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Henry Shue on Basic Rights: A Defense

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Abstract

In light of the many recent criticisms of Henry Shue's philosophy, this article provides a defense of Shue's philosophical argument for basic rights. The author demonstrates that the latest criticisms made by Thomas Pogge, Michael Payne, and Andrew Cohen misconstrue Shue's position, and therefore fail to overturn the soundness of Shue's argument. Against those who contend that basic rights demand too much, both logically and morally, the author argues that basic rights serve as the minimal threshold for human dignity and the foundation for all other rights. Consequentially, the overall moral landscape is skewed if basic rights are absent.

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Notes

  1. Article 25 states: “1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age, or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 2. Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.” And Article 28 states: “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which rights and freedoms set forth in the Declaration can be fully realized.”

  2. The reasonableness of the premise comes down to the following conditional and consequence: If human beings have at least one right R, then they also have the right R' to the provisions necessary for enjoying R. This conditional, which Shue uses as his first premise, harkens back to H.L.A. Hart's first premise in his defense of natural rights: “if there is at least one natural right, the equal right of all men to be free” (Hart 1955, p. 175). What is philosophically robust about Hart's and Shue's conditional is that it turns on the proposition “if people have rights,” which makes it clear that we may in fact not have any. It therefore sidesteps the philosophical burden of having to prove such rights exists, and instead presumes such to demonstrate the necessary truth of the claims in question. The conditional follows from the first and is thus sound (see Beitz and Goodin 2009, p. 6).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT, 06269–2176, USA

    Jordan Kiper

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  1. Jordan Kiper
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Correspondence to Jordan Kiper.

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Kiper, J. Henry Shue on Basic Rights: A Defense. Hum Rights Rev 12, 505–514 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12142-011-0197-8

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