I had been asking myself this question until the day I came to understand the difference in principle between life and right to life. The right to life is fundamental, inalienable and absolute, while life (human life, that is) is merely a consequence of man's actions such as breathing, eating, etc. If a man stops eating for instance, or gets sick with a terminal disease, he dies. His life ends, but his right to life was not necessarily violated, unless somebody else used physical force on him in order to restrain him from eating or to infect him with the virus. If the driver's wife dies, nobody is to be blamed, because nobody violated her right to life, which is not the case with the pedestrian. The driver saves his wife's life - which is very good - and violates the pedestrian's right to life by using physical force on him - which is unacceptable. The phrase "he took a life but saved another" might trick the average reader into thinking that the actions of 'taking' and 'saving' lives could result in a zero sum. This is not true. It is not a question of lives, but of violation of rights. By violating the pedestrian's right to life the driver should be punished to fullest extent of the law. The fact that the woman needed emergency care is not an argument, as I said in issue nr. 4. This does not entitle her to violation of any rights of any other person.
In this case, it is the pedestrian's right to life that was violated, but the issue can be extended to other rights, such as the right to property. If you read Ayn Rand's books, you will see that the right to property is the physical implementation in a social context of the right to life. It is a right derived from the right to life and therefore it is inalienable and absolute. The fact that a man needs a plane, a car, or his life depending bottle of insulin does not entitle him to steal one.
Similar cases are happening today on a global scale. Poor people might die because they don't have enough food, therefore the government initiates physical force on people who have enough food, violating by this their right to property, and takes their money through taxation in order to give the others the food they need. The government forces department stores, violating their right to property, to build ramps for the handicapped because they need to be able to buy clothes. It steals money from the healthy to pay for the sick. Steals from the wealthy to pay for the poor. Read Ayn Rand and you will see that the government is the greatest villain of all times and most of the tragedies in the world today are happening because of the government.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|