A Right to Honour Our Instincts

A Right to Honour Our Instincts:

Examining the responsibility of a society

to the well-being of its people through

national healthcare systems

A constant issue facing economically well off cultures, such as present day Canada, is that of wealth distribution: of who is entitled to the benefits stemming from the resources and capital which the society holds, to what extent they are entitled and of what type of institutions should the society offer to protect these rights of entitlement. In this paper I will argue that in such societies each citizen should be legally entitled to full access of a national, single tier healthcare system, and will prove such by dissecting opposing theories to show that at the root to all schools of morality is the unconditional value for human life; a value which I will then prove can only be truly endorsed through such non-exclusive welfare systems.

Libertarian theory, perhaps the biggest opponent of all mandatory citizen funded programs, is based on the foundation that there are three cardinal rights that every individual is entitled to: the right to Life, the right to Liberty and the right to Property. When dealing with contemporary issues such as healthcare (or the broader concept of welfare in general) Libertarian arguments tend to stem almost entirely from that of the third right regarding property and entitlements of ownership. However, it is my belief that it is within those two proposed rights which seem to be temporarily dismissed, the rights to life and liberty, that there simultaneously lies a hole in the libertarian argument and a key point in the argument for mandatory healthcare (and welfare in general). According to Libertarian accounts, an individual, or agent’s, “right to Life” entitles them to be free from injury or death caused by the actions of another agent. In this sense, if agent �A’ attempts to injure or take the life of agent �B’, then A is violating B’s basic right to Life and is such morally wrong and punishable by law. Though seemingly elementary in its reasoning, it is my argument that this right to Life is, in actuality, much more extensive than libertarian argument may imply. It can be seen that a dramatically different dynamic is created when one takes into account not only those direct actions which agent A may have taken to cause agent B’s harm, but also those actions which A directly –did not- take in order to prevent the harm caused to B. In this sense, responsibility regarding the security of an agents’ right to life becomes much more all encompassing and significantly harder for any separate agent to avoid. In Goviers’ account of social welfare she works with this same concept of wide spread societal responsibility, but goes even further to suggest that in societies where in there are sufficient reasources to meet the basic needs of all of its citizens, the society is responsible to make sure that each citizen is meeting the basic needs to sustain their life. If the society fails to provide a basic level of security for the well being of its citizens, it is in essence “imposing upon the needy either death or a life of depravity” (Govier p.378).

On a like note, the notion of “Liberty” which is seen by libertarian theory as an intrinsic right held by all individuals, can be described as an agent’s right to conduct their life however they would like in accordance with those options open to them. This, of course, is usually thought to go hand in hand with property rights, describing a call for a certain amount of freedom for an agent to openly and without regulation use and dispose of their own fairly acquired property. However, if we once again broaden our understanding of this right to Liberty beyond that strictly of property rights it may be understood to advocate not only an agents right to physically sustain their life, but also their right to the opportunity to be able to utilize their physical well being to create some sort of dignified existence for themselves. If Liberty is understood in this way, then it can be concluded that in order for a society to adequately provide its citizens security in this �intrinsic’ rights it must not only be able to provide its citizens with the bare minimum needed for survival, but also with some cushion of security (financial, or in this case, medical) that would allow for a more dignified pursuit of life; something more than the pursuit of simply attempting to stay alive. In this sense, in order to equally provide all citizens with health services that would allow them to maintain a functional standard of health and wellness, emphasis must be placed on a system of Medicare which is sufficiently financially