So lately, people have been doing something that annoys me.
Whenever people talk about things like student fees or crime (two completely different things, actually, but never mind), they often refer to their fellow human beings in terms of what kind of economical or social benefit they're going to have for the country. As in, "people are doing degrees which don't get them into useful jobs! how does the economy benefit from such people going to uni?" or "thieves should be death-penalitied! what kind of benefit are people like that going to have for society?".*
*both actual real things I have heard people say, albeit paraphrased. No lie.
When I hear arguments like this, I'm reminded of Immanuel Kant's second categorical imperative. Kant says that it is a universal moral obligation to never view a human being as a means to an end- they are always an end in itself.
There are two broad reasons why I think a more Kantian attitude is desperately needed right now. One is a bleeding-heart-liberal-hippy reason, the other is a logic-based reason.
The bleeding-heart-hippy-liberal reason (because I am a hippy-liberal-bleeding-heart, live with it) is that people are people. They aren't numbers or inputs or outputs or investments. Every one of those people you just dismissed as uneconomical ("you" being the fictional person I am currently arguing with, named Leonard) is real breathing human being with hopes and fears and emotions etc. It's immoral and unhealthy to allow your perception of any person be completely determined by your own want and needs; even when you claim those wants and needs to be those of society. Because really, when people like you, Leonard, say "but how are these people going to benefit society/the economy?" it's generally a euphemism for "how are they going to benefit me?"
I admit that the government has to be rather more cold-hearted than would be ideal when passing economic policies, and, well, laws in general. I know they can't give people everything they want, or even everything they need (to paraphrase John Green). But there is a lot of room for improvement when it's comes to the government's view of the citizens they serve. There is plenty of space within the realms of reason for politicians to have a more people-based than money-based perspective. And what the government has to do is certainly no excuse for non-country-running people to have an attitude like Leonard's.
The second, more logical reason, is that this attitude of basing people's worth on their contributions to everyone else is irrational and ultimately self-destructive.
Society exists to benefit large groups of individuals. It is, in essence, a product of people's recognition that they can achieve more for everyone involved if they work together. Most (non-totalitarian) states today work on the principle that you have the right to take what you need from the collective, and the responsibility to contribute what you can afford to it.
So society and the individual work on this give-and-take basis. This presents a number of problems to Leonard's attitude.
Firstly, if society exists to benefit the individual, but we assess individuals on their contribution to society, than that makes everything a circular process. The individual exists to contribute to the collective, but the collective society has no reason to exists if it doesn't benefit individuals. This makes everything confused, and society becomes an essentially meaningless excersise.
Leonard can of course get round this by saying that demanding society's reaping of a person's fruits, we ensure we benefit a greater number of individuals. But then, what right do we have to demand their contribution? Going with the student fees thing, if we aren't going to accommodate a prospective student's ability to improve their lives, how do we have the right to demand they get a job and help the economy?
Similarly, if a government isn't going to support people in making their lives better, than it simply isn't doing it's job. The government has a responsibility to all of it's citizens, and higher education and reform-based sentencing for prisoners is as much a part of it's job as the National Health Service.
Basically, the government isn't in the business of doing anything for anyone. But if there's something someone can do for themselves, the government should act to support that. Otherwise there is very little point to having a state at all.
That essentially sums up what I'm trying to say. In my mind, Leonard has just agreed with everything I said and joined the Green party. For everyone else, feel free to continue the discussion with me.
Whenever people talk about things like student fees or crime (two completely different things, actually, but never mind), they often refer to their fellow human beings in terms of what kind of economical or social benefit they're going to have for the country. As in, "people are doing degrees which don't get them into useful jobs! how does the economy benefit from such people going to uni?" or "thieves should be death-penalitied! what kind of benefit are people like that going to have for society?".*
*both actual real things I have heard people say, albeit paraphrased. No lie.
When I hear arguments like this, I'm reminded of Immanuel Kant's second categorical imperative. Kant says that it is a universal moral obligation to never view a human being as a means to an end- they are always an end in itself.
There are two broad reasons why I think a more Kantian attitude is desperately needed right now. One is a bleeding-heart-liberal-hippy reason, the other is a logic-based reason.
The bleeding-heart-hippy-liberal reason (because I am a hippy-liberal-bleeding-heart, live with it) is that people are people. They aren't numbers or inputs or outputs or investments. Every one of those people you just dismissed as uneconomical ("you" being the fictional person I am currently arguing with, named Leonard) is real breathing human being with hopes and fears and emotions etc. It's immoral and unhealthy to allow your perception of any person be completely determined by your own want and needs; even when you claim those wants and needs to be those of society. Because really, when people like you, Leonard, say "but how are these people going to benefit society/the economy?" it's generally a euphemism for "how are they going to benefit me?"
I admit that the government has to be rather more cold-hearted than would be ideal when passing economic policies, and, well, laws in general. I know they can't give people everything they want, or even everything they need (to paraphrase John Green). But there is a lot of room for improvement when it's comes to the government's view of the citizens they serve. There is plenty of space within the realms of reason for politicians to have a more people-based than money-based perspective. And what the government has to do is certainly no excuse for non-country-running people to have an attitude like Leonard's.
The second, more logical reason, is that this attitude of basing people's worth on their contributions to everyone else is irrational and ultimately self-destructive.
Society exists to benefit large groups of individuals. It is, in essence, a product of people's recognition that they can achieve more for everyone involved if they work together. Most (non-totalitarian) states today work on the principle that you have the right to take what you need from the collective, and the responsibility to contribute what you can afford to it.
So society and the individual work on this give-and-take basis. This presents a number of problems to Leonard's attitude.
Firstly, if society exists to benefit the individual, but we assess individuals on their contribution to society, than that makes everything a circular process. The individual exists to contribute to the collective, but the collective society has no reason to exists if it doesn't benefit individuals. This makes everything confused, and society becomes an essentially meaningless excersise.
Leonard can of course get round this by saying that demanding society's reaping of a person's fruits, we ensure we benefit a greater number of individuals. But then, what right do we have to demand their contribution? Going with the student fees thing, if we aren't going to accommodate a prospective student's ability to improve their lives, how do we have the right to demand they get a job and help the economy?
Similarly, if a government isn't going to support people in making their lives better, than it simply isn't doing it's job. The government has a responsibility to all of it's citizens, and higher education and reform-based sentencing for prisoners is as much a part of it's job as the National Health Service.
Basically, the government isn't in the business of doing anything for anyone. But if there's something someone can do for themselves, the government should act to support that. Otherwise there is very little point to having a state at all.
That essentially sums up what I'm trying to say. In my mind, Leonard has just agreed with everything I said and joined the Green party. For everyone else, feel free to continue the discussion with me.
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