plywood, because he's fighting for his life. If he doesn't he will die. He manages to knock the first person off who subsequently drowns and dies. This is a situation in the limit, but if you subscribe to the logic that those in more dire circumstances have the right to extract claims from those in less dire circumstances,then you can also make the claim that the first guy deserved to die because the second guy was in a worse situation. The second guy certainly had the right to fight for his own life and nobody would expect him to commit suicide, but that doesn't mean that the first guy deserved to pay the price for the second guy's misfortune!
To me it just doesn't make sense to say that one's person misfortune is a claim on other people who had absolutely nothing to do with that person's circumstances. I'm not a philosopher or a moral expert and I'm still fleshing things out in my head, and I think under some situations failure to act could certainly seem like aggression (the problem of a person dying of thirst in a desert and a passeryby absolutely refuses to help him is something that causes problems for me personally) and that I haven't worked out, but I really don't think you can extend this to normal everyday circumstances unless you want to run into the trap where everyone has a claim against everyone else.
Gellerup: Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his or her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too. It seems as if the negative rights of the disabled person only can be defended by positive rights!
Mtn Dew. I do not wish to force anyone. But to let a disabled person depend on charity is force too. You will force that person to depend on charity for his or her life. To NOT give someone right to speech is FORCE. To not give a person right to live (without the help of charity) is to deprive that person of freedom too.
An interesting theme in this thread is dependence. The author says that without the government people in need will be dependent on charity. How is that different from being dependent on the government? The real solution is independence and that means finding a way t provide for your own needs, ultimately. Obvioiusly, there are some people that cannot accomplish this du to severe disabilities. There are, and always have been, people who want to help people as much as they can.