The claims and duties of socioeconomic human rights

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Abstract

A standard objection to socioeconomic human rights is that they are not claimable as human rights: their correlative duties are not owed to each human, independently of specific institutional arrangements, in an enforceable manner. I consider recent responses to this 'claimability objection', and argue that none succeeds. There are no human rights to socioeconomic goods. But all is not lost: there are, I suggest, human rights to 'socioeconomic consideration'. I propose a detailed structure for these rights and their correlative duties, while remaining neutral on substantive moral debates. I argue that socioeconomic-consideration human rights are satisfactorily claimable and sufficiently practical.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)701-722
Number of pages22
JournalPhilosophical Quarterly
Volume66
Issue number265
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • claimability
  • claims
  • collective obligations
  • duties
  • Human rights
  • socio-economic
  • subsistence

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