The claimability objection rejects the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights because the duties thought to correlate with this right are undirected, and thus it is not claimable. This objection is open to two replies: One denies that claimability is an existence condition on rights. The second suggests that the human right to subsistence actually is claimable. I argue that although neither reply succeeds on the conventional interpretation of the human right to subsistence, an alternative ‘practical’ interpretation (...) provides a viable approach to vindicating this right. (shrink)

This volume makes a welcome contribution to the burgeoning philosophical scholarship on human rights by foregrounding methodological and meta-philosophical issu.

This paper constitutes an exploration and evaluation of the so-called ‘linkage argument' in support of the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights. While it is uncontroversial that avoiding poverty is hugely important for all humans, the human right to subsistence and other socio-economic human rights are often regarded as social goals rather than genuine rights. The linkage argument aims to show that a commitment to the existence of any human rights at all entails a commitment to the (...) inclusion of a right to subsistence among them. I argue that the linkage argument does not succeed in vindicating the inclusion of a right to subsistence among moral human rights, but I conclude that a modified version of it might support the justification of a legal human right to subsistence. (shrink)

One of the main questions Gillian Brock takes up in Justice for People on the Move (2020) is whether it is morally permissible for states to enact migration policies that discriminate on the basis of religion against those who wish to enter. The main focus of her discussion is on the United States context, and, in particular, the so-called ‘Muslim Ban’ enacted by President Donald Trump in 2017. While Brock offers a powerful critique of this policy, I argue that it (...) is insufficient on its own to support her claim that migration policies that discriminate on the basis of religion in general undermine the legitimacy of the states that enact them. I argue that this claim can be supported within her framework by showing that such policies necessarily display disregard for the human rights of existing members of the discriminating state. I conclude with some reflections on the strength of this account of the moral impermissibility of religious discrimination at the border. (shrink)

In Ethics for a Broken World (2011),Tim Mulgan invites us to partake in a series of lectures delivered in a fictional future on some of the political philosophies that dominate our current tradition. The future he asks us to imagine is one in which the world is ‘broken’. In the broken world, climate change has lead to intermittent and unpredictable periods of radical scarcity in which there are insufficient resources to guarantee the survival of all existing persons (8-12). We are (...) also to imagine, rather plausibly in light of recent scientific discoveries, that we bear causal responsibility for this situation (9). Mulgan suggests that the device of the broken world ‘serves to highlight the contingency of our moral and political ideals, asking us to see our society and its ideals from the outside’ (ix). In this paper, I employ the device of the broken world to reflect on one of the most prominent ideals in contemporary affluent societies, namely that of human rights. In particular, I am interested in what sense the device of the broken world shows our ideal of human rights to be contingent, and what implications this might have for how we should understand and evaluate this ideal. (shrink)

In The Heart of Human Rights, Allen Buchanan emphasizes the distinction between moral human rights (MHRs) on the one hand and international legal human rights (ILHRs) on the other. MHRs are the moral rights held universally by all humans simply in virtue of being human. ILHRs are the legal rights of international practice, which are articulated in the United Nations’ International Bill of Rights and related legal documents. One of the most controversial aspects of Buchanan’s account of human rights is (...) its denial of any significant role for MHRs in the justification of the content of ILHRs. This is at odds with the orthodoxy according to which there is a close connection between MHRs and ILHRs. In particular, Buchanan challenges what he calls the ‘Mirroring View’ according to which each ILHR constitutes the reflection of some corresponding MHR. Buchanan is right to subject the Mirroring View to scrutiny, and although I agree that it should be rejected, I argue in this paper that his alternative account of the justification of ILHRs is also problematic. In particular, I argue that rejecting the Mirroring View does not entail the irrelevance of MHRs to the justification of the content of ILHRs, and I propose an alternative account that avoids the shortcomings of the Mirroring View while nevertheless placing MHRs at the core of the justification of ILHRs. (shrink)

The central question I address is whether the inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights can be justified. The human right to subsistence is conventionally interpreted as a fundamental right to a basic living standard characterized as having access to the material means for subsistence. It is widely thought to entail duties of protection against deprivation and duties of assistance in acquiring access to the material means for subsistence. The inclusion of a right to subsistence among human rights (...) interpreted in this way has been met with considerable resistance, particularly on the part of those who argue that fundamental rights cannot entail positive duties. My purpose in this dissertation is to consider whether a plausible interpretation of the human right to subsistence can succeed in overcoming the most forceful and persistent objections to it. My main thesis is that a minimal interpretation of the human right to subsistence according to which it is a right not to be deprived of access to the means for subsistence provides the strongest interpretation of this right. Although the idea that the human right to subsistence correlates with negative duties is not new, discussion of these duties has been overshadowed in the literature by debate over the positive duties conventionally thought to be entailed by it. I show that the human right to subsistence interpreted as a right not to be deprived of access to the means for subsistence makes an important contribution to reasoning about the normative implications of global poverty. (shrink)

Remedial responsibility is the prospective responsibility to assist those in great need. With tens of millions of people worldwide suffering from severe poverty, questions about the attribution of remedial responsibility and the nature of the relevant duties of assistance are among the most pressing of our time. This article concerns the question of whether remedial responsibility for severe poverty is a matter of justice or of humanity. I discuss three kinds of situation in which an agent owes remedial responsibility to (...) another suffering from severe poverty. In the first, the remedially responsible agent foreseeably and avoidably caused the poverty. In the second, the poverty was caused by forces outside the control of any agent, such as natural disaster. And in the third situation, the agent who was originally attributed remedial responsibility fails to fulfil it, and so remedial responsibility for the poverty in question is acquired by a secondary bearer. According to David Miller, remedial responsibility is a matter of justice in the first two situations, but not in the third. I argue that his grounds for thinking that remedial responsibility in the second situation are in tension with his view that remedial responsibility is not a matter of justice in the third situation. This has important implications in our world in which remedial responsibilities too often go unfulfilled. (shrink)

This paper explores connections between social rights and labour rights within a human rights framework. Social human rights tend to be marginalized both in philosophical debates about human rights and international human rights doctrine and practice. This paper brings social human rights into focus and argues that they play an important though neglected role in shaping the content of labour human rights, in particular the human right to just and favourable conditions of work. The implications for the content of this (...) right are elaborated, and the paper concludes with some reflections on the relevance of social human rights in recent struggles for stable and predictable working hours. (shrink)