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Probing Analysis of the Moral Justifications for the Welfare State

Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 6 months ago to Books
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(Book Review) This is probably the best and most detailed analysis of the moral justifications for the welfare state. Exactly what one would expect from Dr. Kelley, one of today’s leading philosophers. I particularly enjoyed the history of private philanthropy. Kelley shows that the welfare state was not a response to inadequacies of private philanthropy, but derives from the idea that people had right to be free from the restraints of reality. According to this idea, people should not be constrained by the fact that they have to earn a living or die, or that they get sick or injured, or that they grow old, or that they have to create shelter to live in. An excellent book and a must read for anyone interested in the philosophical underpinnings of the welfare state.

BTW: I find it interesting that Dr. Kelley appears to weigh in on the debate about self-ownership or self-sovereignty inadvertently. A number of times in the book he uses these and similar phrases and even quotes Locke’s idea that we have a property right in ourselves. This issue is an ongoing debate that appears to have been created by Leonard Peikoff’s attack on the idea of self-ownership. Dr. Peikoff’s attack is inconsistent with Rand’s own words on point.

All Comments

  • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Yes and they terms are misused. Open should not mean anything goes. For instance, it does not mean that objectivism can embrace man-made global warming or gun control.
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  • Posted by Technocracy 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Talk about ominous parallels.....the ongoing pissing match between open and closed objectivism is very reminiscent of the national political divide on a much smaller scale. Further, those adjectives often appear descriptive of their reception to new ideas and discussions.
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  • Posted by dbhalling 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Ominous Parallels is a surface level comparison between the US and Nazi Germany. Dr Kelley's work on The Evidence of the senses http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Senses..., is a extensive study of this area. Whether Kelley is right in all cases I do not know because I have not studied it in depth. However, it is a much more important work of scholarship.

    As for whether Kelley thought he knew more than Rand I do not know and have no first hand knowledge. I am sure he knew more about the epistemology of the evidence of the senses than Rand, but that hardly makes him Rand's equal. Only Locke and Aristotle in philosophy are her equal in my estimation.

    That said Piekoff's closed Objectivism is an intellectual and marketing disaster and shows a profound misunderstanding of how philosophical systems work.
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  • Posted by $ Olduglycarl 8 years, 6 months ago
    The key as I see it is the phrase:"The right to be free from the restraints of 'Reality'" This is the 'Liberal' mantra as it melded with the progressive idiocy of Big Government by those self deemed to be in-charge.

    The whole of where this small group has taken society into is in fact...non reality. The results of which are disorder and chaos...it has preceded the fall of every civilization since before the flood.
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  • Posted by johnpe1 8 years, 6 months ago
    I was stopped dead in my tracks by the title of this post, Dale,
    because there are NO moral justifications for the welfare state.
    might this be about claimed moral justifications? -- j
    .
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  • Posted by jimjamesjames 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    A family is a collective by blood or by choice. My wife's "family" is destructive and she has chosen not to be part of it. The individual is the one who makes the choice, not the collective and government welfare is a collective choice that abrogates the rights of all individuals.
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  • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It seems to me that, unlike many other government-related problems, this one is quite amenable to private solution. I would like to see one or more charities that work with willing individuals to wean them off welfare and get them into productive jobs. Some people really need that kind of help either because their handicaps or their past record lead many employers to refuse them work, or to get over "income cliffs" (points where gaining a little work income or a little savings means losing a lot more in benefits).

    There are already some efforts of this kind, but there could be more.

    Of course, it's probably deliberate that government welfare programs don't try to serve these needs, both because it would put their administrators out of their jobs and because it would require the kind of judgment calls (that some clients will really become productive but others will just mooch) that those government people don't want anyone to make.

    I am not attempting here to make the case that charity is always a good thing. I am attempting to make the case that it is not always bad. (Of course the forced kind is not really charity.)
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  • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I agree mostly. Within a single family I have no problem with a collective response, or even with it sometimes being seen as an obligation. That's why we form families.
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  • Posted by ycandrea 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I do not believe it is gov't's role to support anyone, except temporarily in a crisis. We have charities and church's and people who dedicate their lives to helping the poor and disabled people. This worked well until the Great Depression where many died of starvation and this caused the start of the welfare system. I believe all aid should be temporary and should be paid back in work by the recipient when he/she is back on their feet. Just my opinion.
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  • Posted by wiggys 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    sir: when I first became aware of kKelly it was on this forum. I did not like what I read back then and having no knowledge of him I made some inquiry with Objectivists who actually knew him who also studied under Miss Rand for many years and they agreed with my impression of a student believing he knew more than the teacher. I do not believe that Miss Rand's philosophy can be shown in any manner to be off base; period! As for your comment about Leonard Peikoff some how being less of a philosopher than Kelly is erroneous. Has Kelly written anything that is even close to Leonard Peikoff's literary accomplishments? Not a chance! I offer "The Ominous Parallel" as evidence of his ability to see the future of our nation as Miss Rand did. You I presume started this web site forum as a direct result of the influence of Miss Rand upon yourself and now you are moving away from Objectivism as it was introduced to you. If you have read a lions share of Miss Rand's writing then I recommend that you reread it and you will find that what she wrote 60 years ago applies to what is going on today, and Leonard Peikoff offers what she said then as well today.
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  • Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 6 months ago
    We are so far into the welfare state that it is impossible to eliminate it all at once. It must be agreed that action should be taken to erode it over time. The problem lies in the fact that politics shifts left to right and back, so we get one step forward and two backward and vice versa. Freedom is hardly understood by the masses let alone the economics of freedom. Yesterday's debate was the closest we have come to a rational exposition of economics, and still, the amount of information garnered and questions asked were miniscule compared to the vastness of the subject. Dr. Kelly could write a book describing his current book and still not get much effect other than that of the very few who know what he is talking about. And it pales when compared to the giveaway rhetoric of Mrs. Clinton to the uninformed voter. The Gulch can know and appreciate Dr. Kelley, a few others as well, but what about the six or seven billion to whom he might as well have written it in Aramaic?
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  • Posted by blackswan 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    It makes you wonder how mankind has been able to survive for thousands of years without welfare. It's beginning to look like welfare is a lazy man's solution to a problem that the so-called primitives were able to solve rather easily. Maybe we're the primitives.
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  • Posted by edweaver 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    The welfare state did not exist 100 years ago and people survived. It was not always easy but they survived. Then government stepped in to solve the problem and guess what? Government does what it does best. It grows and makes the problem worse. Governments will never be efficient even if they were perfect. As you last statement suggests, we can either have none or all & I vote for none. :)
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  • Posted by khalling 8 years, 6 months ago in reply to this comment.
    wiggys, could you be more specific in your criticism? What of his work have you read or are familiar with?
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