Politics-Ethics Question

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However, if the government commits the same inaction, it does not require nearly as much effort and is despicable.

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Government action takes MORE effort 100% of the time. YOu have the committee that decides what to do, then the guy appointed to do it, then the guy appointed to oversee the guy who is appointed to do it and so on.

[Al68]

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There's a word to describe the situation where a lack of action can be considered a criminal act. The word is slavery.

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I might be missing the context here. Government inaction is different than individual inaction. If you want to use the analogy, the government should be a slave to the people, yes.

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All legitimate gov't power is the power delegated to it by the people. If I don't have the right to do a certain thing, and my neighbor doesn't have the right to do that certain thing, then where would the gov't get the right to do it.



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This is changing the subject. Of course if a person a person commits a despicable act, the act would be equally despicable if taken by the government. Who would ever say otherwise?

If a person commits an inaction, though, it is somewhat forgivable. I can forgive someone who doesn't fly 3000 miles to the other coast to save the life of a stranger. If the government commits the same inaction, though, it does not require nearly as much effort and is despicable. Government action and inaction are roughly the same thing.

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I think you misunderstood the action I was refering to. I was not refering to the action of caring for the babies, I was refering to the action of forcing someone to care for the babies against their will. That is the action that would be wrong for an individual to do. And according to your statement, it would therefore be wrong for the government to take this action (forcing someone to care for babies against their will).

And this would only really matter if there were such a large number of these babies that there would not be enough voluntary support.

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However, if the government commits the same inaction, it does not require nearly as much effort and is despicable.

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Government action takes MORE effort 100% of the time. YOu have the committee that decides what to do, then the guy appointed to do it, then the guy appointed to oversee the guy who is appointed to do it and so on.

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That's an implementation issue, because we deliberately make our government weak with checks and balances so it doesn't get too powerful.

In any case, it is reasonable to think of effort in terms of resources. You can easily demonstrate that one action is proportionately a greater effort for an individual than the government. An individual can not care for two different people in two different cities on the same day. One action consumes all that person's time and energy. Government can. A single action represents 1/100000th of its time and energy.

Thus the difference between inaction and action is nil for the government, it's the results that matter. But for an individual, one action is a great deal. The government is killing that baby by doing nothing.

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I think you misunderstood the action I was refering to. I was not refering to the action of caring for the babies, I was refering to the action of forcing someone to care for the babies against their will.


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Yes ok I agree it would be wrong for the government to force people to do these things against their will, except through indirect means such as taxation etc.

[Piemaster]

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Well, dear valued Mister,

what can I get you? Shall it be a nice and clean "Yes, because" or a nice and clean "No, because", preferrably in one sentence each?
Might be news to you, but the easy answers have grown stale over the years.
In that other case, you honestly expecting and hoping for 5 pages of well-put and well-thought of reasoning, well, I trust in your thirst for truth to lead you far enough to actually order "Essays on Actions and Events" yourself and come up with an answer.

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I'm not going to buy some guy's book just because he has an opinion that you happen to believe in. You're the one who brought up this 'action and lack of action are the same thing' argument, so it's up to you to substantiate it when it comes under scrutiny. Saying 'some guy who is obviously smarter than you said it, so it must be true' is not an agument I'm afraid. You are just hiding behind a book when you get a question you don't want to answer.

And German law is irrelevant to the discussion. 'Free' western societies have all kinds of laws that are either immoral, intrusive or illogical. Germany also has a law that it s illegal to publish the image of a swastica (or something like that).

[starbird]

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These babies serve no purpose.

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Euthanization would be humane in this case.

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OP didn't say anything about these babies being born without brain stems. Assuming they're neurologically intact, for such a child born today, the technology will exist by the time she turns 18 to allow her to support herself by playing online poker.

The questions in the OP divide people into three groups:

1. Those who say "no" to the first question: the government has no duty of care to even a single limbless baby.

2. Those who say "yes" to the first question and "no" to some version of the second: the government has a duty of care to a single limbless baby, but if there are enough of them, the cost to society is too great and the answer changes.

3. Those who answer "yes" to both questions: the government should support all of 'em, no matter how many.

When I first read the OP, I thought it would be interesting to watch the folks in group 2 try to reason their way to the right place to draw the line. Instead, the thread mostly consists of groups 1 and 3 yelling about why the other is wrong, thereby nicely illustrating DS's original point:

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People disagree about things either because they disagree about initial axioms or because they agree about the axioms and disagree about their implications. Unfortunately many debates don't bother to distinguish between those two types of disagreement.


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[Piemaster]

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Yes ok I agree it would be wrong for the government to force people to do these things against their will, except through indirect means such as taxation etc.

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I thought the point of the government was to force people to do things they don't want to do, to some extent or other. Otherwise why bother with them?

[blackize]

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OP didn't say anything about these babies being born without brain stems. Assuming they're neurologically intact, for such a child born today, the technology will exist by the time she turns 18 to allow her to support herself by playing online poker.

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Financially and assuming poker remains profitable and there isn't some huge IP ban. But when she turns 18 she still wont be able to feed herself or bathe herself as well as many other things.

I think you also underestimate just how important physical activity is to the development of the human mind.

[Al68]

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Yes ok I agree it would be wrong for the government to force people to do these things against their will, except through indirect means such as taxation etc.

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I thought the point of the government was to force people to do things they don't want to do, to some extent or other. Otherwise why bother with them?

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A lot of people beilieve this is a legitimate function of gov't. I don't.

I believe the purpose of gov't is to protect our liberty.

[ChrisV]

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Yes ok I agree it would be wrong for the government to force people to do these things against their will, except through indirect means such as taxation etc.

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I thought the point of the government was to force people to do things they don't want to do, to some extent or other. Otherwise why bother with them?

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The primary purpose of government is to STOP people using force - by force if necessary - or to mete out justice for uses of force.