After teaching my three courses (Ethics, Ethics, Philosophy of Law) this morning, I attended a roundtable discussion entitled "Ethics and the Future of Public Health." About 50 people attended. One of the three panelists was an environmentalist, another a psychologist, and a third an historian of medicine and public health. My department chairman, Ken Williford, moderated.
What could have been an enlightening discussion of health care turned out to be a progressive lovefest. John Rawls was mentioned several times, as though his theory of justice is the theory of justice rather than one among many. Nobody mentioned Robert Nozick. All three panelists impugned the profit motive. Not one of them mentioned (perhaps because he has not read?) Adam Smith, who wrote, famously, that "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." One panelist implied, gratuitously, that pharmaceutical companies (and presumably those who run them) are evil.
It went on like this for over an hour. Even the questions from the audience were biased in favor of progressivism. One man said that in 1969, his wife gave birth to their first child. They couldn't afford to pay the medical bill, so the doctor told them to pay what they could each month ("even if it's only a dollar") until the bill was paid off. He followed up with a more recent story. His wife needed medical attention and was told by the doctor that consultation with the insurance company would be required before services could be rendered.
"How did we get from there to here?" the man asked, incredulously. What he should have asked is why anybody owes him anything. Why would he and his wife have a baby if they were unable to pay for it? How is that not irresponsible? Why would he expect a doctor to render services for free? Would he render services for free? Why would he expect his fellow citizens, who have lives of their own to live and bills of their own to pay, to pay for his health care? How is taking money from A to give to B not theft?
It was frustrating in the extreme to hear so many unexamined statements and pregnant questions (sorry for the pun). If there was a theme, it was that something is wrong with our society, as compared to societies in, say, Europe. One panelist said that he wished we were more like Holland, where he had lived for three years. There was lots of warm, fuzzy talk about solidarity and taking care of one another, as though our huge, fragmented society were a family writ large. There was little or no talk of individual liberty, personal responsibility, or limited government (which is the form of government bequeathed to us, for better or for worse, by the Framers). To be quite honest, the dream worlds of the panelists sounded to me like nightmares.
The losers in all of this are the students. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 representing Nozick's nightwatchman state, 7 representing Rawls's welfare state, and 10 representing communism, the students got to hear three 7s. Not only did the three panelists share a vision, there was no vision even close to the other end of the spectrum! Where's diversity when you need it? (By the way, all three panelists were white males. Horrors!)
You're probably wondering why I didn't ask a question. I had many reasons, not least of which is that I didn't want to spoil the lovefest. I wish progressives would understand that by hiring only like-minded colleagues, they deprive themselves of criticism, which is essential to having a well-grounded view. Without criticism, one fails to grasp the limitations of one's views and values. The result is that one's views become extreme. Academia, sadly, has become a progressive echo chamber.
