An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?
Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
Deserving
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Re: Deserving
Post #2I don't think that deserve is the right word here. Deserve would imply doing something to earn a right to these things. It would be nice if all humans had these, but it's doubtful we'll accomplish that.nobspeople wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?
Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
Tcg
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Re: Deserving
Post #3Instead of DESERVE, what word would you use? Or is there not a better one?Tcg wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:02 amI don't think that deserve is the right word here. Deserve would imply doing something to earn a right to these things. It would be nice if all humans had these, but it's doubtful we'll accomplish that.nobspeople wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?
Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
Tcg
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Re: Deserving
Post #4I'm not sure really. Perhaps, "should", people should have these things. That doesn't seem quite right either. Not that I don't think it would ne nice, I just don't see it as a right. It'd be a great goal.nobspeople wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:32 amInstead of DESERVE, what word would you use? Or is there not a better one?Tcg wrote: ↑Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:02 amI don't think that deserve is the right word here. Deserve would imply doing something to earn a right to these things. It would be nice if all humans had these, but it's doubtful we'll accomplish that.nobspeople wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?
Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
Tcg
Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
- American Atheists
Not believing isn't the same as believing not.
- wiploc
I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.
- Irvin D. Yalom
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Re: Deserving
Post #5This is why I try not to use deserve in the positive: I don't think it means anything. It would trigger the reaction it triggered in you, in any reasonable, thinking person, precisely because positive deserve falls apart if you think about it even a little.nobspeople wrote: ↑Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?
I generally only use deserve in the negative, and I will certainly tell someone who defecates in the well that they don't deserve clean water.
I think I have a sort of latent agreement with TCG here, that I have never thought about but understood it his way nonetheless, because when someone tells me, some person deserves clean water, it implies (to me) that they took whatever measures were appropriate and possible to make it clean or keep it clean, and someone or something took the clean water away from them.