Objectivist Stance on Faith Healing?

[KevinDW78]

This is a news story today. While such a thing is really frustrrting and sad in its stupidity, as Objectivists, should we fight to stop nonsense like this? Or is it their right to be stupid? Should we just let them be so they can remove themselves form the gene pool?

Teen From Faith-Healing Family Refuses Treatment, Dies

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

GLADSTONE, Ore. — Authorities say a teenager from a faith-healing family died from an illness that could have been easily treated, just a few months after a toddler cousin of his died in a case that has led to criminal charges.

Tuesday's death of 16-year-old Neil Beagley, however, may not be a crime because Oregon law allows minors 14 and older to decide for themselves whether to accept medical treatment.

"All of the interviews from last night are that he did in fact refuse treatment," police Sgt. Lynne Benton said Wednesday. "Unless we can disprove that, charges probably won't be filed in this case."

An autopsy Wednesday showed Beagley died of heart failure caused by a urinary tract blockage.

He likely had a congenital condition that constricted his urinary tract where the bladder empties into the urethra, and the condition of his organs indicates he had multiple blockages during his life, said Dr. Clifford Nelson, deputy state medical examiner for Clackamas County.

"You just build up so much urea in your bloodstream that it begins to poison your organs, and the heart is particularly susceptible," Nelson said.

Nelson said a catheter would have saved the boy's life. If the condition had been dealt with earlier, a urologist could easily have removed the blockage and avoided the kidney damage that came with the repeated illnesses, Nelson said.

Benton said a board member of the Followers of Christ church contacted the authorities after Beagley died at his family's home. The teen had been sick about a week, and church members and his family had gathered to pray Sunday when his condition worsened, Benton said.

In March, the boy's 15-month-old cousin Ava Worthington died at home from bronchial pneumonia and a blood infection.

Her parents, Carl and Raylene Worthington, also belong to the church. They have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter and criminal mistreatment, and their defense attorneys have indicated they will use a religious freedom defense.

After earlier deaths involving children of Followers of Christ believers, a 1999 Oregon law struck down religious shields for parents who treat their children solely with prayer. No one had been prosecuted under it until the Worthingtons' case.

Members and former members of the church in Oregon City have told The Oregonian newspaper in previous interviews that the congregation has 1,200 people. It has no apparent ties to other congregations or any mainstream denomination.

[DavidOdden]

It depends on what nonsense you are speaking of. Of course we should always fight for reason over faith. The part that is not obvious is how to objectively define the legal obligations of a parent to be the custodian of a child's rights. The premise behind restricting a child's exercise of their rights is that at certain points in their life they lack the knowledge to act reasonably -- and this is a general fact about children at that age, which means it can be encoded in law as a principle. There must be some age at which a person is held fully accountable for their actions, approximately age 18 as the upper limit, but younger for other acts. (For example, "leaving a child unattended" would not be a punishable act for a 17 year old, but for a 1 year old it would be). I don't see this as being a mater of immaturity, rather it is a matter of profound irrationality, and it is irrelevant that the teenager was not yet 18 -- the crucial point is that he himself decided to dump reason in the trash. The 15 month old toddler on the other hand did not and could not make a decision for herself, and those parents were criminally negligent in their obligations, thus are rightly being prosecuted for their evil deed.

[ruveyn ben yosef]

This is a news story today. While such a thing is really frustrating and sad in its stupidity, as Objectivists, should we fight to stop nonsense like this? Or is it their right to be stupid? Should we just let them be so they can remove themselves form the gene pool?

Past a certain age, a person must be allowed to make his own decisions and to suffer the consequences thereof. The only interference I can see in cases of "faith healing" would concern minor children who are endangered (and even killed) by their parents stupidity. I think the idea of criminal negligence and child abuse applies here. Taking a baby to a faith healer* is not too different from leaving the same baby in a car in hot weather (Yucchh! The thought makes my skin crawl!)

The question is: should children be protected from criminal negligence and abuse by others, even their own parents or caregivers. Does the law have a just and proper superordinate role here? I think it does. YMMV.

ruveyn

*the roads to both Heaven and Hell are paved with Good Intentions.

Edited June 19, 2008 by ruveyn ben yosef

[Zip]

To me this particular case is a cautionary tale, one which hopefully will lead to some other person to reject the faith healing lie and seek medical help thus embracing knowledge over ignorance and reason over faith.

[musenji]

*the roads to both Heaven and Hell are paved with Good Intentions.

Could you explain this? It seems you intend it to have a special meaning, and I'm personally fascinated by the original idiom, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Personally, I think that there's a reason the idiom says "paved" and not "built" with good intentions. To me it implies that good intentions are just a facade for the underlying evil that leads a person to Hell. (Of course when I speak of Hell I mean a metaphorical, this-life Hell, not anything supernatural.)

[sanjavalen]

I believe they call this "child neglect."

In a rational society, inaction on the parents' part that results in harm to the child (whether it be not taking them to the hospital when you are able to or leaving them in a car or at home when they are not mentally fit to) would be illegal. There would not be any silly, arbitrary age "cut-offs," where if you leave a kid at home one day it would be illegal, but the next perfectly legal. The principle here is: can the child actually survive in the circumstances they are left under? If the answer is no, then its illegal, regardless of age.

As far as age of consent/adulthood, I would suppose whenever the kid gets their first job would be a good enough time to call it.

[DavidOdden]

I believe they call this "child neglect."

In fact, it doesn't qualify: the boy was well above the age where he is granted the right to make his own decision, so even if the parents had opposed his choice, they could not have forced him to be treated against his will. ORS 419B.023(7) specifically asserts the minor's medical rights.

There would not be any silly, arbitrary age "cut-offs," where if you leave a kid at home one day it would be illegal, but the next perfectly legal. The principle here is: can the child actually survive in the circumstances they are left under? If the answer is no, then its illegal, regardless of age.

That would be a dictatorial and subjective law. It means that you cannot know if your action is legal, until you have performed the act and seen what the outcome is. Without a cutoff age, it also means, in principle, lifetime slavery, since it is always possible that your adult child at any age does not survive being left alone and you would thus be held responsible. If they do die when you leave the house, clearly they "cannot survive". Such a law would be horrible.

[ruveyn ben yosef]

Could you explain this? It seems you intend it to have a special meaning, and I'm personally fascinated by the original idiom, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

Personally, I think that there's a reason the idiom says "paved" and not "built" with good intentions. To me it implies that good intentions are just a facade for the underlying evil that leads a person to Hell. (Of course when I speak of Hell I mean a metaphorical, this-life Hell, not anything supernatural.)

I intended to say that "good intentions" do not exculpate wrongful negligence nor do "good intentions" justify injury to a person (as in "I beat him for his own good"). In general "good intentions" are not good excuses. Very often "good intentions" are used as a whitewash.

ruveyn

[softwareNerd]

That would be a dictatorial and subjective law. It means that you cannot know if your action is legal, until you have performed the act and seen what the outcome is. ...

Such a law would be horrible.

Unfortunately, this is the case in my state. Since our son is almost 10 -- and quite capable of being left alone for a certain period -- we researched the legality. Except for Maryland (8 years old) and Illinois, the law allows a range rather than a single cut-off age. Since courts in our state allow child-care payments only until 12 years old, the inference is that kids older than 12 are definitely able to stay home alone; however, no lower age (at which they may stay) is specified. According to Michigan State University, Child Protective Services use the rule of thumb that a child over 12 may be alone, and a child under 10 may not. Between 10 and 12 (soon, our son's range), Child Protective Services can use the following questions to determine if there is neglect:

1. If the child is being left home alone, how old is he/she?

2. How often is he/she left home alone?

3. Is he/she left alone during the daytime or in the evenings?

4. How long is he/she usually left alone?

5. Is there a phone in the home?

6. Does the child know what to do in case of emergency?

7. Are any of the children in the home mentally or physically handicapped?

8. Has the child ever been left alone over night?

9. Is the child home alone right now?

The questions are reasonable enough, but it annoys me that -- at least in law -- a government agent is the final arbiter as regards the answers.

[sanjavalen]

That would be a dictatorial and subjective law. It means that you cannot know if your action is legal, until you have performed the act and seen what the outcome is. Without a cutoff age, it also means, in principle, lifetime slavery, since it is always possible that your adult child at any age does not survive being left alone and you would thus be held responsible. If they do die when you leave the house, clearly they "cannot survive". Such a law would be horrible.

How is "Did the child hurt him/herself?" a "subjective" law?

I was under the impression that "subjective law" meant its execution was by someone's whim. I guess now it means something else?

Edit: Looking back at my post, I wasn't sufficiently clear. Nothing is illegal in an Oist society until it is an implicit threat OR actual damage has occurred. Since leaving your kid at home isn't an obvious "threat" to them, the actual illegal act is leaving them home and they being harmed via your neglect (ie starving to death, overheating and dying in a car, etc.)

Edited June 19, 2008 by sanjavalen

[KendallJ]

How is "Did the child hurt him/herself?" a "subjective" law?

I was under the impression that "subjective law" meant its execution was by someone's whim. I guess now it means something else?

Edit: Looking back at my post, I wasn't sufficiently clear. Nothing is illegal in an Oist society until it is an implicit threat OR actual damage has occurred. Since leaving your kid at home isn't an obvious "threat" to them, the actual illegal act is leaving them home and they being harmed via your neglect (ie starving to death, overheating and dying in a car, etc.)

Be careful here. It does not follow that becuase damage occurs that someone's rights have been violated and/or negligence occured. The legal concept of negligence takes that into account. The way you're applying this principle does not. Your change of perspective from "Can a child be hurt?" to "Was the child hurt?" is critical to this distinction. The determination of negligence does not turn on whether damage occured but whether a priori judgement was reckless, regardless of whether damage occured or not.

A child can be hurt and his parents still not negligent, and a child can not be hurt and his parent quite negligent.

You are very much misapplying the concept of damage and negligence.

[DavidOdden]

How is "Did the child hurt him/herself?" a "subjective" law?

I thought about it and realized that the proposal doesn't necessarily yield a subjective law i.e. one where it is impossible to determine after the event that the law was violated. It is similar to subjective laws where guilt is determined by the court on a whim, in that one cannot know in advance of the act whether the act is or is not illegal. The problem is, it simply isn't a law at all in the western sense. You asserted an unterminatable obligation by a parent to prevent their offspring from hurting themself, regardless of age. That is simply perpetual slavery, and a clearly unreasonable law if taken literally. It also leads to an untenable contradiction in rights, where one man must imprison another man because he happens to be the father of the second man and thus has a lifelong obligation to protect his son. I suspect you don't understand the consequence of a law imposing legal responsibility for another person with any silly, arbitrary age "cut-offs involving objectively stated law declaring legal maturity on a specific birthdate.

As you sort of noticed, your law would criminalize an unforseeable outcome, not a specific action -- I'm refering to your criterion "can the child actually survive". It is like antitrust law which says "it is a crime to have been found to tend to monopolize"; it is not a crime to leave your offspring unattended, rather it is a crime for there to be a certain outcome. Criminal law always prohibits people from making specific choices of action (killing, stealing, setting fire to buildings), and never prohibits a state of affairs.

[D'kian]

The determination of negligence does not turn on whether damage occured but whether a priori judgement was reckless, regardless of whether damage occured or not.

Right. And that's a perfectly rational standard. You can risk your own life however you want, but you cannot risk other people's lives. That's why it's illegal to drive under the influence, or neglect the needed care of a child, or drive recklessly, etc.

An adult can choose not to have his disease treated. If he dies it's his responsibility. If he decides not to treat his child's illness, however, he's beglecting the obligations he assumed as a parent, and therefore is responsible if the child dies.

The case involving an older child is a little more complicated. Teenagers and young adults not yet 21 are mature enough to make some important decisions about their lives. Let's suppose there was a cse where a 16 year-old has an inoperable tumor which will most likely kill him in months, even if all medical measures available are used (radiotherapy, chemotherapy, etc). Suppose such measures make him so ill and misserable he can't stand it, and they won't prolong his life much, if at all. It would be quite rational of him to reject any treatment and live out the rest of his short span in relative comfort.

Now suppose the treatments make the child misserable and ill, but have a good chance of beating the cancer, or at least of prolonging his life for several years. In that case the rational decision is to continue the treatment, since there's a great deal of value to be achieved through them.

In either case, how much choice should the child have? And how much should the parents accept his choices?

A child can be hurt and his parents still not negligent, and a child can not be hurt and his parent quite negligent.

Sure. Parents must also weigh the risk of minor injuries a child might endure while growing up. For instance, one of my nephews broke a wrist playing in a child's soccer league. Reasonable precautions were taken, and soccer isn't much of a contact sport, but all physical activity has an injury risk attached. parents who accept a small risk for minor injuries on their children are not negligent.

And there can occur a major injury, too, through normal physical activities. A child taking diving lessons can strike his head on the board and be severely injured. Yet that would not necessarily constitute negligence, not when seasoned divers with years of experience sometimes do bang their heads on the board.

[Breschau]

I live in Oregon. This is a horrid story. That church has 2-3 other deaths on their heads from this nonsense. Including an infant whose parents put her on the altar rather than take her to a hospital.

As for the Objectivist standpoint: It's mysticism. "Neither mysticism nor the creed of self-sacrifice is compatible with mental health or self-esteem. These doctrines are destructive existentially and psychologically." "The standard of mental health... is... man's survival and well-being." So by choosing to self-sacrifice in this way (to petty mysticism no less) is the definition of mental illness.