If a house is burning down and someone is inside unconscious, and I rescue her from certain death, but I suffer terrible burns, then does she have to pay my medical bills?
If someone is drowning and I hire a helicopter to save her from certain death, then does she have to repay me for the hire of the helicopter?
Those are positive obligations. I don't believe that you are due any compensation by virtue of providing a rescue.
Susana: If a house is burning down and someone is inside unconscious, and I rescue her from certain death, but I suffer terrible burns, then does she have to pay my medical bills? If someone is drowning and I hire a helicopter to save her from certain death, then does she have to repay me for the hire of the helicopter?
If I show up at your house tomorrow while you are at work and mow your lawn, do you have to pay my hourly rate?
Unsolicited services, of any kind, are charity - at best. Any compensation recieved for them is a gratuity. Except when government gets involved.
The state won't go away once enough people want the state to go away, the state will effectively disappear once enough people no longer care that much whether it stays or goes. We don't need a revolution, we need millions of them.
I don't think someone has to repay you, in the sense that if you took them to court and demanded payment, I don't know that a judge would recognize your claim as a legitimate one. But that being said, I think it would be really awful of someone not to cover the costs incurred by a person who saved their life.
It is a weird situation, though, I agree. Because if someone was screaming for you to save their life, and told you that if you did, they weren't going to pay for the costs you would need to incur in order to save them, I still feel like you'd be morally obligated to save them if you could. And since you'd be incurring costs because of the person you're saving, it doesn't seem completely ridiculous to claim that the Responsibility Principle should make them pay.
Nevertheless, the answer as most people, and our legal system, see it is that no, you don't have the right to recover your expenses.
histhasthai: If I show up at your house tomorrow while you are at work and mow your lawn, do you have to pay my hourly rate? Unsolicited services, of any kind, are charity - at best. Any compensation recieved for them is a gratuity. Except when government gets involved.
Well that sucks. What has mowing a lawn got to do with saving a life?
No wonder government gets involved. Why should any private organization set up a rescue service if they can't even recover their costs when they rescue someone?
Susana: Well that sucks. What has mowing a lawn got to do with saving a life? No wonder government gets involved. Why should any private organization set up a rescue service if they can't even recover their costs when they rescue someone?
It's a service rendered unsolicited. In the life threatening situations you mention, the person may not have the opportunity to ask and agree to your terms, but that doesn't change the reality of the fact that they didn't ask and agree.
Markets will find a way to make rescues profitable - perhaps by arranging terms in advance of the need, similar to insurance, protection services, and the like, or building the amortized cost into the fee at public venues, things like that - and natural human benevolence will usually, if possible, result in a rescue in truly unforseen life- or property-threatening situations regardless.
Susana:Well that sucks. What has mowing a lawn got to do with saving a life?
It's performing a service.
Susana:No wonder government gets involved. Why should any private organization set up a rescue service if they can't even recover their costs when they rescue someone?
You should ask them.
Markets works well because people are rational. They don't buy something from one shop if they can save a lot of money by buying it from the shop next door. It's not usually in their interests.
But when it comes to a rescue, you turn around and rely on the fact that some people are irrational. They will risk their lives, even for no benefit to themseves, even at great personal danger, to save someone else.
This idea will encourage the free-rider principle. Mr Scrooge will get saved by others but will never lift a finger to save anyone else.
A lbertarian society run like this will end up with too many Scrooges sponging off everyone else's benevolence.
I don't know why you shouldn't have an obligation to reimburse anyone for any essential costs incurred in saving your life. I'm not talking about ANY service. I'm just talking about saving life.
Susana:This idea will encourage the free-rider principle. Mr Scrooge will get saved by others but will never lift a finger to save anyone else.
How can he free ride? If the service goes unfunded, he won't get service when he is killing himself.
Susana:I don't know why you shouldn't have an obligation to reimburse anyone for any essential costs incurred in saving your life. I'm not talking about ANY service. I'm just talking about saving life.
Can I sue my rescuer if they save me, but I lose a limb? What if I die but they try to save me? Can my heirs sue them for compensation for failing to save me?
Please see my example.
liberty student: Can I sue my rescuer if they save me, but I lose a limb? What if I die but they try to save me? Can my heirs sue them for compensation for failing to save me?
You miss my point. I am not advocating an obligation to save someone. Everyone is entitled to walk away when someone is in trouble. What I am asking for is an obligation to repay someone who does save your life.
In the absence of any prior contract, the rescued person should have absolutely no obligation to reimburse the rescuer. The rescue is strictly an act of charity. In fact, if the rescue goes wrong-- let's say the would-be rescuer gets in the way, and causes injury to the person being "rescued"--then the rescuer might well have an obligation to pay damages.
Of course there's nothing to prevent the rescuer from establishing a contract immediately prior to the rescue. He could simply call out "I'll save your life if you agree to pay me x amount." and, if the other person agrees, there'd be a contract. Of course, depending on the circumstances, the rescuer might well face public opprobrium, but that would be his choice.
Susana:But when it comes to a rescue, you turn around and rely on the fact that some people are irrational.
You're assuming benevolence is always irrational. It's irrational to put someone else's interests ahead of your own, but it is certainly possible that you could decide that the benefit of saving someone is worth the risk - even if it's a complete stranger.
Given the enormous benefits of society, division of labor, markets, and all the related benefits, it is rational to assume that, given no other knowledge about them, a random person is more likely to be beneficial to you than a detrimental. You can't guarantee it, but the odds are with you. And simply as a practical matter, taking the opposite approach, or even a neutral one, would lead to problems you don't need me to describe.
On the other hand, if I knew the drowning man had declined to arrange for insurance, or whatever, on the grounds that someone would probably take care of him, well, screw him.
Susana:I'm not talking about ANY service. I'm just talking about saving life.
You'll have to provide some argument why saving a life is different in principle from any other service, such as mowing a lawn. And repeating "but it's saving a LIFE", wouldn't be useful.
Of course, if you feel a moral obligation to reward or compensate the person who just saved your life - and most people would, to some extent - you're certainly welcome to do so. And if you were on the other side of it, would you walk past a drowning man simply because you were worried about how much money you'd lose by saving him? If I'm considering doing something that risks serious injury, my main consideration is not the hospital bill. If not, why do you assume you are so much better than everyone else, (if that is a standard of "better")?
Susana:But when it comes to a rescue, you turn around and rely on the fact that some people are irrational. They will risk their lives, even for no benefit to themseves, even at great personal danger, to save someone else.
I think maybe you mean no monetary benefit to themselves...
For me personally the saving of someone's life would be payment enough for the 'irrational' act of attempting a rescue action. I probably wouldn't even accept payment for the services rendered much less demand payment.
Susana: This idea will encourage the free-rider principle. Mr Scrooge will get saved by others but will never lift a finger to save anyone else. A lbertarian society run like this will end up with too many Scrooges sponging off everyone else's benevolence.
That's a strawman argument based off the false premise that without monetary compensation people wouldn't lift a finger to save a kitten from a burning tree or whatever emotionally charged argument you wish to propose to show that libertarians are cold-hearted bastards and the only way to ensure benevolence is through State run programs.
What's that, for profit charity?
I think there are two different levels involved here, professional 'life savers' and the random Joe Citizen who happens upon an accident or something.
For the first lets say you go to a private beach that provides a life guard service. It is fully expected that they will behave in an 'irrational' manner if you appear to be in peril because that's their job, if they try to negotiate a private contract between themselves and the people they save either before or after they save them then they are going against their basic contractual duties which they agreed to with the owner of this particular facility who employs them to perform a specific task.
Now for random citizen trying to save someone they just happen upon. It is neither their job or is there a implied obligation for them to save anyone, any action they take will be a decision based on free will and with no expectation to be compensated for their actions. Any argument to the contrary would go against the principals of free association, they are free to chose either way how to deal with the circumstances they are presented with short of intentionally causing further harm to the person.
You can't take the second case and apply the principals to the first because they are two completely different things. To say that a ski resort won't have a professional search and rescue team because the person getting rescued doesn't have the obligation to compensate them for 'any essential costs' is just absurd. The compensation is built into the ticket price that the owners charge so they are in fact getting paid to provide this service. Or you could go ski at a resort with no rescue team and take your chances at some generous individual dragging your sorry non-skiing ass down the hill after you broke your leg in three places because you wished to 'sponge' off volunteer rescuers.
You would have a choice in paying a little extra for the piece of mind that there were people to save you or you could take your chances with no obligation to pay if you were lucky enough to get saved after an accident. No 'free riding' involved.
Even under today's system you are under no legal obligation to either compensate a person for saving you or to even lift a finger to save someone else unless you were the direct cause of their situation. Well, unless you get saved by the State then they charge you excessive amounts for the privilege because they have a monopoly on the use of force and they can make you pay...also to dissuade others from getting into situations where they might need rescuing because they really, really do care about the wellbeing of their subjects.
histhasthai: You'll have to provide some argument why saving a life is different in principle from any other service, such as mowing a lawn. And repeating "but it's saving a LIFE", wouldn't be useful.
The principle at stake here is that an obligation should not be imposed on anyone without prior contractual agreement..
A worthy aim.
But this principle does not benefit a dead person. Which is worse, to be dead or to be lumbered with an obligation to repay the person who saved your life? I would rather be saved by someone mean enough or poor enough to save me only because they could count on compensation, than not to be saved at all.
Anonymous Coward: That's a strawman argument based off the false premise that without monetary compensation people wouldn't lift a finger to save a kitten from a burning tree or whatever emotionally charged argument you wish to propose to show that libertarians are cold-hearted bastards and the only way to ensure benevolence is through State run programs.
No, you misunderstand me. My point is the opposite.
My point is not that libertarians are cold-hearted bastards, rather the reverse. Even to give your time to this forum is arguably altruistic, and your own disinclination to accept payment for saving life fits the bill perfectly. The problem is that free riders thrive in a society which is excessively generous with its charity - either by being recipients or by being non-contributors. If it pays to be uncaring, then you run the risk of ending up with a society dominated by don't-carers.
I accept your point about the services at ski resorts and private beaches. As far the price is built into the entrance fee there is no problem. But most emergencies do not occur when a professional rescuer is in the vicinity, and in such cases the action of the nearest amateur can mean the difference between life and death. I am surprised that there is such hostility to the idea that lay rescuers should be entitled to compensation for any expenses and injuries which they incur.
The hostility comes from the idea, as others have expounded, that one cannot confer upon another a benefit, then demand compensation for it. Compensation of what kind, anyway? And in what amounts?
Usually, rescuers do gain benefits from rescuing though. A firm that displays its benevolence by allowing its rescuers to save certain individuals not only demonstrates how efficient it is, but it also boosts its public image as a benefactor. One thing you must understand is that Austrians do not confine profits and losses to the realm of money - for us, every exchange can involve either concept. From a psychological POV, all action is for the betterment of a situation, or at least the avoidance of a worse situation. To the extent that one succeeds, they profit. So it remains rational to rescue someone, if that is what one wills. As for free-riders, my guess is that the best way to deal with this is to refuse aid to them after a while, and also to refuse aid to those who could have but failed to insure provisions for themselves.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
Paying people a-priori for rescue actions could result in very vicious consequences. People could try to rescue others without trying to get help from professionals, possibly putting that person in even more danger. Also can you imagine what some scums could do to make some bucks, like putting stuff on the beach water, so people lose balance, or make some hill sloppery, or something...
There are already enough social benefits like appearing in newspapers and being compliment by people. I don't see how establishing priori prices for these kind of thing will have any positive consequence.
Equality before the law and material equality are not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time. -- F. A. Hayek in The Constitution of Liberty
Susana:If it pays to be uncaring, then you run the risk of ending up with a society dominated by don't-carers.
It would under your plan pay to be caring (saving a life) but it doesn't follow that in the absence of forced compensation for the rescuer that it pays to be uncaring. Revenue neutral at best.
Susana:I am surprised that there is such hostility to the idea that lay rescuers should be entitled to compensation for any expenses and injuries which they incur.
Because it's not based on the principal of free association. This is the same reasoning as a 'social contract' that allows the State to extract as much capital from it's citizens as they will put up with.
With no prior arrangement between the rescued and the random person who came upon them this all boils down to a 'social contract' between all citizens even if they would rather die than pay out for a service they didn't specifically contract for. Or even if the person being saved had intended to end their life and was 'saved' by a person they are now indebted to for performing an act they would have not asked for in the first place.
It's all about how much of the camel you want to let into the tent...
Susana:My point is not that libertarians are cold-hearted bastards, rather the reverse. Even to give your time to this forum is arguably altruistic
No, it's really not. There is no such thing as altruism. Every time a human acts, they do that which they, at the point of action, decide will make them happiest out of all the available options (or that which will make them least unhappy in the absence of possible gain). In other words, everyone is motivated by self-interest, all the time. We give our time to this forum because we prefer it to whatever else we could be doing.
The problem is that free riders thrive in a society which is excessively generous with its charity - either by being recipients or by being non-contributors. If it pays to be uncaring, then you run the risk of ending up with a society dominated by don't-carers.
But it's not as if there is an on-off switch for caring in a given society. For one thing, societies don't actually exist - only individuals do. A charitable individual will give to those whom they deem most in need of their charity. That is the rational nature of market action. The problem you predict exists only in government, where they have no incentive to be efficient with their charity because they do not directly experience the cost of expanding its role, whereas private individuals do.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
Susana: A lbertarian society run like this will end up with too many Scrooges sponging off everyone else's benevolence.
A gift economy can support a very small number of moochers, because too many will deplete the gift economy's resources. A welfare state, however, can support an almost infinite number of moochers, because a welfare state is capable of expropriating huge amounts of money.
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable."