Two conflicting moral intuitions
Have been reading too much of the New Yorker lately, but the following article is really quite good:
THE MORAL-HAZARD MYTH
The bad idea behind our failed health-care system.
by MALCOLM GLADWELL
Issue of 2005_08_29
Available online at:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact
Reading this article, thinking about what I take to be its conclusion (namely, that the health care debate is really a moral debate about whether or not we think that the cost of health risks should be distributed evenly across the population or not), has reinforced my sense that at the bottom of a lot of contemporary political debate is a very deep moral debate between two sides, each of which privileges one of the following two moral intuitions:
(1) we're all in this together
(2) what's mine is mine
I myself think that (1) should be privileged. Not because there's an awful lot I can say in support of it. I mean, I do think things can be said, but right now I'm just dwelling on how hard it would be to argue for the claim that one or the other of these intuitions should be privileged. (2) just seems to me to be straightforwardly false; but I know that for some nothing is more important than it. I think I know people who are strongly committed to (2). But when I think about their commitment to it, I find it hard to get beyond my sense that they're just greedy bastards who can't think about anyone else but themselves. And that just disgusts me, making it hard for me to think clearly about what they might say in support of their position.
In thinking about how to support (1), I find myself making up imaginary situations in which there's no room for choosing between commitment to (1) and (2), because (1) is just obviously more importan. But, once again, this just reinforces my sense that there's nothing to (2). And, stepping back from my own commitment to (1), that realization makes me really worried about the possibility of genuine debate between advocates of (1) and (2). When I think about how I would argue with someone who deep down is committed to (2), I think I would very quickly just start to highlight (what I take to be) the morally disgusting nature of their commitment. And while I think rhetorically that might work, I don't think rationally it holds much weight. It just begs the question.
THE MORAL-HAZARD MYTH
The bad idea behind our failed health-care system.
by MALCOLM GLADWELL
Issue of 2005_08_29
Available online at:
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/050829fa_fact
Reading this article, thinking about what I take to be its conclusion (namely, that the health care debate is really a moral debate about whether or not we think that the cost of health risks should be distributed evenly across the population or not), has reinforced my sense that at the bottom of a lot of contemporary political debate is a very deep moral debate between two sides, each of which privileges one of the following two moral intuitions:
(1) we're all in this together
(2) what's mine is mine
I myself think that (1) should be privileged. Not because there's an awful lot I can say in support of it. I mean, I do think things can be said, but right now I'm just dwelling on how hard it would be to argue for the claim that one or the other of these intuitions should be privileged. (2) just seems to me to be straightforwardly false; but I know that for some nothing is more important than it. I think I know people who are strongly committed to (2). But when I think about their commitment to it, I find it hard to get beyond my sense that they're just greedy bastards who can't think about anyone else but themselves. And that just disgusts me, making it hard for me to think clearly about what they might say in support of their position.
In thinking about how to support (1), I find myself making up imaginary situations in which there's no room for choosing between commitment to (1) and (2), because (1) is just obviously more importan. But, once again, this just reinforces my sense that there's nothing to (2). And, stepping back from my own commitment to (1), that realization makes me really worried about the possibility of genuine debate between advocates of (1) and (2). When I think about how I would argue with someone who deep down is committed to (2), I think I would very quickly just start to highlight (what I take to be) the morally disgusting nature of their commitment. And while I think rhetorically that might work, I don't think rationally it holds much weight. It just begs the question.
posted by Charles P. Everitt at 8:21 PM
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