Human Rights Theory

Paper 1: Human Rights Theory

In this paper, I will make a number of arguments against the human right to social and economic welfare. In particular, I will examine Henry Shue's defense of subsistence and illustrate why I find his reasoning ineffective. The first point I will make in this paper is that socio-economic welfare rights cannot be human rights because they are not universal. Thereafter, I will argue against two thoughts proposed by Henry Shue in Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence and U.S. Foreign Policy. I will first argue, in direct contradiction to Shue, that human rights are only negative, and that subsistence rights are inherently positive; therefore subsistence rights cannot be human rights. Finally, I will argue the idea that socio-economic welfare programs are not practical with respect to the scarcity of resources.

One argument against the existence of social and economic welfare rights is that they do not apply to all people universally. In order for a right to be a human right, it must apply to all persons, with no exception for age, color or social standing. How then, can welfare rights be universal when they only benefit a certain class of individuals? Furthermore, welfare rights do not just benefit one class of individuals; welfare rights benefit those individuals at the cost of the more fortunate members of society. It could be argued that the taxation of the fortunate to provide for the welfare programs is a violation of rights, but I will not address that here. Critics argue that human rights are universal, but that some of them only become operative once relevant conditions are met. For example, the right to vote can only be exercised when you are of legal age. However, the right to vote and other civil and political rights are not of the same condition as welfare rights. Whereas civil and political rights do not discriminate against anyone, welfare rights do discriminate against social standing, whether intended or not. No one aspires to become poor or deprived, and thus saying that they will get their rights when they satisfy this designated condition is, it seems, irrational. For these reasons, it is hard to picture socio-economic welfare rights as being human rights - universal to each and every person.

Another argument against socio-economic rights is that they are inherently positive rights, whereas human rights are negative rights. I will start with this liberal assertion Ð'- that human rights are the correlative duties of others not to mistreat individuals in immoral ways. The philosopher Robert Nozick offers that "rights are not goods or benefits to be pursued by human action; they are side constraints that limit what one may do to right-holders in promoting one's own welfare or even the general welfare (Gearon, 377)." Further, Nozick concludes that rights must be only negative because they keep someone from taking action, or from NOT doing something in pursuit of a goal (Gearon, 377). In Kantian theory, a basic moral principle is to respect the individual by acknowledging that each and every person has the ability to make rational decisions on their own. In this respect, a moral right provides the freedom to choose one's actions, and the security that no one else will interfere with that liberty (Gearon, 378). Welfare rights as positive rights do not hold up against this theory, though Henry Shue provides a series of compelling arguments that say otherwise.

In his book, Shue fights the association of welfare (subsistence) rights with positive rights by blurring the lines of the positive/negative distinction. Shue summarizes by declaring that the fulfillment of a basic right to subsistence involves three types of duties: to avoid depriving, to protect from deprivation and to aid the deprived (Shue, 60). The duty to protect from deprivation and the duty to aid the deprived are, without question, positive rights. But the duty to avoid depriving is the duty on which Shue argues that subsistence rights have negative properties. Shue clarifies that the "duties to avoid depriving require merely that one refrain from making an unnecessary gain for oneself by a means that is destructive to others (Shue, 55)." There is a lot of room for interpretation in this description of the duty to refrain. Accordingly, I suppose that all attempts to better one's self would be seen as taking advantage of another. It is difficult to propose that such loose interpretation should be the foundation of social welfare rights as human rights. Further, the two positive duties violate the freedom associated with choosing one's actions, as supported by Kantian moral theory. On negative rights, historical documents agree: both the American Declaration of Independence and the French