Jan Narveson

In this discussion, we will consider arguments against the view that one person is entitled to medical care at the expense of another person, just because the one person might be able to extend it to the other. We all accept the view that we are entitled to nonviolence from each other, which in the medical case is roughly that we are entitled to other people not making us sick, at least insofar as this is something they can readily avoid. But how are we also entitled to their help in making us well when we are sick? Few of us think that we are entitled to other people's new cars, or half of their incomes for our general use. Why, then, are we entitled to a hefty fraction of that income to pay our medical bills?

This article argues that there is no sound basis for thinking that we have a general and strong duty to rectify disparities of wealth around the world, apart from the special case where some become wealthy by theft or fraud. The nearest thing we have to a rational morality for all has to be built on the interests of all, and they include substantial freedoms, but not substantial entitlements to others' assistance. It is also pointed out that the situation of the world's poor is not that of victims of disasters, but simply of less-developed technology, which can be repaired by full and free trade relations with others. The true savior of the world's poor is the businessman, not the missionary. What we do need to do is strike down barriers to commerce, rather than requisition "aid."

Respecting Persons in Theory and Practice is a collection of essays of the moral and political philosophy of Jan Narveson. The essays in this collection share a consistent theme running through much of Narveson's moral and political philosophy, namely that politics and morals stem from the interests of individual people, and have no antecedent authority over us. The essays in this collection, in various ways and as applied to various aspects of the scene, argue that the ultimate and true point of politics and morals is to enable us to make our lives better, according to our varied senses of what that might mean

Down through the past decade and more, no philosophical writer has taken a greater interest in the issues of how we ought to act in relation to animals, nor pressed more strongly the case for according them rights, than Tom Regan, in many articles, reviews, and exchanges at scholarly conferences and in print. Now, in The Case for Animal Rights we have a substantial volume in which Regan most fully and systematically presents his case for a strong panoply of rights for animals. The argument is direct and cumulative, leading up to a final chapter in which Regan draws his conclusions: vegetarianism is obligatory, hunting and trapping wrong, and virtually no use of animals permissible in scientific experimentation. These are radical conclusions; few of us would be unaffected by them, and most of us, indeed, would be in for a terrific alteration in various aspects of our lifestyles. It certainly behooves us, then, to follow his arguments with care. In the present essay, my main concern will be to examine the arguments in this book. But I shall also be concerned to develop an alternative viewpoint, though at lesser length than the subject merits.

The basic bearer of responsibility is individuals, because that isall there are – nothing else can literally be the bearer of fullresponsibility. Claims about group responsibility therefore needanalysis. This would be impossible if all actions must be understoodas ones that could be performed whether or not anyone else exists.Individuals often act by virtue of membership in certain groups;often such membership bears a causal role in our behavior, andsometimes people act deliberately in order to promote the prospectsof members of a given group. Nevertheless, it is rational to awardproportionally to individual contributions to those actions andindividual shares in the production of the consequences of thoseactions.

The argument in this paper is that although rationality and morality are distinguishable concepts, there is nevertheless a rational morality, a set of principles, namely, which it is rational of all to require of all. The argument of this paper is that such a morality would certainly issue in a general condemnation of aggressive war. (Whether this also makes it irrational for States to engage in such activities is another, and not entirely settled, matter). Correlatively, it would issue in a strong right of defense. Would this right be sufficient to include resort to nuclear deterrence, if need be? It is argued that the answer must be in the affirmative - although the question of ‘need’ is by no means settled in current circumstances.

The subject of this essay is political, and therefore social, philosophy; and therefore, ethics. We want to know whether the right thing for a society to do is to incorporate in its structure requirements that we bring about equality, or liberty, or both if they are compatible, and if incompatible then which if either, or what sort of mix if they can to some degree be mixed. But this fairly succinct statement of the issue before us requires considerable clarification, even as a statment of the issue. For it is widely, and in my view correctly, held thatsomesort of equality is utterly fundamental in these matters. We seek a principle, or principles, that apply to all, are the same for all. In that sense, certainly, equality is fundamental and inescapable. But this is a very thin sort of “equality.”It will almost equally widely be agreed that the principles in question should in some more interesting sense “treat” people equally, e.g., by allotting to all the same set of rights, and moreover, rights that are – again we have to say “in some sense” – nonarbitrary, so that whatever they are, persons of all races, sexes, and so on will have the same fundamental rights assigned to them. Taking this to be, again, essentially uncontroversial, though not without potentially worrisome points of unclarity, it needs, now, to be pointed out that this characterization does not settle the issue that this essay is concerned with. That issue is abouteconomicmatters in particular.

Environmental Ethics is the ethics of how we humans are to relate to each other about the environment we live in. The best way to adjust inevitable differences among us in this respect is by private property. Each person takes the best care of what he owns, and ownership entails the free market, which enables people to make mutually advantageous trades with those who might use it even better. Public regulation, by contrast, becomes management in the interests of the regulators, or of special interests, such as lovers of rare species-not the people they're supposed to be serving.