'Absurd' is going way too far. Sure, there is a lot of fuzziness in the spectrum of culpability one bears for one's own misfortune, and it's not always easy for an outside observer to tell clearly and precisely, but the law deals with those issues all the time in a wide variety of circumstances where those determinations are at the very …
'Absurd' is going way too far. Sure, there is a lot of fuzziness in the spectrum of culpability one bears for one's own misfortune, and it's not always easy for an outside observer to tell clearly and precisely, but the law deals with those issues all the time in a wide variety of circumstances where those determinations are at the very heart of questions of who has what amount of liability to whom, who has excuses, defenses, mitigating circumstances, and so forth.
The guy who paid his insurance premiums and lost his house in a fire caused by a bolt of lightning deserves the payout. The arsonist fire-bug who burned it down on purpose does not. The guy who passed out while reading and smoking and unintentionally dropped his lit cigarette on his newspaper and barely escaped with his life is an arguable case, but to treat all these different situations as if they are the same and wouldn't benefit from the application of discerning sound judgment is what would actually be absurd.
How do you know the guy smoking and says he fell asleep wasn't a fire bug?
The person who can't work because of back pain, how do you know? The person with migraines, how do you know? Are you certain the person addicted to painkillers, alcohol, etc. should not? What about the schizophrenic, depressed, or agoraphobic? YOU DONT KNOW.
But decisions like that are made all the time. Do you really have debilitating back pain? If you do, you get Social Security Disability or, if you're a municipal employee, perhaps the local government's budget pays you for as long as you're disabled. There are always stories of the guy out on total disability who is spotted playing 18 holes of golf and carrying his own clubs. The decision-maker was wrong. But that is no reason to throw up your hands and say, "I don't know. Give everyone disability."
Maybe I misunderstood you. I see determining who should get benefits as very different from who is deserving. For benefits, we have criteria to make decisions as objectively as reasonably possible. We hope it gives the right answers but know it often doesn't. Knowing who is deserving is a completely different question. And while determining disability may be correlated with deserving, other forms of benefits are determined by work status, income, family structure, etc. that have little or no correlation to deserving. If I turn down a higher paying job I hate in order to work a minimum wage job I like and it qualifies me for benefits, am I deserving? Doesn't matter for determining benefits.
Most days I have low grade back pain and discomfort that hinders me very little. A sizable minority of days I don't notice it. I had one two week period (which delayed a ski trip I successfully completed) and a few other random days where I'm incapacitated. What if it were the other way around and I had 5 good days a year? Do you still know anything about my ability to work from seeing me play golf and carry the bag?
What I am trying to say is that determining who is eligible and who is deserving have the same sort of knowledge problems: do you have a second job you're not telling me about? side gigs? do you get paid "under the table"? how many people really live with you?
Or to take your example, is that day of golfing a normal thing or just something you were able to do one unusual day? Determining disability has criteria that are supposed to "make decisions as objectively as reasonably possible" but, as you say, often the decisions are wrong.
Now, as I see it, the decision about who is deserving is a moral one on which lots of people differ but decisions on eligibility are supposed to made on the basis of rules that have already been determined. The various moral arguments about who should get what benefits are one step back. They have already been weighed and decisions about the appropriate criteria have been made.
'Absurd' is going way too far. Sure, there is a lot of fuzziness in the spectrum of culpability one bears for one's own misfortune, and it's not always easy for an outside observer to tell clearly and precisely, but the law deals with those issues all the time in a wide variety of circumstances where those determinations are at the very heart of questions of who has what amount of liability to whom, who has excuses, defenses, mitigating circumstances, and so forth.
The guy who paid his insurance premiums and lost his house in a fire caused by a bolt of lightning deserves the payout. The arsonist fire-bug who burned it down on purpose does not. The guy who passed out while reading and smoking and unintentionally dropped his lit cigarette on his newspaper and barely escaped with his life is an arguable case, but to treat all these different situations as if they are the same and wouldn't benefit from the application of discerning sound judgment is what would actually be absurd.
How do you know the guy smoking and says he fell asleep wasn't a fire bug?
The person who can't work because of back pain, how do you know? The person with migraines, how do you know? Are you certain the person addicted to painkillers, alcohol, etc. should not? What about the schizophrenic, depressed, or agoraphobic? YOU DONT KNOW.
But decisions like that are made all the time. Do you really have debilitating back pain? If you do, you get Social Security Disability or, if you're a municipal employee, perhaps the local government's budget pays you for as long as you're disabled. There are always stories of the guy out on total disability who is spotted playing 18 holes of golf and carrying his own clubs. The decision-maker was wrong. But that is no reason to throw up your hands and say, "I don't know. Give everyone disability."
Gee, I wonder how that would end up.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
Maybe I misunderstood you. I see determining who should get benefits as very different from who is deserving. For benefits, we have criteria to make decisions as objectively as reasonably possible. We hope it gives the right answers but know it often doesn't. Knowing who is deserving is a completely different question. And while determining disability may be correlated with deserving, other forms of benefits are determined by work status, income, family structure, etc. that have little or no correlation to deserving. If I turn down a higher paying job I hate in order to work a minimum wage job I like and it qualifies me for benefits, am I deserving? Doesn't matter for determining benefits.
Most days I have low grade back pain and discomfort that hinders me very little. A sizable minority of days I don't notice it. I had one two week period (which delayed a ski trip I successfully completed) and a few other random days where I'm incapacitated. What if it were the other way around and I had 5 good days a year? Do you still know anything about my ability to work from seeing me play golf and carry the bag?
What I am trying to say is that determining who is eligible and who is deserving have the same sort of knowledge problems: do you have a second job you're not telling me about? side gigs? do you get paid "under the table"? how many people really live with you?
Or to take your example, is that day of golfing a normal thing or just something you were able to do one unusual day? Determining disability has criteria that are supposed to "make decisions as objectively as reasonably possible" but, as you say, often the decisions are wrong.
Now, as I see it, the decision about who is deserving is a moral one on which lots of people differ but decisions on eligibility are supposed to made on the basis of rules that have already been determined. The various moral arguments about who should get what benefits are one step back. They have already been weighed and decisions about the appropriate criteria have been made.