When human beings come to existence, they start to ‘need’ objects, and while these objects range from the survival essentials to luxuries, providing basic human rights for survival raises an ethical question, in this essay, we discuss whether water is ought to be free of charge for everyone, given how it falls at the top of the hierarchy of basic human needs.
Some people, more specifically the ones in charge, may argue that providing water for free is not realistic, as we don’t consume water in it’s preliminary form or drink it straight away from the rivers, instead, it goes through an extensive pipeline of cleaning and purification that costs a ton of money, thus, their argument is that people need to pay taxes at the very least to get access to clean and fresh water.
However that might raise a question that concerns moral philosophers, is it ethical to derive the right of drinking water- the very first basic human need- from the poor and people who can’t support themselves for simply that reason? From the an ethical egoism angle, an argument may be raised that if these people can’t pay their taxes to have access to clean water, why should other people care? as this statement would imply that other people would need to get out of their way to help them, and philosophers who believe in this theory believe that one shouldn’t do anything if it doesn’t benefit oneself.
On the other hand, we could consider a theory like the social contract theory, that we should do what would benefit the whole society equally, and depriving people from a basic need would surely fall as unethical according to this theory.
In conclusion, I believe that water is ought to be free of charge for those who are in need, which may be doable if human-rights organizations focused on providing constant water supply to those who can’t pay for it, as at the end of the day, constant water supply requires financial resources, so making it completely free of charge could raise an economical crisis if the government wasn’t able to provide it.