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Hippocrates Shrugged

I don’t read the Volokh Conspiracy, mostly because I find his format unwieldy and distasteful. And that’s a shame, because my understanding is that Mr Volokh puts out some good content. But I sometimes run across his work by proxy, as was the case today. Inspired by one of Mr Volokh’s posts, Coyote Blog ponders, Does the Hippocratic Oath Make Doctors Our Slaves?

(The text of the Hippocratic Oath can be found here, if you’re the type to do research from the primary source.)

Coyote’s post is one that explains well the general libertarian philosophy as it applies to a specific situation. Libertarians (as he notes) are often written off in policy debates, because our positions come across to the average person as extreme and unworkable. And in our society, in the short term, maybe they are. But these aren’t knee-jerk, anti-social obstructionist positions. They are principled positions, stemming directly from classical liberalism. Most of our opponents are not willfully authoritarian, e.g. monarchists or the like. They are simply ignorant of how to draw political conclusions from philosophical values. They don’t recognize their own inconsistencies. And occasionally, when confronted with the issue in the simplest of terms and with the underlying philosophies and values, they recognize what’s going on.

So here it is: Just because a person has something that you want, or even something that you legitimately need, does not mean that you have a right to it. The only way to deny this fact is to reject egalitarianism* at its core – and who is willing to do that, explicitly? Most people – even those who support government medicine – will not. The failure of the collectivist philosophy that is so popular among intellectuals is not a failure to recognize that all men are created equal, but a failure to understand that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that your right to life is not to come at the expense of my right to liberty.

Often, I feel like I am preaching to the choir here at AtlasBlogged. Occasionally, I figure there is little value in doing so. But sometimes people are able to break down an issue so clearly that it is of great value to share it. Does the Hippocratic Oath make doctors our slaves? I know people who have taken that oath and believe in government health care – a “right” to medical treatment. They would never advocate their own slavery, if they recognized it for what it was. But they don’t see the issue in those terms, and they don’t fear for their own liberty. They just feel overwhelmed by hospital administrators and insurance companies. They feel badly for sick people. They know there is a better way than the current way, and they want to bulldoze everything that impedes their ability to give the absolute best treatment to everyone. What better bulldozer than the federal government?

My father would never count himself a libertarian. But he understands this issue very clearly. He took the Hippocratic Oath, and he took it seriously. And when the hospital administration asked too much of him, and he felt that the insurance companies limited him, he faced a serious clash of values. He is a man who gives of himself relentlessly. He has literally given the shirt off his back – to strangers. But he will not be enslaved, and he knew his slaver when he saw him. He quit medicine several years ago. He wasn’t eligible for retirement, but he stood by his principles and shrugged the expectations (and chains) right off. I’ve been proud of him my entire life, but never more than on this issue.

* I use the term “egalitarianism” to mean a belief in human equality especially with respect to social, political, and economic rights and privileges, definition 1 at Merriam Webster. The term is sometimes ignorantly hijacked to mean equality in results – redistribution of wealth or something even more reminiscent of the short story Harrison Bergeron. People who do so are jackasses.