# Should a person have an absolute right to screw up his life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 17, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536 "2004-04-17T17:00:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/1 "2004-04-17T17:00:28Z")
This was partly inspired by the [Political Compass Thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=251262) about “From each according to his ability, to each according to need”. While there was lively debate about the needs side, not much was addressed about the abilities, namely, is it our duty to society to give as much as our ability to do so? It seems that the essential liberal social doctrine is that a person is free to do anything he so chooses as long as it does no harm to others. However, in all the analysis I have seen, it seems that only active harm is taken into account of. For example, the argument for legalisation of drugs is that the only person that is harmed is yourself and that all people should have the inviolable right to do harm to themselves. However, it does not factor into the analysis the fact that by harming yourself, your leading to a detriment to the society you live in which indirectly harms others. So, I want to present a series of scenarios and see which ones people think are moral and which they think the person has a right to behave the way they do. [ul] [li]You are a talented surgeon. However, you get bored with surgery and decide to retire to the bahamas[/li][li]You are the talented surgeon. However, you get bored with surgery and decide to go off to be an artist.[/li][li]You are the talented surgeon. You get addicted to crack and you are unable to perform anymore[/li][li]You are the talented surgeon. Somebody brings a medical patient to you in dire need of help. You refuse to do it just because you dont feel like it.[/li][li]All the situations above except you happen to be the only surgeon in the world capable of performing your kind of operations.[/li][li]You are a high school student who knows he has what it takes to become a surgeon. However, you don’t feel like all the hard work so you take an easy arts course instead.[/li][/ul] Under the extreme social liberty view, all of these cases would be acceptable since there is no obligation for any person to perform an action, only those that prohibit him. Personally, I think that it is a balance between the rights of the person and the needs of the state and that the condition of joining society is that one must subjugate some of their own rights for the greater good. It’s a fine line to walk but I would say that there is very little difference between actively choosing to do something and passively choosing not to do it. While this may be controversial, I think that the high school student is wrong with his choice. Although I’m not advocating that the government legislate career choices, I think it should be implicit in the social contract that those with great potential should foster it rather than let it languish, even at personal expense. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/2 "2004-04-17T17:06:27Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > While this may be controversial, I think that the high school student is wrong with his choice. Although I’m not advocating that the government legislate career choices, I think it should be implicit in the social contract that those with great potential should foster it rather than let it languish, even at personal expense. So you want us to have an unwilling, resentful talented surgeon? Forget it. One must have the desire to do the job to do it well, especially in such a complex area requiring _decades_ of training. And there’s no such thing as an irreplaceable surgeon. Someone somewhere can duplicate the technique, and even do it better, and improve on it. Maybe not right now, but in the not too distant future. Indeed the only scenario you raise where I feel the person **must** do the job is where he “just doesn’t feel like it”. In that case, the person is shirking his duty. In the other scenarios, as long as the surgeon notifies his patients of his/her choice to leave the field and helps them connect with another doctor, and provides care until he leaves (in the addict scenario the doc won’t be _allowed_ to practice) then those are acceptable decisions to me. A doctor has to want to be a doc. One must accept the duty willingly, and also one must be allowed to lay it down in the appropriate manner when one is no longer willing or able. QtM, MD ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/3 "2004-04-17T17:09:48Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > However, you don’t feel like all the hard work so you take an easy arts course instead. Gee, way to piss all over the arts. I didn’t know that the arts were something mastered from a semester at a community college. Well, in any case, I certainly don’t want to live in your society where people are required to do what the government tells them to. Maybe, unlike you, the hypothetical person appreciates the arts a little bit. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/4 "2004-04-17T17:10:22Z")
Tough question. If someone wants to use drugs, for example, to excess which always is the end result, they eventually become a burden on the rest of us in medical care, law enforcement etc. Maybe if we refused medical care the cost would be lessened, but then they would die in the street and there would be the expense of pickup and disposal of the body. We live in an interdependent system. The actions of those in the system affect the welfare of others in the system who thus have a vested interest in those actions. Unfortunately being able to actually **do** anything about someone screwing up a life is an entirely different matter. ---
**Author:** ![laigle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laigle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/laigle)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/5 "2004-04-17T17:20:16Z")
Goes to the division between ethics and law, IMHO. I would say it’s very unethical for a talented surgeon to simply give up saving lives for shits and giggles. I would tell him so to his face. If I were in a mood, I might even give him a swift kick in the nuts to drive the point home. But I wouldn’t want him compelled not to quit. The ability to perform actions deemed unethical or immoral by others is necessary in a free society. As is the right to criticize those actions you consider unethical or immoral. ---
**Author:** ![Plan\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Plan\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plan_B)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/6 "2004-04-17T17:46:33Z")
The examples you give are highly hypothetical, of course, so it’s hard to relate them to real life. But if I’m the surgeon, I can’t imagine any workable solution where anyone other than me makes the decision about how much I work. I know in my line of work I joke that the people I seee on Monday mornings should pay ten times as much as the ones I see on Friday afternoons. And if I were compelled to do the work I wouldn’t be worth ten cents an hour. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/7 "2004-04-17T17:52:53Z")
Where do you draw the line, even ethically? (Forget about legally!) If it is unethical for a surgeon to give up praticing surgery because s/he doesn’t feel like it, what else is unethical? The vast majority of us living in the US could afford to give away _some_ of what we have in order to help someone else in far more serious need. Is it unethical that we maintain a comfortable rather than a marginal lifestyle, even though there are people who would be intensely grateful for even that marginal life? Is it admirable for a surgeon to leave his/her practice to pursue whatever recreation s/he wants? Probably not especially. But unethical? Again, where do we draw the line? What do we ethically _owe_ to our fellow citizens? Me, I’m a Democrat because I don’t want to have to make those choices. I’m willing to pay taxes in the hopes that at least decent subsistence will be available to all citizens. Then they won’t have to rely on my (or other individual’s) willingness to shell out cash - the burden is shared by all taxpayers. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for charity, but it means that the most desperate _need_ has already been addressed. ---
**Author:** ![laigle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@laigle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/laigle)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/8 "2004-04-17T21:16:11Z")
> [@AvhHines](#): > > Where do you draw the line, even ethically? (Forget about legally!) > > If it is unethical for a surgeon to give up praticing surgery because s/he doesn’t feel like it, what else is unethical? The vast majority of us living in the US could afford to give away _some_ of what we have in order to help someone else in far more serious need. Is it unethical that we maintain a comfortable rather than a marginal lifestyle, even though there are people who would be intensely grateful for even that marginal life? Certainly. Humans are imperfect beings. Ethics is not the art of explaining why the things we do are right. If you realize your system of morality agrees with everything you do, it’s time to find yourself a new one. ---
**Author:** ![elfbabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b782af/32.png) [@elfbabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfbabe)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/9 "2004-04-17T23:43:04Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > [ul] > [li]You are a high school student who knows he has what it takes to become a surgeon. However, you don’t feel like all the hard work so you take an easy arts course instead.[/li][/ul] > > While this may be controversial, I think that the high school student is wrong with his choice. Let’s take this a bit farther. I, arguably, have what it takes to become a surgeon. I have a strong interest in science, illness, and the workings of the human body. I have good manual dexterity in my hands. I like helping people. And **Qadgop** is my dad, so there’s a bit of family medical tradition going there. I have, however, chosen not to go into medicine. I like computer science better, and for me, it’s easier, though I’m sure I could do the pre-med coursework if I’d chosen to. Is my choice also wrong? Or am I allowed to choose my field because my choice isn’t art? And what about my fellow non-premed science or engineering majors? Does the rest of the CS department need to become surgeons, too? I’m sure they would all be able to if they tried. What about the physics department? Electrical engineering? Mechanical engineering? Math? Are all of their choices wrong, too? What about people in biology, biophysics, or chemistry who would prefer a research position to med school? ---
**Author:** ![yosemite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/3ab097/32.png) [@yosemite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yosemite)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2004, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/10 "2004-04-17T23:53:56Z")
While I understand that the OP thinks that the arts are “easy,” 😉 the creative arts happen to be my primary interest. I have a certain aptitude for singing (so my mom, the fabulous singer, tells me). I also have some small “feel” for playing the piano. No doubt, if I decided to, I could cultivate these talents to their fullest capabilities and do far more with them than I do right now. But I’ve decided that I simply do not have time, nor do I have the “fire in my belly” for them. I have a modest aptitude for them (so I’m told), but I don’t want to devote my life to them. I have a very, very, _very_ small (read: almost nonexistant) talent for throwing on the potter’s wheel. But I had a “fire in the belly” to learn it, so instead of working to cultivate singing or piano playing, I spent several semesters in college trying to throw a decent pot. I never will be a masterful potter (what makes my pots worth buying is the glaze decorations I put on them), but that’s what I wanted to do. I certainly don’t think I made a wrong choice by choosing the work on something that I had less talent for (pottery), instead of working on the things that I had more talent for (singing and piano). That’s just how it works with some of us. You can’t _force_ someone to love doing something. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/11 "2004-04-18T00:35:04Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > [ul] > [li]You are a talented surgeon. However, you get bored with surgery and decide to retire to the bahamas[/li][li]You are the talented surgeon. However, you get bored with surgery and decide to go off to be an artist.[/li][li]You are the talented surgeon. You get addicted to crack and you are unable to perform anymore[/li][li]You are the talented surgeon. Somebody brings a medical patient to you in dire need of help. You refuse to do it just because you dont feel like it.[/li][li]All the situations above except you happen to be the only surgeon in the world capable of performing your kind of operations.[/li][li]You are a high school student who knows he has what it takes to become a surgeon. However, you don’t feel like all the hard work so you take an easy arts course instead.[/li][/ul] The OP title concerned “screwing up” a life. I don’t see any of the above list except #3 as having anything to do with “screwing up” anything. Since you chose surgery as the example I’ll go along with **Qadgop**. I want my surgeon to be a willing, even enthusiastic, volunteer. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/12 "2004-04-18T04:19:34Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > If someone wants to use drugs, for example, to excess which always is the end result, they eventually become a burden on the rest of us in medical care, law enforcement etc. Can you provide some documentation that backs up your assertion that using drugs always leads to excess use? Similarly, can you give me a site that all people who use drugs even in excess eventually become a burden on society in terms of medical care and law enforcement? If you can not, please retract your statement. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/13 "2004-04-18T04:23:23Z")
> [@Zagadka](#): > > Gee, way to piss all over the arts. I didn’t know that the arts were something mastered from a semester at a community college. > > Well, in any case, I certainly don’t want to live in your society where people are required to do what the government tells them to. Maybe, unlike you, the hypothetical person appreciates the arts a little bit. “easy arts course” does not imply that all arts courses are easy. While many of the arts undoubtably require skill and have real value, you cannot deny there are some arts degrees out there that serve purely as degree mills. As I said in my OP, this is not something the government can or should legislate. But is it something that is or should be part of the collective social concious? There are many things that we rely on society to enforce because the legal system is not designed to cope with them. For example, the Protestant work ethic is something deeply engrained in western society. After thinking about it some more, I think that it is engrained within our society to a certain degree. In Australia where your university application is solely dependant on a numerical score of HS achievment, many people feel strongly that those who could have got into Med or Law and chose not to have somehow “wasted” their score. I guess screw up their life is not really the most appropriate choice of wording, more like not living up to their full potential. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/14 "2004-04-18T04:35:27Z")
> [@I Love Me](#): > > Can you provide some documentation that backs up your assertion that using drugs always leads to excess use? Similarly, can you give me a site that all people who use drugs even in excess eventually become a burden on society in terms of medical care and law enforcement? > > If you can not, please retract your statement. Thank you. You are absolutely right. I should not have said “always.” Sorry if I touched a nerve. ---
**Author:** ![Zagadka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zagadka/32/7272_2.png) [@Zagadka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zagadka)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/15 "2004-04-18T07:21:11Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > I guess screw up their life is not really the most appropriate choice of wording, more like not living up to their full potential. Well, again, this depends on how you define the “potential.” If you are talking about some duty to society that every person should venture to become a doctor… well, that is pretty silly. If you are talking about personal potential, that is entirely what makes the person happiest. Is “potential” gaining personal experience? Personal gratification? Riches? Social duty? Service to government? Is a person who skipped military duty to go to medical school not living up to their “potential?” Is a doctor who is suicidally depressed with their profession not living up to potential? What if someone could, unknowingly, be the greatest military mind ever? Doesn’t everyone have that potential? What if someone who went to medical school could have otherwise enterered research biology and discovered the cure for a disease? Entered politics and led a nation to peace and prosperity? Entered economics and composed a new theory on distribution of wealth? Entered art and created an era-defining artistic style? Became a teacher and inspired hundreds of kids to do better with their lives? Became a police officer who saved hundreds of lives? What if they became a union leader who led to a breakthrough agreement between industry and labor, averting crippling strikes and saving thousands of jobs? What if they are a mechanic, who keeps thousands of people mobile? What if they just stayed at home and raised a decent family? What if they travelled the world and saw everything there is to see? What if they were just happy staring into their kids’ eyes? Which of the above is the most worthy path? I don’t think anyone - anyone - owes a natural debt to society. Self-value is much more important. If you’re doing what you need to be doing, that’s perfect. If you are doing something that doens’t leave you happy, all you are going to have left in life is regrets. If you are laying on your deathbed trying to justify your miserable, unhappy life, alone because your kids hate you and your spouse divorced you, what does it matter? Just because someone is not a doctor or the like does not mean their life is going to be unworthy. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/16 "2004-04-18T07:44:09Z")
Sure, we might not know the exact consequences of all our actions but we usually have a fair idea. From an early age, we all know if we’re “math” type students or “english” type students. We all know if we’re brilliant or stupid and in which areas. _any_ of those things that Zadagka pointed out is a worthy goal and something that not everyone can achieve. If you believe that you have the requisite skills to be one of those things, is it somehow more wrong of you to sit on your ass and drink beer every day than someone who most definately could not? ---
**Author:** ![fluiddruid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fluiddruid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fluiddruid)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-a-person-have-an-absolute-right-to-screw-up-his-life/240536/17 "2004-04-18T17:38:05Z")
It seems to me that the OP’s question is really about if a person has a right to not help others, not if they have a right to screw up their life. I find that this sort of logic is easily applied to others, but hard to apply to yourself. Sure, it would be better for others if you never posted on the SDMB or did anything that you enjoyed, but instead spent all your time volunteering, giving blood, or working to have extra money to give to charity. Does society have the right to impose something on you, though? Does this change based on what knowledge that you have? Should we force only the educated to do things against their will? If so, can’t you imagine that most people would choose to remain uneducated in specialized fields that would cause this?