Utilitarianism is tempting because it seems so fair, but from what little I know of it, I think it’s fatally flawed because of problems you get into when defining ‘greatest good’ – and ‘number’ is not exactly immune from debate, as anyone who has argued about whether or not ‘numbers warrant’ the local provision of some civic service could testify!

I hadn’t realized that there might have been some cross-fertilization between utilitarianism and the absolute freedom idea. They don’t seem a natural fit to me – if you’re going to produce the greatest good for the greatest number, the smaller number aren’t going to be totally free of the impact of that effort.

I don’t like, what’s the right term? Publicly funded health care?, being called ‘free’, because, as you point out, it isn’t. I’ve been happily paying in since I started working, so I can claim health care. Fortunately, I think so far I’ve paid for more than I’ve claimed, and I’d like to keep it that way.

We do need to fight against the tendencies of some people to legislate the actions of others so as to minimize the ‘harm’ of higher charges to the system. Seatbelt laws may or may not reduce the cost of providing medical care – I don’t think that’s a reason to do it. Reducing the chance of injury, sure, that’s a good reason for such laws. They then come under public health, like requiring access to drinkable water and roads with all kinds of design features to reduce accidents.

I wouldn’t go to far with that, though. Sometimes efforts to protect the public involve protection against extremely small risks. The cafeteria in my workplace has started giving out plastic cutlery carefully and hygienically sealed in plastic. Has ANYONE ever caught a disease from a plastic spoon taken from the shipping crate and placed in a cafeteria bin??

Its been 25 years since I read On Liberty and I don’t have a copy. I had to google for The Harm Principle because I remember it as referring to government and not both government and society.

One weakness is how to define harm to others. For example, Australia provides free care in public hospitals. Of course, its not really free since its paid for by taxes. One could argue that laws requiring people to wear seat belts do reduce the costs of providing medical care to people injured in car accidents.

I hadn’t heard about the chloroform and young children – I’d have thought almost any over-the-counter or even prescription sleeping or cold drug would be both easier to access and easier to use than chloroform. But the idea isn’t new – Victorian women used laudanum, IIRC, or straight alcohol. Less callous or desperate mothers today use TV to quiet down the little darlings. I don’t have children, but observation has taught me that raising them well is incredibly difficult and exhausting, especially in the early years, and I have never had the slightest inclination to try to do it alone.

I really think adoption has gotten a bad rap. It can go bad – I have a friend who supports abortion over adoption because of an adoption that went very, very wrong. But around here, young women with a baby and with little or no ability or interest in raising it are pressured socially into keeping the child even when they might otherwise have relinquished it – a woman who gives up a child is a bad mother, and by extension, not a proper woman at all. So they keep the baby, maybe get an government allowance and an apartment – and discover that staying up all night with a teething baby and struggling to pay for diapers AND their own needs and desires isn’t as much fun as living the way their friends so.

I do think that a lot of people do have the idea that in order to be free, they must not only be able to indulge in whatever behaviour they want, they shouldn’t be criticized for it. It’s their right. I’m a little ambivalent about this, because gossip and backbiting can be extremely cruel and destructive. OTOH, I don’t think everyone else in the world has to hold their tongue if they don’t like something I do or say. If I’m convinced that I should allow my child to be adopted (or raise it alone), of course people are going to criticize me. And for such a big decision, affecting a helpless child, I should consider their criticisms. Why should I be immune from comment?

I read a very interesting book some years ago that used the seven deadly sins as a tool to understand human nature and criticize certain forms of psychiatry. That sounds a bit weird, put like that, but I found it fascinating. Maybe it’s time to re-read it. It’s an argument in favour of using values, I suppose you’d say, as part of psychotherapy. So a woman who drugs her baby so she can have a good time would be approached on a moral level as well as by dealing with whatever else she had going on in her life.

http://snipurl.com/90hx6 [www_amazon_ca]

I’m not doing the book justice.

I liked ‘Wounds not healed by time’, too. I see he’s got a relatively new one out. I must look for it.

But perhaps the last word might go to William Goldman: “Life is not fair. But consider the alternative.”