Life Question #4:

If a new medicine were developed that would cure arthritis but cause a fatal reaction in 0.1% of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public?

Heck no!  As tempting as it would be to rid the world of arthritis, I don’t think it’s ethical to knowingly release medication that would certainly kill a set amount of people.  In some ways it’s a shame because arthritis affects one in five American adults. My own mom struggles with arthritis (she’s only 55, so it’s probably going to get worse), and I’ve seen pain and discomfort she deals with.  As a young person who has no serious health problems, it’s hard to imagine having pain in my hands and wrists.  I do have what’s known as Raynaud ’s phenomenon, a condition in which my hands are super cold due to a lack of blood flow.  So in some ways I can understand the discomfort that could be associated with early onset arthritis.  Regardless, I can’t imagine having 50,000 people die because of this medication. 

Philosophy Tuesdays #1

Is Free-Time the Most Fundamental Good?

Why are we here?  What’s the point of it all?  What is happiness?  Is it different for everyone, or universal?  What the heck is the meaning of life?  Philosophy Tuesdays is my attempt at swimming through various philosophical ideas.  I’ll take the dive each Tuesday.  Will I be able to definitively answer any of these questions?  Probably not.  Is it even possible to answer these questions?  That in itself seems like a topic for Philosophy Tuesdays…

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Some argue that free time and the systems that organize it are the most fundamental value in civilization.  Is this true?

Since the culture that I’ve grown up in supplies me with quite a bit of free time, I’ve taken the idea of free time for granted.  In some ways though, I think our culture values filling up free time as much as it actually values free time.  As he’s aged Bill Clinton’s even noticed this, writing in his autobiography My Life that he wants to, “enjoy the time I have instead of trying so hard to fill it up.”

    

The notion that free time is the most fundamental good was put forth by Amartya Sen in his book Development as Freedom.  See it here.  Apparently, this was a big deal because it repudiated the common belief that Asian philosophers don’t think freedom was such a hot thing.  

There needs to be a distinction made here between free time as the most fundamental good and freedom.  We of course need freedom to have free time don’t we?  Therefore, freedom is itself more fundamental than free time.  What citizens of a culture decide to do during their free time both defines that culture and is dictated by that culture. 

Take this example: Let’s say I play basketball during my free time.  Does the fact that many people in our culture play basketball during their free time help to define America as a culture that loves basketball?  Or, is it that because our culture loves basketball, and that I’ve grown up in that culture led me to play it?  It’s a bit of a mind bender, but the idea’s a simple one. 

Knowledge is also a fundamental good.  Without it freedom breaks down to chaos, doesn’t it?  Therefore, in order for free time to be desirable, one must have both freedom and knowledge.  Free time can’t be the most fundamental good then, can it? 

What do you think?

Life Question #2:

If you ran a hospital, what policy would you set for dealing with emergency patients who arrive without health insurance?

*Note:  This is one of the posts I will be making entitled "Life Questions".  Generally, these posts will be shorter than my regular posts.  These questions come from a book I have entitled The Book of Questions.  See it here.  The sole purpose of this book and my blog is to stimulate conversation.  Please feel free to write your comments in the section below, however short or long you'd like!  

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I would treat the patients because it is both my ethical and legal duty to do so.  A federal law passed in 1986 to prohibit a practice commonly known as "patient dumping" gives you the right to emergency care regardless of your ability to pay. The federal law applies to hospitals that participate in Medicare -- and that includes most hospitals in the United States. The federal patient-dumping law entitles you to do three things: screening, emergency care and appropriate transfers. A hospital must provide "stabilizing care" for a patient with an emergency medical condition. 

Although they dropped the idea of a single-payer system, the Obama Administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes far in helping those who are uninsured.  Now, the real issue with our health care system is its unbelievable cost.  Hopefully, future legislation can help to incentivize healthy life styles (the First Lady has tried to help move this along) and reduce health care costs. 

Life Question #1:

If you were determining who could immigrate here, would you let in those you thought would contribute the most to our country or those most in need of refuge?

*Note:  This is the first of many posts I will be making entitled "Life Questions".  Generally, these posts will be shorter than my regular posts.  These questions come from a book I have entitled The Book of Questions.  See it here.  The sole purpose of this book and my blog is to stimulate conversation.  Please feel free to write your comments in the section below, however short or long you'd like!  

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The best solution would be to have some of both – immigrants who could bolster our economy and those in serious need of refuge.  Because our immigration laws are so convoluted and dysfunctional, our system that doesn’t allow many people from either category in.  Ideally, I’d like to see all immigrants who study at an U.S. college or university and who have earned a graduate degree the opportunity to remain in America.  Too often we educate immigrants in our finest institutions, simply to turn them away after graduation.  They return to their home country (often in Asia) to start a new business, innovate or invent.  It’s wonderful that the U.S. still has the finest institutions of higher education in the world, but I’m afraid that won’t last long if we continue to send the best and brightest immigrants back home. If this trend continues, precocious Chinese students will decide to stay in China rather than coming to the U.S.  This would be terrible for the United States. 

With regard to the issue of refuge, I believe that the United States has a responsibility to provide refuge for those in need.  It’s easy to say that the U.S. should accept all refugees, but this isn’t realistic.  It’s probably impossible to make any comprehensive and objective requirements for the conditions that the refugees must be escaping from in order to enter our country.  Therefore, it must be treated on a subjective basis.  This is quite frustrating because it will make enforcement difficult.  Regardless, the bottom line is that some refugees will not be allowed into our country legally.  

Simply put, the issue of immigration shouldn’t be ignored.  Not only has it literally built our nation, but it continues to be one of the most important drivers of the economy.  Without it, we would have very modest population growth – like most European countries.  I think the Obama Administration would have tried to tackle the immigration issue after health care if it hadn’t inherited such a terrible economy and been impeded by Congress.  In the end, there is no easy solution.  If one existed, we’d have already found it.  

Occupy Our Homes

Throughout the past few weeks cities throughout the country have removed Occupy protesters from their encampments.  What are they going to do now?

Occupy has responded to these ejections by changing its focus from public spaces toward private property: foreclosed homes.  Recently, CNN.com published an op-ed by Sonia K Katyal and Eduardo M. Penalver.  Read it here.  They recently co-authored a book called Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership.  In their article on CNN.com they argue that Occupy’s change in tactics – from occupying parks and streets to occupying foreclosed homes – might very well work to their advantage. 

One reason that this might be a successful endeavor is because it could remedy the movement’s most cited shortcoming: a lack of political agenda. Moreover, it can help connect current members of the movement to working-class Americans.  If the Occupy movement is going to be successful (it’s already changed the framework of political discussion) then it will need to have closer ties to unions and working class Americans.  Aligning their causes with foreclosed homes can help the Occupy movement to do just that. 

Possessing physical spaces has had success throughout American history.  Katyal and Penalyer argue that “a straight line runs from the 1930s sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan, to the 1960 lunch-counter sit-ins to the occupation of Alcatraz by Native American activists in 1969 to Occupy Wall Street”.  They argue that the sit-down strikes arguably laid the groundwork for the enforcement of federal labor laws; the lunch counter sit-ins led to the enactment of Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; and the Alcatraz occupation paved the way for a milestone reversal in Federal Indian policy, leading President Nixon to support tribal self-determination.  For the sake of my country and world, I hope that the Occupy movement has these sorts of success.  We’re in desperate need of them.

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The Takeaway: In the end, occupying foreclosed homes might strengthen the Occupy movement by presenting a tangible political demand and forging closer ties to working-class Americans.