PY 4818: The Human Right To Basic Necessities

Traditional libertarian view:

1)     The only genuine rights are negative rights, i.e, rights that impose only negative duties.  

2)     Welfare rights such as the human right to basic necessities are not genuine rights, because they impose positive duties. 

Poggeπs response:  Accepts (1) but denies (2):  Even if we conceive the human right to basic necessities as a  

   purely negative right, the current level of chronic poverty constitutes a massive violation of this basic    

   human right.

    Pogge: The human right to basic necessities imposes a negative duty not to collaborate in the coercive

    imposition of unjust global social institutions that play a crucial causal role in the persistence of chronic  

    severe poverty.

Jones & Shueπs response: They deny (1) and (2): There is a human right to basic necessities that imposes

   positive as well as negative duties. 

Shueπs two lines of argument against (2):

1. Indirect

   The right to subsistence is necessary for persons to enjoy any other right.

   Malnutrition etc leaves persons incapable of engaging in autonomous activity and therefore enjoying any

   rights that protect such activity.  

   The chronically poor are extremely vulnerable to coercion by the powerful.  

2. Direct:

   Rights are justified by appealing to the interests individuals have in the contents of those rights.

   The interest in basic necessities is as important as any other interest.

   The duties a human right to basic necessities would impose are reasonable.

Shueπs and Jonesπs arguments against (1):

  Any human right imposes positive as well as negative duties.  Therefore human rights cannot be divided  

   into positive and negative rights.

   Shue: ≥A moral right provides the rational basis for a justified demand that the actual enjoyment of a

   substance be socially guaranteed against standard threats≤ (Henry Shue, Basic Rights, p. 13)

   In order to guarantee that right-holders actually enjoy the objects of their rights, to a reasonable level of

   security, certain positive steps need to be taken. 

   Each right imposes 3 kinds of duties:

            I. Duties not to deprive the right-holder of the object of the right.

            2. Duties to protect right-holders against such deprivations.

            3. Duties to aid those who have already been deprived.  

   The human right to basic necessities therefore cannot be dismissed because it imposes positive duties. 

   Rather, we should focus on the importance of the objects of postulated rights.

1.      The content of the right:

Lack of access to basic necessities can preclude a minimally decent and autonomous life and lead to death. From the recipientπs perspective, the object of this right is more important than that of many other traditional libertarian rights.

2.      The obligations generated by the right:

Negative obligations:

It is indisputable that the right entails negative obligations not to deprive persons of access to basic necessities.

Positive obligations?

Objections to Pogge: A) He goes too far.  He fails to establish that

                B) He does not go far enough.  The human right to basic necessities imposes postive as well as negative duties.  Therefore the existence of chronic severe poverty constitutes a failure to uphold peopleπs rights, independently of the duty-bearerπs causal responsibility for this povety. 

His argument in favour of a human right to basic necessities that imposes postive duties. 

Response to the libertarian view:

Shue: i.)  every human right, including traditional libertarian rights, imposes 3 kinds of duties.

i.) the positive duties imposed by the human right to basic necessities are not excessive.  These duties could be implemented very efficiently and cheaply by institutions.  As private individuals, we ought to seek to bring about these just institutions. 

Positive obligations:

There are three possible answers to whether the right to basic necessities entails positive

Shue:

obligations:

i.        It entails no positive obligations.

ii.       It entails positive obligations towards the chronically poor regardless of their nationality. 

iii.      It entails positive obligations towards oneπs fellow nationals.

The only non-arbitrary positions are (i) and (ii).

Both the utilitarian and the Kantian accounts lead to (ii).