08 December, 2007

Indiv. Rights v Public Good

Before I took Stuart Butler's Ethics class, I expected that class to be more or less useless, kind of like Policy Process-- just another required class to get through, blocking out space from my schedule for a more substantive class that I would otherwise rather take. I have to say, though, that I've really enjoyed it.

We spent the bulk of the semester evaluating policy dilemmas in terms of individual rights and the interest of the community. Which should trump the other? Last night there was quite a discussion about Christian Science and the rights of children. If a 7 year old strict Christian Science child has a ruptured appendix and a simple procedure will cure her 99% of the time, should the government be allowed to intervene over the parents' objections? Or should the parents' right to make decisions for their child trump in this case? Without treatment the child will certainly die.

I should note that my knowledge of Christian Science is limited to wikipedia. According to that entry, the faith does not specifically forbid practitioners from receiving medical treatment, although some do deny it. So for the sake of this post, let's assume our hypothetical parents are strict and devout-- they would choose to pray with and for the child and not pursue medical treatment. Is that OK, or should the government intervene?

It's a tough call. I tend to agree with John Rawls that the right is prior to the good (and I suppose that consistent with this, one could argue that the government is acting to protect the right of the child). But I'm all for protecting children, too. Separate from this engineered scenario, there are surely others that would trip up my framework.

What do people think?

2 comments:

KLR said...

I think Aldous Huxley once made a prediction about what would happen if we let the government start raising our children. It wasn't pretty.

JD B said...

Instead of refraining from treatment for religious purposes: What if the parents are too poor to afford the treatment? What if they are too lazy to take the child? What if they are just plain mean? Do these situations change when the government should be allowed to intervene? If exceptions are allowed, in addition to religion, what else constitutes a valid exception from the rule?