Friday, October 16, 2009

Towards some basic world minima?

Some thought for this World Food Day!

We do like to think that we live in a humanist world, ie a world that values human life and people care, at least a little.

1 bn people are living under "chronic hunger conditions around the world, mostly in developing countries.

In the US, a developed country, many millions of people are without health insurance.

In many developed, there exist homeless people.

One often reads, online and in other media, people express the view that people have to "earn" their healthcare coverage or that homeless people should do something to deserve a roof above their heads.

IMO there is something philosophically and humanistically faulty in this argumentation.

IMO no fellow human "deserves" to die of hunger or have zero food at his/her plate (the minimum), no fellow human "deserves" not to have healthcare. They do not have to "earn" those minima. Our humanism dictates that they do.

Irrespective of one's political ideology, IMO, one cannot object to the provision of certain minima "universally", to his/her co-patriots and to all fellow humans as well.

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