Everyday Ethics

In a previous article, I discussed the recent proposal from the Obama administration, which suggested that billions of dollars might be saved and the needs of students better served if the U.S. government took over all educational lending.  The interesting side effect of this proposal is that it brings to the forefront a social conversation about positive rights.  My purpose here will be to briefly review how a case for a positive right to a college education might be defended, then consider how this might apply to another controversial positive right, a right to accessible health care.

I will assume a relatively strict requirement for positive rights, one that is debatable, but that would likely be accepted by persons who opposed the granting of numerous positive rights.  Even if we assume that positive rights can only result from agreements or contracts, we can still make the case for a positive right to a college education.  The agreement that American citizens will be provided with an education already exists, and we lack a good argument for why high school should be the stopping point for providing this benefit.

First, we need to establish the claim that the positive right to an education already exists in virtue of some social agreement.  Consider the following.  American citizens pay taxes, and the implicit agreement between citizen and government is that we pay taxes in exchange for the provision of services that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive, inefficient, or something along those lines.  By paying taxes, or simply by remaining citizens, we are accepting the agreement of services in exchange for our tax money.  One of those services is the provision of a free education.

Next, we need some reason to think that one’s right to an education, which is contractually established, ceases once we obtain a high school diploma.  I see no obvious reason for thinking this, and several for rejecting it.  A high school diploma is useful for some individuals pursuing certain professions, and it does help to establish a minimum standard of intellectual proficiency in society.  But for many of us, the amount of training associated with obtaining a high school diploma is woefully inadequate.  Further, the academic standard in high schools is presently so low that one can legitimately question how useful a minimum standard of this type really is.

If this analysis is on the right track, it seems one can easily make the case that people are entitled to a free college education, not just more affordable student loans, and that this is a right that we have all already agreed to.  The case for a right to accessible health care, however, is another matter, and we will close by briefly considering why the argument for a positive right to health care cannot proceed in the same manner.

There is no obvious contractual agreement between taxpayer and government for the provision of anything other than emergency medical services, which is not the same thing as a right to health care.  One could perhaps argue that we have a positive right to free emergency care, but even this would be a stretch.  The positive right to health care cannot be the result of a contractual agreement, at least not yet.

However, not everyone takes the position that positive rights can only stem from contractual agreements.  For example, some argue that people have a right to feed themselves.  This can be construed as a negative right of non-interference, but it could also be presented as a positive right to have sufficient food provided by others.  This right might be established by pointing out that humans need food in order to live, and that they suffer greatly when they do not receive it.  The prevention of widespread suffering is a good reason for granting a positive right to sufficient food.

One might be tempted to argue that a right to health care is like this.  After all, disease and injury that is untreated also leads to a massive amount of pain and suffering.  If this is a good reason in one case, perhaps it is a good reason in another, and one might try to argue by analogy for a positive right to health care.  Many individuals invoke a right to health care as justification for certain political and social changes that they think are important.

What’s worth noticing, whatever your view, is that a positive right to health care must be argued for, rather than simply granted by proclamation.  Numerous advocates of this right fail to take the need for a supporting argument seriously, and until they do, the debate over a positive right to health care will remain polarized and ineffectual.

About the Author

Elijah Weber is a graduate student at Bowling Green State University. He holds a Master's degree in philosophy from Colorado State University, and Bachelor’s degrees in sociology and philosophy from Chapman Univerity. He currently lives in Bowling Green, Ohio with his wife Laura, his newborn son Brandon, and his feline life-partner Monte.