3 ms·
This isn't quite a straw man, but it is a little straw man-ish Adam Smith coined the term invisible hand, so lets use him to take the place of the strawish man
by netcan 13y ago
This isn't quite a straw man, but it is a little straw man-ish
Adam Smith coined the term invisible hand, so lets use him to take the place of the strawish man. Apart from 'Wealth of Nations' he also wrote 'A Theory of Moral Sentiments.' He was a moral philosopher at least as much as he was a economist. The invisible hand does not assume people are profit maximising robots in a theoretically perfect world.
Since Smith was very much talking human beings, he dealt with all sorts of motivations: selfishness, selflessness, empathy and a bunch of socially mitigated motivations like the desire to be held in esteem. He uses words like "often" not "always" to describe helpful outcomes from self interested motives. He isn't a fundamentalist at all.
So from a Smithian perspective I would say that immoral doctors are arseholes.
Honestly, I think this case just shows that nothing is perfect.
- reillyse 13y agoWell I think it shows that one thing is far from perfect, namely the American healthcare system which is the point of the article.