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H U M A N D I G N I T Y A N D HU M A N R I G H T S
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Human Dignity
and Human Rights
P A B L O GI L A B E R T

1
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3
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Acknowledgments

This book concludes a research project on human rights that I have been
pursuing over the last ten years. Although the dignitarian framework to
human rights worked out in the book is new, some of the material used in it
has been published before in journals and book chapters. Most of the text in
the book has not appeared before, however. And much of the earlier material
has been extensively revised. To acknowledge the previous publications, I have
listed below my articles on human rights that are relevant to this project. The
relations with this book are as follows. Some of the book’s chapters reproduce
earlier material with relatively minor changes. This is the case with chapters 2,
3, 4, and appendix 1. They correspond to papers (c), (a), (i), and a section of (f).
Some of the book’s chapters reproduce earlier material but subject it to
significant changes. This is the case with chapters 9 and 10, which relate to
papers (d), (g), and (h). Finally, some chapters of the book do not correspond
closely to any of the papers in the list. This is the case with chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, 7,
8, 11, and appendix 2. Some sections in these chapters do make use of some
material in papers (b), (e), (f), (g), (j), (k), and (l), although always with major
changes and in the context of fresh overall argument.
(a) “The Feasibility of Basic Socioeconomic Human Rights: A Conceptual
Exploration.” The Philosophical Quarterly 59.237 (2009): 559–81. (Partly
reproduced in chapter 4 of my book From Global Poverty to Global
Equality: A Philosophical Exploration; Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012). [Oxford University Press] https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9213.
2008.590.x
(b) “The Importance of Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of
Human Rights: A Response to James Nickel.” Human Rights Quarterly
32.2 (2010): 425–38. [John Hopkins University Press] http://doi.org/10.
1353/hrq.0.0143
(c) “Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights.” Political Theory
39.4 (2011): 439–67. [SAGE] https://doi.org/10.1177/0090591711408246
(d) “Is There A Human Right to Democracy? A Response to Joshua
Cohen.” Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofia Politica / Latin American
Journal of Political Philosophy 1.2 (2012): 1–37. http://rlfp.org.ar/en/is-
there-a-human-right-for-democracy/
(e) “The Capability Approach and the Debate between Humanist and
Political Perspectives on Human Rights. A Critical Survey.” Human
Rights Review 14.4 (2013): 299–325. [Springer] https://doi.org/10.1007/
s12142-013-0269-z
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vi Acknowledgments
(f) “Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Power.” Philosophical Founda-
tions of Human Rights, eds. R. Cruft, M. Liao, and M. Renzo (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 196–213. [Oxford University Press]
(g) “Labor Human Rights and Human Dignity.” Philosophy & Social Criticism
42.2 (2016): 171–99. [SAGE] https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453715603092
(h) “The Human Right to Democracy and the Pursuit of Global Justice.”
The Oxford Handbook of Global Justice, ed. T. Brooks (Oxford: Oxford
University Press): forthcoming. [Oxford University Press]
(i) “Reflections on Human Rights and Power.” Human Rights: Moral or
Political? ed. A. Etinson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018),
pp. 375–99. [Oxford University Press]
(j) “Facts, Norms, and Dignity.” Critical Review of International Social and
Political Philosophy: forthcoming. [Taylor & Francis] https://doi.org/
10.1080/13698230.2017.1403122
(k) “Dignity at Work.” Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law, ed.
H. Collins, G. Lester, and V. Mantouvalou (Oxford: Oxford University
Press): forthcoming. [Oxford University Press]
(l) “A Broad Definition of Agential Power.” Journal of Political Power 11.1
(2018): 79–92. [Taylor & Francis] https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.
2018.1433758
Besides acknowledging the publishers of these papers, I also thank the
editors and referees for their comments.
I am extremely grateful for the support that I have received in the comple-
tion of this book. The referees of Oxford University Press offered incisive
criticisms and generous suggestions on the whole manuscript. My OUP editor,
Dominic Byatt, was diligent, cordial, and resourceful. My copy-editor, Chris
Bessant, saved me from linguistic infelicities. I am also indebted to many
people for comments on specific chapters and arguments presented in this
book, and for conversations on related matters. They include Arash Abizadeh,
Marcelo Alegre, Elizabeth Ashford, Christian Barry, Charles Beitz, Allen
Buchanan, Thomas Christiano, Rowan Cruft, Adam Etinson, Jeffrey Flynn,
Rainer Forst, Francisco Garcia Gibson, Roberto Gargarella, Mariano Garreta-
Leclercq, Michael Goodhart, Robert Goodin, Carol Gould, Osvaldo Guariglia,
Nicole Hassoun, Eileen Hunt Botting, Cristina Lafont, Ben Laurence, Holly
Lawford-Smith, Annabelle Lever, Matthew Liao, Catherine Lu, Steven
Macedo, Julio Montero, James Nickel, Massimo Renzo, Miriam Ronzoni,
Nicholas Southwood, and Laura Valentini. I owe especial thanks to Jim Nickel
for numerous conversations and for encouraging me to put together my
thoughts on human rights and human dignity in a book format. I cannot
recall every person who helped me, and I apologize for any omission.
I presented arguments included in this book in many conferences and lectures,
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Acknowledgments vii
and I am grateful to the audiences for their feedback. My research was
supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, and by the funding and stimulating environments pro-
vided through a Visiting Fellowship at the Australian National University, a
Laurance Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellowship at the Center for Human
Values at Princeton University, and a Visiting Fellowship at the Centre de
Recherche en Ethique at the University of Montreal. I also explored many
questions addressed in the book in seminars at Concordia University, and
I warmly thank my students for engaging with me in the adventure of
developing new philosophical ideas.
I dedicate this book to my son Manuel. Para vos, Manu.
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Contents

1. Introduction 1
1.1. Project and Contributions 1
1.2. Overview of the Book 5
1.3. Human Rights: Concept and Conception 11
1.4. Humanity First 23

PART I. PRELIMINARY DEBATES: THE RELATIONS

BETWEEN HUMAN RIGHTS AND POLITICAL
PRACTICE, FEASIBILITY, AND POWER
2. Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 29
2.1. Introduction 29
2.2. Content 32
2.3. Coherence with Practice and Justification 37
2.4. Self-Determination and Diversity 45
2.5. Correlative Duties 47
2.6. Feasibility 53
2.7. Conclusion 55
3. The Feasibility of Human Rights 61
3.1. Introduction 61
3.2. Desirability, Feasibility, and Obligation 63
3.3. Kinds of Feasibility 66
3.4. Kinds of Obligation and Feasibility 71
3.5. Dynamic Duties and Political Empowerment 79
4. Human Rights and Power 84
4.1. Introduction 84
4.2. Exploring Power-Related Worries about Human Rights 86
4.3. Building Empowerment into the Human Rights Project 107

PART II. THE DIGNITARIAN APPROACH

5. Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 113
5.1. Introduction 113
5.2. Uses and Roles of Human Dignity 114
5.3. An Account of Human Dignity 121
6. Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 141
6.1. Indeterminacy of Meaning and Role 141
6.2. Incoherence 142
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x Contents
6.3. Pernicious Uses and “Irresolvable Disputes” 143
6.4. Eliminability and Buck-Passing 146
6.5. Exclusion of Non-human Animals and “Non-typical”
Human Beings 148
6.6. Singularity, Diversity, and Change 152
6.7. Abstract and Specific Rights and the Significance of the
Humanist Perspective Based on Human Dignity 155
6.8. Moral, Legal, or Political? 156
7. Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 161
7.1. Developing the Dignitarian Approach 161
7.2. Dignity, Power, and Solidarity 165
7.3. Rank, Status, and Power 181
8. The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 190
8.1. Dignitarianism 190
8.2. Human Capacities and Interests: A Broad View 199
8.3. Solidaristic Empowerment, the Bridge Principle, and
the Schema of Justification 204
8.4. The Articulation of Rights and Duties and Contractualism 209
8.5. Dignitarianism and Ethical Pluralism 215
8.6. Dignitarianism and Critical Theory 218
8.7. Dignitarianism as a Theoretical and Practical Program 224

PART III. IMPLICATIONS OF THE

DIGNITARIAN APPROACH
9. Labor Rights 229
9.1. Introduction 229
9.2. Survey of Major Human Rights Documents 230
9.3. Labor Human Rights as Moral Human Rights 235
9.4. Issues regarding Labor Human Rights and Human Dignity 246
9.5. Conclusion: Dignity and the Struggle for Labor Human Rights 259
10. Political Rights 261
10.1. Introduction 261
10.2. The Human Right to Democracy 262
10.3. Human Rights, Democracy, and the Pursuit of Global Justice 281
11. Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights: Dignity
and the Arc of Humanist Justice 287
11.1. Introduction 287
11.2. Minimalism about Human Rights: A Critical Survey 288
11.3. A Two-Tiered, Dynamic Humanism 299
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Contents xi
11.4. Human Rights and Equality 303
11.5. Human Dignity and the Arc of Humanist Justice 309
11.6. Concluding Remarks 317
Appendix 1: Survey of Uses of “Human Dignity” in Major
Human Rights Documents 321
Appendix 2: Scalar Feasibility, Dynamic Power, and Solidarity 325

Bibliography 333
Index 347
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Introduction

1.1. PROJECT AND CONTRIBUTIONS

The European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker recently called

for a decisive response to the crisis triggered by the war in Syria, demanding
that refugees be welcomed and allowed to work. He characterized the issue as
“a matter of humanity and human dignity.”¹ Human dignity is recurrently
invoked by social movements. It is also stated as a central idea in national
constitutions such as those of Germany and South Africa. And it has an
unmistakable pride of place in the most important documents of international
human rights law. Its central document, the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, affirms the “inherent dignity . . . of all the members of the human
family” and expresses “faith . . . in the dignity and worth of the human person,”
and its core legal platforms (the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights) assert that human rights “derive from the inherent dignity of the
human person.” Human rights documents also construe specific rights in
dignitarian terms. Thus, the Universal Declaration presents “economic, social
and cultural rights as indispensable for [persons’] dignity and the free devel-
opment of [their] personality.” But what is human dignity, and why is it
important for human rights? This book offers an answer to these questions.
The key thesis is that human dignity is the moral heart of human rights. The
idea of human dignity frames human rights discourse by making it a distinct-
ive kind of discourse that articulates the most urgent claims of the human
person in social life. These are the claims that people have in virtue of their
valuable human capacities, not in virtue of their nationality, ethnic group, or
other conventional or morally less weighty features. By understanding human
dignity, we can explain the content and force of human rights as the urgent
ethical and political project that puts humanity first.

¹ “Migrant crisis: EU’s Juncker announces refugee quota plan” (September 9, 2015),
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34193568.
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2 Human Dignity and Human Rights

The philosophy of human rights is a flourishing field. There is increasing
interest in the exploration of the uncertainties, risks, and opportunities gen-
erated by the ongoing process of globalization, and human rights identify the
most urgent issues of global concern. Consequently, they have become the
basic rubric under which assessments of justice across borders are made.
Debate about the nature, contents, and justification of human rights is lively,
and the core idea of human dignity, on which this book focuses, is itself
becoming an important subject of discussion.² Although nobody denies the
pervasive existence of references to human dignity, many scholars have
expressed puzzlement about it, arguing that the idea of human dignity does
not have a clear meaning, does not play any important role in the theory and
practice of human rights, and lends itself to harmful uses that in fact under-
mine them.³ This book provides a constructive response to these worries.

² Early contributions to the philosophy of human rights in English were the first editions of
Henry Shue, Basic Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2nd ed. 1996; 1st ed. 1980)
and James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd ed. 2007; 1st ed. 1987).
The debate intensified after the publication of John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1999), with important books such as Thomas Pogge, World Poverty
and Human Rights (Cambridge: Polity, 2nd ed. 2008; 1st ed. 2002); Carol Gould, Globalizing
Democracy and Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); James Griffin,
On Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human
Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Also significant are the articles by Allen
Buchanan in Human Rights, Legitimacy, and the Use of Force (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010), and various articles by John Tasioulas (e.g., “Taking Rights Out of Human Rights,”
Ethics 120 (2010), 647–78). Important recent collections are Rowan Cruft, Matthew Liao, and
Massimo Renzo, eds., Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2015), and Adam Etinson, ed., Human Rights: Moral or Political (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2018). For surveys, see James Nickel, “Human Rights,” in Edward N. Zalta,
ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014); Rowan Cruft, Matthew Liao, and
Massimo Renzo, “Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights: An Overview” (in Cruft et al.,
1–41). The even more recent surge in philosophical work on dignity includes Christopher
McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights,” European Journal
of International Law 19 (2008), 655–724; Christopher McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human
Dignity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); George Kateb, Human Dignity (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2011); Michael Rosen, Dignity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2012); Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012); Charles Beitz, “Human Dignity in the Theory of Human Rights: Nothing but a Phrase?”
Philosophy and Public Affairs 41 (2013), 259–80; Jürgen Habermas, “The Concept of Human
Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights,” Metaphilosophy 41 (2010), 464–80; Marcus
Duwell, Jens Braarvig, Roger Brownsword, and Dietmar Mieth, eds., The Cambridge Handbook
of Human Dignity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Ariel Zylbermann, “Human
Dignity,” Philosophy Compass 11 (2016), 201–10. In this book, I will explain in detail how my
own views relate to the various strands in this literature.
³ See, e.g., Charles Beitz, “Human Dignity in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights:
Nothing but a Phrase?”; Marcus Düwell, “Human Dignity: Concept, Discussion, Philosophical
Perspectives,” in Düwell et al., eds., Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity, 23–49; Govert Den
Hartogh, “Is Human Dignity the Ground of Human Rights?” in Düwell et al., eds., Cambridge
Handbook, 200–7; Christopher McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of
Human Rights,” and “In Pursuit of Human Dignity: An Introduction to Current Debates,” in
McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 1–58; Ruth Macklin, “Dignity is a Useless
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Introduction 3
It develops a philosophical conception of human dignity that articulates its
substance and vindicates its moral and political importance. It presents an
account of dignity as a distinctive normative status of the human person in
social life, and shows that reference to it plays crucial roles in shaping the
content, justification, and application of the universalistic humanism charac-
teristic of human rights.
More specifically, this book makes four contributions, which I proceed to
state programmatically, and develop in detail as the book unfolds. The first
contribution is to advance a systematic conceptual proposal as to how to
understand the idea of human dignity. I do this by identifying the key roles
of the idea in human rights practice and by articulating its content as it arises,
holistically, from a network of related notions fulfilling those roles—the
conceptual network of dignity. This network comprises a fundamental concept
of status-dignity and a host of related concepts of condition-dignity, dignitarian
norms, the circumstances of dignity, endowment-based and achievement-based
dignity, dignitarian virtue, and the distinction between basic and maximal
dignity. For example, consider the pivotal distinction between status-dignity
and condition-dignity. Status-dignity concerns the normative standing in
accordance to which human individuals are entitled to the obligatory treat-
ment that human rights state. Condition-dignity, in turn, concerns the states
of affairs in which human beings enjoy the treatment owed to them. The
distinction is necessary to accommodate two important uses of dignity with-
out contradiction. Some critics argue that “dignity” is used incoherently to say,
for example, that because of their dignity people may not be enslaved, and that
when they are enslaved their dignity is destroyed. But with my proposed
distinction this contradiction dissolves: even when they do not have condition-
dignity, slaves retain status-dignity. They ought to enjoy the former because they
have the latter. Through this and other conceptual clarifications and distinctions,
the book charts the discursive territory of dignity to make it both coherent and
ethically illuminating.
Second, the book advances a substantive normative proposal that articulates
the normative requirements of human dignity in terms of the general ideal of
solidaristic empowerment. This ideal says that we should shape our social life
in such a way that they we support every person in their pursuit of a
flourishing life by affirming negative duties not to destroy or block their
valuable capacities and positive duties to protect and facilitate their develop-
ment and exercise of them. By making our practices and institutions embody

Concept,” British Medical Journal 327 (2003), 1419–20; Brian Orend, Human Rights (Peterbor-
ough: Broadview, 2002), 87–9; Steven Pinker “The Stupidity of Dignity,” The New Republic
(May 28, 2008); Michael Rosen, “Dignity: The Case Against,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding
Human Dignity, 143–54.
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4 Human Dignity and Human Rights

this ideal, we enact appropriate respect and concern for the valuable capacities
in virtue of which people have status-dignity. In addition to highlighting the
universality and deontic force of this ideal (which are natural results of it,
given that it articulates responses to human dignity), I will emphasize the
importance of the fact that it generates positive duties. Although often neg-
lected, these duties are crucial. Either temporarily or permanently, everyone
will need help to maintain, develop, or exercise their valuable human capaci-
ties, and depend on others to provide it. Human rights can be seen as norms of
dignified interdependence.
Third, this book offers an exploration of how the proposed conceptual and
substantive accounts of human dignity and solidaristic empowerment are
fruitful for articulating the content, justification, and feasible implementation
of specific human rights. I concentrate on two sets of rights which are both
important and controversial: the rights to democratic political participation
and to decent labor conditions. Robust rights to political participation have
instrumental significance in making political decision-makers accountable to
decision-takers, so that the former track the claims of the latter. They also have
an intrinsic significance as recognition of people’s capacity for political judg-
ment and for charting their own way of fulfilling their rights. In turn, strong
labor rights to conditions of work that are not degrading, and to form and join
associations such as trade unions, support workers’ real ability to participate in
the economy in ways that honor their dignity as agents capable of cooperative
and creative production that generates goods that fulfill the needs of other
people as well as their own.
Finally, I offer an explanation of how the dignitarian program and the
development of solidaristic empowerment help articulate the arc of humanist
justice, by illuminating both the difference and the continuity between basic
requirements of human rights and more expansive requirements of social
justice. There is a strong debate about how minimal or expansive human
rights norms should be taken to be. I claim that although not strictly minimal,
human rights are a subset of the requirements of justice. I distinguish between
access to a decent life (which is the focus of human rights), and access to a
flourishing life (which is the wider focus of social justice as conceived by some
democratic socialists and liberal egalitarians). I argue that human dignity calls
for both. There is thus a corresponding difference and continuity between basic
and maximal dignity. This generates a two-tiered political horizon: human
rights are the most urgent requirements of human dignity, but humanist social
justice can, and (in a world of growing avoidable inequality it certainly) should,
demand more. After we have secured basic civil and political rights, and the
socioeconomic conditions for their effective enjoyment, we can and should go
further. From the dignitarian perspective of solidaristic empowerment, people
should have access to the highest levels of human flourishing that can feasibly
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Introduction 5
(and reasonably) be made available, and no one should have less access than
others through no choice or fault of their own.
By offering one of the most systematic (and one of the first book-length)
philosophical accounts of the content and significance of human dignity as a
central idea for human rights, I believe that this book makes a theoretical
contribution to lively scholarly debates. By articulating the moral heart of
human rights, the book might also have practical significance. My hope is that
it helps make sense of, and confidently to defend, one of the most important
global political movements of our time. In the face of the simultaneous
development of forms of globalization and nationalism that threaten individ-
uals’ social and political rights, the dignitarian perspective of the human rights
movement is as urgent as ever.

1.2. OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK

The chapters of this book have been drafted in such a way that they can be
read independently (with most technical terms defined and the main assump-
tions made explicit so that the reader can follow the main moves in the text).
However, the book has a definite structure and an overall argument that is
developed cumulatively. In this section, I offer an overview of the main contents
in each chapter as well as of how they are integrated into a unified whole.
After this Introduction, which presents a summary of the project and a
preliminary clarification of the concept of human rights, the book is organized
in three parts. Part I polemically engages various central objections to ambi-
tious moral approaches to human rights of the kind this book favors. They
have in common the charge that such moral approaches are too remote from
the vicissitudes of the pursuit of human rights in the real world, failing to
properly address the extent to which the human rights project is variously
constrained by specific factual configurations—such as legal and political
conventions, feasibility parameters, and the power structures associated with
the modern state, the capitalist economy, and their international entangle-
ments. I elucidate the significance of these configurations, and argue that to
properly understand how political practice, feasibility, and power affect the
human rights project we must engage rather than dismiss core moral ideas and
arguments. Part II then presents a positive account of these moral ideas and
arguments by advancing the dignitarian program. This program offers a fresh
moral perspective which is intrinsically appealing, and can also integrate the
important insights animating the challenges discussed in Part I while sharp-
ening instead of surrendering the ambition and universalism characteristic of
the human rights project. The key moves in Part II are the systematic
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6 Human Dignity and Human Rights

interpretation of the role and content of the idea of human dignity in human
rights practice and the defense of solidaristic empowerment as a fitting ideal
for articulating the requirements flowing from it. The last part of the book,
Part III, returns to the practical entanglements engaged in Part I, and explores
the implications of the dignitarian perspective for the articulation and defense
of specific human rights. I defend labor rights and democratic political rights
as human rights, and conclude by exploring how human dignity and solidar-
istic empowerment generate requirements of social justice that go beyond
human rights.
I take the idea of human dignity to constitute the moral heart of a univer-
salist ethics and politics committed to supporting the autonomy and well-
being of every human being regardless of their geographical location or
position in existing social structures. Human dignity is a normative status
that all individuals have equally, inherently, and which gives rise to strong
requirements that are normally overriding when compared to other, compet-
ing considerations. When exploring this universalist ethics and politics my
focus is on human persons. The key contrast is between them seen as human
beings and as members of fairly circumscribed or conventional social categor-
ies like class, race, or nationality. Now, a central puzzle for this kind of
approach is whether it can explain how universalist conceptions of human
interests and rights can justify specific requirements in addition to general
ones (that is, not only requirements that apply to people in all, or most, social
circumstances, but also norms that arise only in certain contexts, such as those
including a capitalist society or a modern state). I address this issue in
chapter 2 by exploring the distinction and relations between abstract and
specific rights. I show that both kinds of rights are constitutive of human
rights practice when seen in its best light, each playing important and related
roles. By developing this account, I show how to overcome a current debate in
the philosophy of human rights—the confrontation between “naturalist” or
“humanist” and “practical” or “political” perspectives on the nature of human
rights.
The two remaining chapters of Part I address worries about the feasibility
and realism of ambitious moral approaches to human rights. The worry about
feasibility is systematically addressed in chapter 3 (and in appendix 2). Taking
as an example basic socioeconomic rights to housing, water, food, education,
and health care, this chapter offers a dynamic account of the feasibility of
human rights that takes seriously the importance of feasibility constraints but
also illuminates the flexibility and diversity of the implementation of rights
across social contexts and emphasizes the prospects for progressive removal of
feasibility obstacles over time. Finally, in chapter 4, I address the common
complaint that human rights theory is oblivious to the power mechanisms that
both limit and shape human rights practice. I identify and respond to the main
versions of this worry, and explain that considerations about power are in fact
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Introduction 7
best seen as important resources for, not as disablers or debunkers of, human
rights theory and practice.⁴ Together, these chapters present one of the most
systematic philosophical discussions currently available about the significance
of feasibility and power for the articulation and justification of human rights.
Despite their predominantly polemical tone, the chapters in Part I intro-
duce conceptual and substantive resources for understanding the relation
between universal and particular requirements, the realistic yet normatively
ambitious pursuit of the fulfillment of human rights, and the complex signifi-
cance of power in political processes. These resources are certainly deployed in
Part II. But the second part of the book recasts these discussions about
universality and specificity, and about normative ambition, feasibility, and
power, in the new light shed by the fresh, positive perspective offered by the
dignitarian approach.
The dignitarian approach explains why the dispute between political and
humanist perspectives on human rights can and should be overcome. Accord-
ing to the “political” or “practical” perspective, human rights are claims that
individuals have against certain institutional structures, in particular modern
states, in virtue of interests they have in contexts that include them. This
perspective has been introduced in contrast to the more traditional “human-
ist” or “naturalistic” one, according to which human rights are fundamentally
pre-institutional moral claims that individuals have against all other individ-
uals in virtue of interests that are typical of their common humanity. I argue
that once we identify these perspectives in their best light, we can see that their
deepest insights are in fact complementary, that we need both to make good
normative sense of the contemporary practice of human rights. The humanist
perspective articulates the moral ideal of universal solidarity, and the political
perspective highlights the significance of power in political and legal practice.
The book develops an integrated account of the nature and justification of
human rights that incorporates, in a coherent and systematic way, these key
insights. This account is based on a new interpretation of the idea of human
dignity, which is the moral heart of the human rights project. Respect and
concern for human individuals as carriers of human dignity gives rise both to
abstract rights that hold independently of particular institutional configur-
ations and to specific rights that are intertwined with them. In my view,
human rights practice should embrace a form of universal solidarity that
seeks, where possible, to empower human beings to access what they need
to live decent lives.

⁴ Another, related worry is that it is not feasible to simultaneously fulfill all the rights regularly
invoked in the ethical, legal, and political discourse of human rights. Elsewhere, I suggest a
pragmatic approach to the issue of the “indivisibility” of and “linkages” between various human
rights that renders worries about their combined pursuit less pressing than they seem to be.
Pablo Gilabert, “The Importance of Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of Human
Rights: A Response to James Nickel,” Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2010), 425–38.
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8 Human Dignity and Human Rights

The dignitarian approach also helps explain how to address key concerns
about asymmetric power. For example, its focus on solidaristic empowerment
indeed helps illuminate a central substantive tension in the practice of human
rights. On the one hand, empowerment is of great significance for human
dignity. Emphasizing this point helps respond to the common charge that
the politics of human rights works with a condescending picture that posits
valiant powerful “saviors” galloping to the rescue of helpless “victims.” Where
possible, people should be protagonists in the political story of the fulfill-
ment of their rights. This is partly why I argue that there should be
promotion of democratic practices and institutions at domestic and inter-
national levels. On the other hand, the emphasis on empowerment is often
associated with a view of dignity as radical independence or self-reliance, a
radical ideal that is both infeasible and undesirable. Some disparities of
power are not eliminable, and every person needs the help of others to
live a decent life. Thus, I also argue that we need to challenge the patho-
logical moral psychology, and political culture, that arises from embracing
the radical ideal of independence, in which being helped produces shame,
and helping produces guilt. To avoid this outlook, I suggest, we need to
cultivate the ability to give and receive solidaristic support, a sense of
dignified vulnerability, and a stance of responsibility to help when we have
asymmetric power. In this way, we can position ourselves to honor central
objectives of the human rights movement, such as the pursuit of universal
“brotherhood” and the fulfillment of the right to assistance of those who
cannot fully support themselves (as mentioned in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, Articles 1 and 25).
The development of the dignitarian program, and its articulation in terms
of solidaristic empowerment, proceeds as follows. In chapter 5, I offer an
interpretation of the idea of human dignity that explains how it can play the
several valuable roles that it does play in human rights discourse. (Appendix 1
provides, as a background resource, a survey of uses of the idea in some of the
main human rights documents.) The valuable roles concern the contribution
of human dignity to the articulation of a distinctive set of norms that are
universalist and humanist in nature, the justification of specific human rights
of the kind that are recognized in the main human rights documents, the
grounding of the great normative force of these rights, the combined gener-
ation of both negative and positive duties that are correlative to them, the
explanation of the significance of participating in the political process of
struggle against their violation, and the illumination of the arc of humanist
justice, running from basic requirements mandating people’s access to a
decent life to maximal requirements to support people’s access to a flour-
ishing life. The idea of human dignity is articulated through a conceptual
network that includes an organic set of more specific ideas. These ideas
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Introduction 9
include status-dignity, condition-dignity, dignitarian norms, the basis of
dignity, the circumstances of dignity, and dignitarian virtue. The interpret-
ation of human dignity in terms of this conceptual network is first vindicated
by showing how it illuminates the fulfillment of the six conceptual roles
mentioned above. Further vindication is offered by showing how the inter-
pretation helps counter challenges to the use of the idea of human dignity in
human rights discourse. This is done in chapter 6, where dignity is defended
against the most important charges levelled against it—such as those saying
that the idea is empty, indeterminate, incoherent, politically pernicious,
exclusionary, sterile, and redundant. A third form of vindication of the
idea of human dignity is provided in the remaining chapters of Part II by
displaying the explanatory force of the dignitarian perspective when it comes
to making sense of various substantive normative requirements.
After providing an interpretation of the content, role, and general signifi-
cance of the idea of human dignity, I proceed to develop a substantive account
of how to articulate dignitarian normative requirements. I do this by first
presenting, in chapter 7, the ideal of solidaristic empowerment. This ideal calls
for supporting people’s pursuit of a flourishing life by affirming both negative
duties not to block or destroy, and positive duties to protect and facilitate, the
development and exercise of their valuable capacities—the very capacities that
give rise to people’s status-dignity. An additional contribution of this chapter
(together with appendix 2) is to develop further the discussions of feasibility
and power started in Part I of the book. The notions of scalar feasibility and
dynamic power are introduced and their theoretical and practical significance
for the progressive fulfillment of human rights over time is explored.
With the ideas of human dignity and solidaristic empowerment in place,
chapter 8 proceeds to explain the structure of dignitarian arguments for rights.
Various puzzles are addressed. For example, I discuss the difficulty in moving
from statements of human interests to statements of rights, showing that the
dignitarian approach provides a bridge between these poles. Other topics
addressed include the relation between facts and norms, the plurality of
features of human beings that give rise to their status-dignity, the relations
between the dignitarian approach and various theories in normative ethics,
and the importance of a critique of ideological construals of human dignity
and human rights. The chapter concludes with an outline of the main com-
ponents of dignitarianism as a research program in moral and political
philosophy.
The chapters in Part III proceed to show that the dignitarian approach,
and its companion ideal of solidaristic empowerment, have important impli-
cations for the understanding, defense, and feasible implementation of spe-
cific human rights. I focus, in particular, on contentious and ambitious labor
rights (to access safe working conditions, receive adequate wages, and form
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10 Human Dignity and Human Rights

and join unions) and the rights to political participation (including the full
palette of rights of democratic citizenship). I provide a dignitarian under-
standing and defense of these rights in chapters 9 and 10. As it turns out, the
dignitarian agenda of solidaristic empowerment can also shape more expan-
sive requirements of social justice that go beyond human rights. Chapter 11
thus shows how dignity can indeed illuminate the ample arc of humanist
justice. This chapter also offers a two-tiered, dynamic framework that arbi-
trates the current debate between minimalist and expansive conceptions of
human rights. It explains why human rights constitute a relatively limited set
of dignitarian requirements, but also why more ambitious demands of social
justice can be justified as part of what the appropriate response to people’s
dignity calls for.
In sum, Part I of this book addresses the suspicion that human rights
discourse, insofar as it affirms a high-minded stance of universalist humanism,
is just too remote from the real world—it fails to illuminate actual political
practice, it is unrealistic, and it is blind about the vagaries of unequal power.
I respond by arguing that the moral universalism of human rights is in fact
immanent to political practice, motivates a dynamic attitude that pushes the
feasibility frontiers forward, and seeks to equalize power and orient its use in a
solidaristic way. There is nothing otherworldly about human rights. They
require, and express, a commitment of human beings to take each other
seriously as givers and receivers of solidaristic support as they pursue a decent,
or even a flourishing, life. Human dignity is the moral idea that animates this
requirement and commitment as developed in human rights practice, and
Part II is devoted to articulating it and to showing how it grounds the link
between high-minded universalist humanism and real world politics. Human
dignity is regularly invoked as the ground of human rights. At first sight, that
idea may appear as yet another appeal to a remote or non-consequential moral
concept. But it is, in fact, quite intuitive and practically significant. It requires,
and marks, our recognition of each person as mattering intrinsically and as
being owed supportive treatment. As beings with dignity, we matter, and we
can see that we should engage each other with respect and concern rather than
with contempt, hostility, indifference, or in exploitative ways. We should build
practices and institutions that will help us succeed at making something good
and meaningful of our lives. The core ideal of solidaristic empowerment
articulates this recognition as we shape and develop the human rights project.
The project calls for enacting the dignitarian approach in the shaping of social
practices and institutions, especially those that have profound consequences
for our life-prospects, such as the modern economy and state. The last part of
this book, Part III, precisely takes up the task of exploring what dignitarianism
specifically demands of those practices and institutions. It argues that we owe
each other robust social and political rights to access the conditions for decent
and perhaps even flourishing lives.
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Introduction 11

1.3. HUMAN RIGHTS: CONCEPT AND CONCEPTION

As we develop an account of human rights, we can distinguish between the

questions of what it is for something to be a human right and what makes
something a human right. An answer to the first question provides a view of
the concept of human rights, whereas an answer to the second offers the basis
of a substantive conception of human rights.⁵ The division between concept
and conception may be porous, but to enhance the prospects for fruitful
debate it is a good idea to keep concepts as ecumenical as possible, so that
the contenders do not talk past each other or dismiss each other’s views merely
by definitional maneuvers. This book will advance both conceptual and
substantive claims about human rights. This section summarizes those claims,
offering the reader a quick guide to the main statements developed in
the book.
Regarding the concept of human rights (and I am focusing here on moral
human rights, to be distinguished from legal human rights, national or
international—on which more in a moment), I think that most practitioners
and theorists could accept the following proposal:
Something is a moral human right when it is (a) a right that (b) is held by all
human persons at least in the contemporary world, (c) has normative force
independently of whether it is already recognized in existing legal and
political institutions and practices, (d) may however be (and normally is)
such that at least in part it should be implemented through legal and
political institutions and practices, (e) has extremely high priority, and (f)
gives rise to global in addition to merely local concern.
That human rights are (a) rights is obvious but important. To say that
something is a human right is more than to merely say that it would be
desirable to see it realized; it involves saying that some agents have duties to
take steps to make that realization a fact. In general, rights are justified claims
that persons can make on others.⁶

⁵ On the distinction between concept and conception, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev.
ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 5; and H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law,
2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 160, 246.
⁶ “Most if not all human rights are claim rights that impose duties or responsibilities on their
addressees or dutybearers,” and are in that sense “mandatory.” Nickel, “Human Rights,” in Zalta,
ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, sect. 1. Joseph Raz argues that rights’ “existence
depends on there being interests whose existence warrants holding others subject to duties to
protect and promote them.” Raz, “Human Rights without Foundations,” in S. Besson and
J. Tasioulas, eds., The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010), 321–37, at 335. In this book, I complicate this picture by exploring what interests count
for justifying rights, and by noting the importance of paying attention to the interests of multiple
agents besides the immediate right-holder (such as the duty-bearer and other affected agents).
See discussion of (C5) below.
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12 Human Dignity and Human Rights

As with any concept, there are borderline cases in which the application of
these conditions is difficult. For example, some rights—such as political rights
to vote or hold office—are held by adult persons but not (yet) by children.
However, we still want to use (b) to mark a group of rights that people have
independently of some particular social statuses and features like nationality,
gender, and social class. Human rights are the rights of people as individual
human beings, not as American, male, or property-owners.
On the present conceptual account, the universality of human rights is
taken to apply at least in contemporary times. It is not claimed that every
human right must apply in every conceivable situation in which human beings
exist and interact. Some human rights clearly could have that strictly universal
standing (the right against torture is an example) while others seem tied to
rather specific institutional frameworks (as seems the case with workers’ rights
to form unions and receive adequate salaries). There may be different human
rights of different levels of abstraction. The more specific ones may be justified
on the basis of the more abstract ones. For example, contemporary electoral
rules are tied to specific features of the modern state. But pretty much every
society features mechanisms of political decision-making, and arguably agents
in all of them have a strong interest in being able to shape that process (that is,
to have political power), and face serious threats when they do not. I accept
this view, but arguing about it is a matter for substantive debate—in which
I engage in this book. I thus suggest that we keep the concept wide so as not to
predetermine the outcome of substantive debate unreasonably. We all take
human rights to be relevant at least for the contemporary world.
Conditions (c) and (d) are also quite ecumenical: human rights are critical
standards we use to defend, challenge, and reform various legal and political
institutional arrangements and practices: we want the former to relate to the
latter, but not to be reduced to whatever the latter already encode.⁷ My
definition leaves it open for substantive debate whether some human rights
are held by some persons against others directly in their interactions besides
indirectly, via institutions. I also do not settle by definitional fiat what insti-
tutions, if any, are relevant (for example, whether states are always the crucial
institutional agents when it comes to the identification of duty-bearers). My
own view is that there are some rights that involve direct interpersonal claims.
The case of domestic violence is a good example: a violation of bodily integrity
is involved even if the violators are not acting in the capacity of government
officials. I also have a broad view of relevant institutional agencies, which
includes but goes beyond states to involve other entities such as corporations.
But, again, our definition of human rights should not preempt important
substantive debates, and there is indeed one about whether agencies under

⁷ As I say three paragraphs down, within some constraints the law can also make a morally
generative contribution when it comes to some specific rights. This point qualifies (c).
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Introduction 13
and beyond a nation-state have human rights responsibilities. As the nation-state
is weakened or altered by capitalist globalization, for example, it is quite signifi-
cant to ask whether powerful domestic and multinational corporations have
human rights responsibilities, and whether public international or even global
institutional agents should be charged with (or perhaps be created to serve) the
protection of human rights.
Feature (e) is also stated quite generally, allowing for different interpret-
ations. But it is crucial to our understanding of human rights that they
constitute extremely strong, and normally decisive, demands. Some see the
fulfillment of certain human rights as constraints on the international sover-
eignty or domestic legitimate authority of governments. Most agree that
policies and decisions (or their omission) regarding the violation and lack of
fulfillment of human rights are grave faults that are extremely hard to justify
by appeal to other norms or considerations. There is also significant debate
about what can and should be done by agents within a certain state to protect
the human rights of people abroad. But it is a fixed feature of our idea of
human rights that their normative force is global, that it is, in some sense,
everyone’s business to respect and promote them everywhere. How this
respect and promotion should proceed in practice is a matter of substantive
debate, but feature (f) in its general form seems secure.
It is important to have, and to deploy, a concept of moral human rights that
is different from that of legal human rights. We have reason to appeal to moral
human rights in order to justify the existence of legal human rights, to defend
some of their specific contents, and to address some potential conflicts con-
cerning their application. When people introduce a legal practice regarding
human rights, or reform it, they want to be able to think, and to understand
why they think, that what they are doing is the morally right thing to do.
Invoking moral human rights helps them explain why they have reason to try
to construct legal frameworks that support the claims of individuals, why they
do so in a general way (that is, by being directed not only to this or that
individual, in this or that group or country, but to any and all of them
everywhere), and enjoy great normative strength in the face of competing
considerations. A picture of moral human rights provides significant norma-
tive guidance to the practice of legal human rights, its inception, maintenance,
and change over time.
However, and to avoid misunderstanding, I should state a few caveats on
the relation between moral and legal human rights. As Allen Buchanan has
forcefully argued in recent work, we should not conflate them. I agree with
him that it is a mistake to assume that identifying a moral human right to x
provides by itself a sufficient condition for imposing a legal human right to
x. In some contexts, coercive implementation of the right might not be
feasible, or even desirable, and supporting people’s access to x in more
informal ways might be appropriate instead. I also agree that identifying a
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14 Human Dignity and Human Rights

human right to x does not provide a necessary condition for justifying a legal
right to x. The latter could be given other forms of justification that invoke
internal legal reasons that make no reference to morality, or which appeal to
morality but not to moral human rights, or even to moral rights at all.⁸
I acknowledge, in sum, that we should not assume that justifying claims about
moral human rights exhausts the possibilities regarding the justification of the
legal and political practice of human rights, or specific moves within it.⁹ My
project in this book is more limited. I claim that moral human rights provide a
characteristic and powerful resource to orient and justify human rights practice.
This justification is characteristic, as most central human rights are commonly
seen by practitioners (activists, lawyers, legislators, and the public more broadly)
either as expressing moral rights or as specifications or consequences of them in
various contexts. And it is powerful, because moral rights mark the presence of
entitlements individuals can claim (or sometimes others can claim on their
behalf) independently of whether there is already any positive recognition of
them by institutions or other people. So, although I humbly acknowledge that by
focusing mostly on moral human rights my contributions in this book are
limited, I also hope that they will prove fruitful for the dialogue amongst

⁸ Allen Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), ch. 2.
John Tasioulas responds by saying that he, and likely most other philosophers, do not really hold
the “mirroring view” criticized by Buchanan—i.e., they do not believe that the existence of
corresponding moral human rights is necessary or sufficient for the justification of international
legal human rights. Tasioulas, “Exiting the Hall of Mirrors: Morality and Law in Human Rights”
(February 10, 2017), King’s College London Law School Research Paper No. 2017–19. Available
at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2915307, p. 10. Buchanan also worries that moral human
rights might not be enough to justify the extensive duties correlating to some legal human rights
because the former are only grounded from a standpoint that focuses on morally important
aspects of the individual right-holder (see, e.g., 158–74). A stronger justification would consider
also the perspective of the duty-bearer and the benefits of fulfilling a right for the interests of
third parties. I think that these worries can be assuaged by noting that a justification of moral
rights can factor in the perspective of duty-bearers and third parties by using a contractualist
framework and by using linkage arguments that defend some rights partly in terms of the
support their fulfillment provides to the enjoyment of other rights. As I explain in this book, a
dignitarian framework in fact supports this holistic picture of moral rights and their justification:
the dignity of all those that could be affected by a scheme of rights must be in view whenever any
right within it is justified. This requires taking the perspective of all into account, exploring how
each putative right would fare from them simultaneously (and this also includes considering how
the enjoyment of other rights is affected).
⁹ Buchanan himself takes important steps in outlining the key questions, and some of the
answers, in the pursuit of the task of justifying international legal human rights. His book
The Heart of Human Rights is a pioneer in this regard. He especially focuses on the system of
international human rights law. I agree that this system is central to contemporary human rights
practice, and, in this book, I will engage its core documents (such as the Universal Declaration
and the two Covenants). However, although it constitutes a crucial innovation in international
politics after World War II, and could grow in fruitful ways in the future, I do not claim that this
system is the only central dimension of human rights practice. A lot of the action regarding the
advocacy and fulfillment of human rights takes place in ordinary politics and through social
movements at domestic and international levels without engaging the UN or other international
human rights legal systems.
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Introduction 15
moral, legal, and political theorists—and for the human rights practitioners
engaging the concepts and reasons which theorists make explicit or propose.
I should also note that we must be careful not to define moral human rights
too narrowly. As my definition shows, we can understand them in such a way
that some of them mention (or assume the operation of) certain institutions.
Although some fairly abstract rights might not be tied to institutions that exist,
or should exist, in only some particular contexts, the specification of what such
abstract rights require in those contexts will often be linked to those institu-
tions. Sometimes institutions render a right determinate, and, in this way,
contribute to generating specific claims that did not exist before the institu-
tions were introduced. The right to holidays with pay is rather specific, and
would not hold in contexts that did not include wage labor. But it can be said
to specify, in a context including wage labor, a more general claim of access to
respite from socially necessary work. Now, notice that if the new, specific legal
claims are among the several that could have been introduced that would
appropriately specify the abstract right in the relevant context, then they them-
selves count as moral rights in the context. The right to respite from toil, in a
context including wage labor, could be appropriately specified through a specific
right to holidays with pay, or through another specific right to higher pay during
the month preceding unpaid holidays, or through some other specific entitle-
ment. Before the new legal schemes are introduced, only the disjunction of the
various appropriate possibilities is morally required. But once one of the items in
the disjunction is selected, the selected item is what, morally speaking, people
have a specific right to. What is key for the contrast between moral and legal
rights, as I see it, is that moral rights are not conventional in the way that legal
rights are. Fundamental moral rights exist even if nobody believes that they do,
or states them as part of some convention or institutional system. No legal right,
as a legal right, enjoys this normative force. As indicated, more specific, and
derived, moral rights might intertwine with conventions and legal rights. But
even here the normativity of such rights, because of being based on moral rights,
has a distinctive force which cannot be reduced to their being creatures of legal
conventions.¹⁰

¹⁰ A similar point can be found in Immanuel Kant’s legal philosophy. In The Metaphysics of
Morals (included in the volume Practical Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), Kant distinguishes between natural and positive rights, claiming that the actual juridical
statutes stating the latter must track and develop the moral claims involved in the former (6:224,
229, 237; see also 291). The divisions in the Doctrine of Right identify the aspects of natural
rights. Thus, the division between innate and acquired right (6:237) concerns unconditional
natural rights people have in their own person (e.g., to control their body, avoid injury, speak)
and their conditional claims to external objects of choice (through property, contracts, and status
relationships, all of which require previous acts of—omnilaterally rather than unilaterally
authorized—acquisition). The distinction between private and public right (6:242) concerns
the natural rights of persons interacting with each other and the rights regarding the relation
between citizens of a republic and their state (with its international or cosmopolitan extensions).
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16 Human Dignity and Human Rights

So much for the concept of human rights. I will have much more to say
about the relation between abstract and specific moral human rights (and, to
some extent, legal human rights), in the rest of this book, starting in chapter 2.
Turning now to conception, what is crucial is to provide an account of what
makes something satisfy the conditions mentioned in the account of the
concept. When we move from conceptual to substantive judgments regarding
an alleged human right, we move from possibility claims to existence claims—
that is, from saying that something could be a human right to saying that it
actually is a human right. To settle whether something is a human right, we
need certain tests. Those tests would articulate substantive proposals for how
to construe conditions (a)–(f) and justify the existence of certain human
rights. If, in particular, we want to identify legal human rights (which are
also moral rights), then we would have to add conditions regarding the
appropriate functions of the relevant legal system (such as, say, the system
of international human rights law, or the European human rights legal system,
or the Argentine legal system), justify the introduction or maintenance of that
system, and explain how the putative right would be an appropriate item in it.
An excellent example of how to build a substantive account is offered by
James Nickel. He argues that to show that a proposed human right is indeed a
human right we can show that it “deal[s] with some very important good,”
“respond[s] to a common and serious threat to that good, impose[s] burdens
on the addressees that are justifiable and no larger than necessary, and [is]
feasible in most of the world’s countries.”¹¹ Further, Nickel says that a
substantive idea of human dignity or decency gives rise to four abstract claims
to have a life, to lead one’s life, to avoid severely cruel and degrading treat-
ment, and to avoid severely unfair treatment.¹² That view provides the moral
basis for identifying important goods. A substantive account of the other
considerations mentioned helps justify specific human rights by illuminating
whether the responsibilities imposed by them are reasonable and sufficiently
feasible.
I think that Nickel’s account has the right form and I accept much of its
content. The dignitarian approach I propose in this book has a similar
normative structure, as it offers a view of human dignity as generating abstract
claims that are specified in different ways (including, often, but not in every
case, legally) in different contexts, by looking at how concrete agents can
articulate and fulfill them reasonably and feasibly to respond to the problems
they effectively face. My own substantive account will add a detailed account
of dignity (which Nickel does not provide), and several further concepts and
principles to orient the construction of dignitarian arguments for abstract and

Public right renders determinate and secure the rights which hold only provisionally in a social,
but not yet fully institutionally structured state of nature (6:255–7, 264, 267; see also 312–13).
¹¹ Nickel, “Human Rights,” sect. 3. ¹² Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 62.
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Introduction 17
specific human rights. In a nutshell, this conception includes the following
eight components, which I outline here briefly, and develop in detail in
the book.
(C1) An account of human dignity
(C2) The ideal of solidaristic empowerment
(C3) A distinction between abstract and specific human rights and a
division of three dimensions of a conception of human rights
(C4) An account of feasibility
(C5) General and dignitarian schemas for justifying rights
(C6) A contractualist framework of reasoning for justifying rights.
(C7) The method of deliberative reflective equilibrium.
(C8) The idea of a deliberative interpretive proposal.
Let me briefly explain each of these components. The first component (C1) is a
proposal as to how to understand human dignity. Human dignity is a key idea
in human rights discourse and practice, commonly invoked as the moral
ground of human rights. As quoted in section section 1.1, the preambles of
the two International Covenants present human rights as “derived from the
inherent dignity of the human person.” Dignity is a moral status in accordance
to which people are entitled to respect and concern by agents that can affect
them. People have this status in virtue of certain valuable capacities of them,
such as their capacities for practical and theoretical reasoning, their sentience,
and their ability to cooperate with others. I think that it is crucial that we link
human dignity with a universalistic ideal of solidaristic empowerment (C2),
which calls us to support people’s development and exercise of their valuable
capacities. By not ignoring them, by not treating them merely as tools for our
own projects, and by helping them pursue theirs, we acknowledge people’s
intrinsic worth, and respond appropriately to the value of the features of them
that form the basis of their dignity. We enact this response through our
institutions and our personal interactions, by contributing to the creation
and maintenance of conditions that enable people to live with autonomy
and well-being. To the extent that people treat each other in this way, they
achieve condition-dignity (to be distinguished from the status-dignity mentioned
above). A conception of rights identifies the forms of condition-dignity people
are entitled to in their social relations. A conception of human rights identifies
the conditions that have the highest priority. However, dignitarian claims
go further. Human dignity, and social justice, include but go beyond human
rights. Thus, human rights target the basic condition-dignity of having access to a
decent life, and social justice the wider condition-dignity of having access to
a flourishing life.
An account of human rights would tell us what forms of condition-dignity
people are entitled to in their social relations. But we can identify claims, and
correlative duties, at different levels of abstraction. The third component of my
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18 Human Dignity and Human Rights

account (C3) introduces a distinction between abstract and specific rights. I can
summarize it as follows. Specific human rights in the contemporary world are
urgent claims that people have against their own government and fellow
citizens, and against international organizations, foreign governments, and
foreign citizens. Abstract rights are general claims based in extremely import-
ant interests shared by all (or most) human beings, and whose protection
involves responsibilities for anyone who can affect their fulfillment. As stated,
this distinction is of course too sharp. We could think of a spectrum going
from more to less abstract rights. We could then identify, for example: (1)
fairly abstract rights that hold in any (or most) social context(s); (2) the rights
mentioned in the Universal Declaration; (3) the rights identified in inter-
national covenants, conventions, and treaties; (4) the rights stated in national
constitutions; (5) the specific rights as construed by governments’ laws and
policies; and (6) individuals’ claims in various situations (as addressed, for
example, by courts’ rulings or interpersonal judgments). Even this sequence is
somewhat artificial. For example, some of the rights mentioned in the Uni-
versal Declaration clearly belong to (1) (for example, the right to life identified
in Article 3). The main point is that we can make important distinctions
regarding the abstraction of rights, and these are significant for our reasoning
about the content and justification of different rights.
To introduce even more detail, we can identify three dimensions of a
conception of human rights, including (DI) the core account of rights; (DII)
an account of the social institutions and practices that would fulfill them; and
(DIII) an account of the processes of change that might be appropriate to
generate those institutions and practices (when these are not already in place).
Claims about rights and duties become more and more specific as we move
from (DI) to (DII) and from (DII) to (DIII). Here is an illustration:

(DI) The first dimension involves the conception’s core principles and
underlying ideals. This dimension includes two components: one is a list of
abstract rights that applies to all social contexts, and the other is a list of
specific rights that articulates the embodiment of abstract rights in a more
circumscribed social context under examination. For example, we can iden-
tify an abstract right to equal political autonomy according to which we
should seek to organize the fundamental decision-making structures in
society so that individuals subject to them have equal and effective oppor-
tunities to participate. Articles 19–21 of the Universal Declaration, with their
reference to certain electoral mechanisms and other institutional devices,
formulate a specific articulation of political autonomy for a modern state.
(DII) The second dimension comprises the identification of social insti-
tutions and practices that could provide a desirable and stable implemen-
tation of the principles of the first dimension in an even more specific
context. For example, in different countries, different political constitutions
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Introduction 19
could provide appropriate instantiations of democratic rights. Multination-
al polities will need more decentralization than less complex ones.
(DIII) Finally, the third dimension concerns the processes of political
transformation that could feasibly take us, without unreasonable costs,
from where we are now to the circumstances in which the institutions
and practices of the second dimension are introduced (if we are not already
there). This dimension concerns reasoning about political transition, about
how to render the fulfillment of human rights accessible. Here we ask
questions like the following. How can those subject to non-democratic
regimes struggle to change their political system in a democratic direction?
How can established democracies help non-democratic countries transition
to democracy? How could they do this without arrogant and potentially
self-defeating interventions? What international political and economic
institutions foster, and which undermine, the prospects for democracy in
domestic and global governance? How can existing democracies be con-
solidated or deepened?
The fourth, related component (C4) of my account concerns an exploration
of the concept of feasibility. Human rights give rise to duties, but duties hold
only in cases in which they can be fulfilled, and the reasonability of their
pursuit, in the face of competing considerations (including other duties),
depends on the extent to which they are likely to be fulfilled if we try to realize
them. The three dimensions DI–DIII mentioned in the previous paragraph
engage feasibility considerations of different, and increasing, specificity. Thus,
the political development of the human rights project must identify practical
targets that are not only not incompatible with what is possible, given general
facts about human beings and social organization, but also such that they have
a significant probability of being accessed and rendered stable in the foresee-
able future, given the specific obstacles conscientious agents will likely face.
The fifth component (C5) addresses the issue of how to identify and justify
human rights at different levels of abstraction. What we need here is to find an
impartial framework of reasoning that helps us cater to the urgent interests of all
in feasible and reasonable ways. This can be done by using the following schema:
General Schema for Justifying Rights: A (a right-holder) has a right to
O (an object) against B (a duty-bearer) just in case there are feasible and
reasonable demands on B that they support,¹³ in some significant ways to be
specified, A’s access to O. The specification of what B owes to A regarding
O tracks the moral importance of A’s interest in O, the feasible ways for B to
support A’s access to O, and the subset of such feasible forms of support

¹³ I use the term “support” as an umbrella term comprising both respect and promotion of the
standard triad of duties to respect, protect, and fulfill.
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20 Human Dignity and Human Rights

that do not involve morally unacceptable burdens on B or others (given the
importance of their own interests) and on A (given the importance of other
interests of A besides that concerning access to O). Further normative
considerations (e.g., regarding responsibility), and feasibility considerations
(e.g., concerning progressive implementation over time) may be relevant,
and considerations specific to human rights (e.g., their global scope and
high priority) should be added.
In this book, I use this schema while giving it a distinctive rendering by
reference to the dignitarian approach, including the ideal of solidaristic
empowerment. I thus propose that we deploy the following device:
Schema for Dignitarian Justification: Rights are justified if, and to the
extent that, their fulfillment (through certain institutions and practices)
either is necessary for, or strongly contributes to, the feasible and reasonable
support for certain important human interests regarding the existence,
development, and exercise of certain valuable human capacities of the
relevant individuals—the ones grounding human dignity.
To further account for the justification of human rights, we could use some
additional resources from normative ethics. An example (which constitutes
component C6) is the contractualist framework of reasoning (as developed by
T. M. Scanlon¹⁴). Contractualism, according to which we should follow the
principles that no one could reasonably reject, can be deployed to yield a test
for human rights at different levels of abstraction. This approach to justifica-
tion is distinctively helpful because it illuminates the standpoint of each
person affected by the proposed rights under consideration (as well as allow-
ing for the invocation of a plurality of normative reasons and the feasibility
considerations that force us to explore their connections and relative weight).
To make the exercise more precise, we would need substantive input to identify
the relevant important interests that persons would have in the context of
human rights discourse and practice. Given (C1) and (C2) (and the Schema of
Dignitarian Justification stated above), this could be done by developing an
account of conditions of human dignity, and of the valuable features of human
persons that give rise to their status-dignity. At least to some important extent,
people’s autonomy and well-being coincides with the fulfillment of their interests
in being able to develop and exercise their valuable capacities. They have reason
to reject principles that are inadequate to the task of supporting this development
and exercise. What each of us has reason to want everyone to accept includes
principles demanding feasible and fairly distributed contributions to support the
capacities that give rise to human dignity.

¹⁴ T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe To Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University

Press, 1998).
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Introduction 21
A moral outlook can hold several theories of normative ethics simultaneously,
and organize them into nested sets.¹⁵ I do this by holding both contractualism
and dignitarianism. The former helps organize moral argument so that
each affected person’s standpoint and interests are properly illuminated.
Dignitarianism is also deployed to account for the content and significance
of that standpoint and those interests. I see dignitarianism as a version of what
Shelly Kagan calls a “reflection theory,” according to which moral reasons are
a matter of responding appropriately to (they reflect) the value of the entities
or facts the agent relates to.¹⁶ Dignitarianism calls for appropriate responses to
the valuable capacities that give rise to people’s dignity. The generic reasons
that feed into the contractualist framework state the responses, and the
framework helps manage them in a comparative way (exploring their inter-
action and relative weight). Dignitarianism also helps us argue for the signifi-
cance of contractualism itself. It is a device of reasoning that appreciates, and
engages, people’s power of moral self-determination, and prompts them to
track other valuable features of human beings to figure out what reasons they
might give rise to when justifying various interpersonal and institutional
patterns of action.
This two-tiered approach is helpful when developing an account of human
rights. The idea of human dignity addresses the reflective part, and the
articulation of rights the contractualist part. Status-dignity gives rise (in
certain circumstances) to the human rights project. The contents of that
project involve asserting certain rights and correlative duties, which target
condition-dignity (where human rights are fulfilled). The identification of
rights, abstract and specific, is done by considering what reasonable and
feasible claims human beings in different circumstances can make on each
other. This can be framed with the contractualist approach, which asks us to
take the standpoint of different people in the relevant circumstances, attending
to their interests and valuable features.¹⁷ These two tiers of justification work
in tandem with the development of the ideal of solidaristic empowerment
mentioned above. The reflective tier urges us to respond appropriately to the
basic capacities that ground persons’ status-dignity, and the contractualist tier
identifies the dignitarian norms which, in various social contexts, specify the

¹⁵ Shelly Kagan, Normative Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998), 298–9.

¹⁶ Kagan, Normative Ethics, sect. 7.4. Robert Nozick has an illuminating discussion on this
kind of view in Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981),
ch. 5. He uses the idea of appropriate response—which I find more intuitive than “reflection.”
¹⁷ Further tiers in the account, lying further downstream, can be introduced. An example
I entertain in the book is discourse ethics—the view according to which we should follow those
principles which become the subject of agreement amongst those affected in actual reasonable
argumentation. Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press, 1990).
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22 Human Dignity and Human Rights

support for the development and exercise of those capacities the presence of
which would afford the people who have them condition-dignity.
Of course, it is important to think about how the different dimensions of
this account (the idea of human dignity, solidaristic empowerment, the dis-
tinction between abstract and specific rights, and their articulation through
contractualist reasoning) can be developed so as to support each other and
constitute a coherent whole that can clarify and orient our human rights
practice. I think that the method of deliberative reflective equilibrium is a
valuable tool to explore this point, and to help us reach—introspectively and
in dialogue with each other—all things considered judgments about the
acceptability of an account of human rights. I thus take it as the seventh
component (C7) of my account.¹⁸
Related to the idea of deliberative reflective equilibrium is a certain
approach to the development of an understanding of the core idea of human
dignity (C8). The phrase “human dignity” is used in myriad ways in various
contexts. My goal in this book is not the descriptive one of elucidating a
concept that is already used everywhere. I also do not stipulate, in a top-down
fashion, a concept that should be used independently of any existing assump-
tions or goals. I pursue an intermediate task, offering what I call a deliberative
interpretive proposal. As I explain in chapter 5, such a proposal makes contact
with assumptions and goals in practical contexts when these are ethically
sound, and suggests an articulation of the concept that need not be already
fully in place (at least not in every context in which I suggest that it be used).
What I will propose is shaped by a substantive ethical and political ambition to
articulate a normative perspective that extends, in a universalist fashion, the
ideal of solidaristic empowerment. I think that elements of this perspective are
present in debates about human rights and social justice. My proposal as to
how to understand human dignity is meant to cohere, in explanatorily fruitful
ways, with various valuable moves in those debates, and also to develop them
further in ways that, hopefully, on reflection, will prove desirable.
I close this initial overview by noting that although this book is a piece of
academic philosophy, the project it contributes to aims to have not only
intellectual and theoretical importance but also political and practical rele-
vance. Despite the increasing popularity of human rights talk—both inside
and outside academia—there are many puzzling questions about the nature,
content, justification, and feasible implementation of human rights. I believe
that moral and political philosophers have a role to play in articulating and

¹⁸ On reflective equilibrium, see John Rawls, Justice as Fairness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2001), sect. 10; Norman Daniels, “Reflective Equilibrium,” in Zalta, ed., The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016). Reflective equilibrium is deliberative when
the primary aim of the exercise is to determine what to believe rather than to describe what one
does believe. See T. M. Scanlon, “Rawls and Justification,” in S. Freeman, ed., The Cambridge
Companion to Rawls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 139–67.
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Introduction 23
answering these questions, and that this role is not only theoretical. Philosophy
could also help shape the agenda of human rights practice for international
organizations, governments, social movements, and conscientious individuals.
Such a political practice has momentous relevance for urgent global issues
concerning global poverty, forced labor, involuntary unemployment, intense
exploitation, the use of torture, environmental degradation, the opportunities
and social status of women, migration, the self-determination of indigenous
peoples, military intervention across borders, and the achievement of democracy.
By clarifying the concepts used to make human rights claims, and by propos-
ing compelling ways of justifying them, philosophy helps us to pursue more
resolutely their realization.
Interestingly, morality may be significant for the feasibility of the fulfillment
of human rights at levels DII and DIII, discussed in (C3) and (C4). This
fulfillment does not always align with the self-centered preferences of powerful
agents, and is not always immediately seen as desirable even by those who
stand to gain the most from it—that is, the marginalized, impoverished,
oppressed, or dominated world-wide. To render robust fulfillment of human
rights accessible, and stable over time, people may have to embrace them
wholeheartedly as something they ought to take seriously, even if that means
sacrificing some of their privileges or risking the disruption of some of the
ways of associating with others they have grown accustomed to. I am not
saying that morality is always motivationally effective. But it does have
motivational power. This is why every social order is routinely defended,
and challenged, on moral terms in addition to by appeal to sheer force,
coercion, and appeals to self-interested gain. Human rights discourse is part
of the struggle for cultural hegemony in current societies. Because of that,
philosophers have a potential contribution to make to strengthen (or weaken)
the perception of their moral force, and with it, their effective influence on
how people actually come to treat each other domestically and globally.

1.4. HUMANITY F IRST

I said in section 1.1 that by making sense of human dignity, we can explain the
content and force of human rights as the moral and political project that puts
humanity first. Human rights state the basic charter of the fellowship of
humankind. Human dignity is the moral heart of this project. It is worth
fighting for it. A note about the proximate context in which the penultimate
draft of this book was concluded might help to convey to the reader my sense
of relevance and urgency.
In his inaugural address as US president, Donald Trump rallied the crowd
with various nationalist slogans. These included the signature call to “make
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24 Human Dignity and Human Rights

America great again.” Trump also asked his fellow Americans to “pursue
solidarity,” and framed this call with reference to “patriotism,” saying that
“through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each
other.” Although at the beginning of his speech Trump addressed himself not
only to the local officials and his “fellow Americans” but also to the “people of
the world,” his solidarity call was not to include them, for, he said, “from this
moment on, it’s going to be America First.” He promised that “every decision
on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs, will be made to benefit
American workers and American families.” The world stage was cast as a
dangerous field. “We must protect our borders from the ravages of other
countries making our products, stealing our companies, and destroying our
jobs.” Trump was not exclusively hostile to other nations, and he acknow-
ledged their right to also prioritize their own interests: “We will seek friend-
ship and goodwill with the nations of the world—but we do so with the
understanding that it is the right of all nations to put their interests first.”¹⁹
One wonders, however, how much protection the fulfillment of that right
could give to nations, and their people, who are poorer and weaker, when their
interests conflict with a self-centered American policy. To seek serious friend-
ship and goodwill toward them would require more than granting them the
right to defend themselves in battles in which they will likely lose. Real
friendship and goodwill would require an enlarged attitude of solidarity that
gives the interests of foreigners—of workers and families—around the world, a
greater significance, recognizing that their carriers are ends in themselves
worthy of respect and concern. Above all, it would require recognizing a
further category of rights—namely, human rights—which all human beings
have regardless of their country of residence. This kind of human solidarity—a
solidarity that puts Humanity First—would have to constrain national soli-
darity and patriotism, not be ignored or bullied into submission.
Trump’s speech was ominous indeed. His ascension to the presidency of the
world’s mightiest country was built on a toxic ideological outlook including
the scapegoating of ethnic and religious minorities, more or less covert racism
and sexism, and an unlikely combination of the recognition of the suffering
and needs of working-class people with the untrammeled affirmation of the
power of the capitalist corporations that crushed them. This ascension of a
neo-fascist brand of capitalism was possible in part because of the absence, in
the United States, of a powerful Left capable to simultaneously defend the
rights of workers and various ethnic, religious, and gender minorities. Other

¹⁹ Contrast Trump’s egotistic rhetoric with that of the leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy
Corbyn, who, in his speech to International Human Rights Day in 2017, said that his party wants to
“see close and cooperative relationships with our European neighbors, outside the EU, based on
solidarity as well as mutual benefit and fair trade, along with a wider proactive internationalism
across the globe.” See: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/12/the-corbyn-doctrine.
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Introduction 25
countries, both in the global North and South, seemed to be displaying similar
prospects. However, there were also immediate reactions and pushback. Big
street protests followed Trump during his first weeks in office. The day after
his inauguration, enormous marches rallying around the defense of the rights
of women against Trump-style abusive talk, behavior, and policy prospects
took place in the US and abroad. After Trump introduced a temporary ban on
immigration and travel into the US by citizens from some countries with
Muslim majority populations, crowds spontaneously took to the streets and to
airports to voice their dismay at the discriminatory policy and to express their
welcome to the excluded people. Expressions of human solidarity like these
took place elsewhere as well. In Montreal, my city of residence, on January, 30,
2017, I participated in a vigil the day after a mosque in the province of Quebec
was stormed by an armed right-wing extremist (who killed several people
while they were praying). The crowd in this vigil was expressing alarm and
outrage at the surge of racism and xenophobia in Quebec as well as in the US
and elsewhere in the world. I was particularly moved by some slogans I saw
inscribed in placards by some participants in this demonstration. They read:
“1 personne = 1 personne,” “We stand together in solidarity and power,” “We
are in this together,” “Make humanity great again.” I see my work on human
rights, social justice, and solidaristic empowerment as a philosophical elabor-
ation of the kind of humanist attitude expressed in such locutions.
These are dark times featuring deep domestic and global inequality, racist,
sexist, and xenophobic aggression, and intense corporate domination. But
they are also times of protest and resistance, and they may, perhaps, also
come to carry the rebirth of a humanist Left that sees in the dignity of every
human being a source of inspiration to resolutely pursue human rights and
social justice for all—everywhere.
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Part I
Preliminary Debates: The Relations
between Human Rights and Political
Practice, Feasibility, and Power
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Humanist and Political Perspectives

on Human Rights

2.1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter explores the relation between two perspectives on the nature of
human rights. According to the “political” or “practical” perspective, human
rights are claims that individuals have against certain institutional structures,
in particular modern states, in virtue of interests they have in context that
include them—and normally warrant international support. The political
perspective has recently been developed by political philosophers such as
Charles Beitz, Joshua Cohen, and John Rawls.¹ This perspective is introduced
in contrast to the more traditional “humanist” or “naturalistic” one, according
to which human rights are pre-institutional claims that individuals have
against all other individuals that can affect them in virtue of interests charac-
teristic of their common humanity.² This chapter argues that once we identify

¹ John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Joshua
Cohen, “Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope For?” Journal of Political
Philosophy 12 (2004), 190–213; Joseph Raz, “Human Rights without Foundations,” in S. Besson
and J. Tasioulas, eds., The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press
2010), 321–37. Charles Beitz’s relevant works include “What Human Rights Mean.” Daedalus
132 (2003), 36–46 (henceforth WHRM); “Human Rights and the Law of Peoples,” in
D. K. Chatterjee, ed., The Ethics of Assistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),
193–214 (HRLP); “Human Rights,” in R. Goodin, P. Pettit, and T. Pogge, eds., A Companion to
Contemporary Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 628–37 (HR); and The
Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) (IHR). See further note 61 below.
² Other terms are used to convey similar views: “pragmatic,” “special,” or “associative,” are
sometimes used instead of “political” or “practical,” and “philosophical,” “orthodox,” “general,”
or “moral” are sometimes used instead of “humanist” or “naturalistic.” For simplicity, I stick to
“political” and “humanist,” but I will refer to other uses when relevant. For a discussion of the
traditional view of natural rights, see A. John Simmons, “Human Rights and World Citizenship:
The Universality of Human Rights in Kant and Locke,” in Justification and Legitimacy: Essays on
Rights and Obligations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 179–96. Contemporary
defenses of the humanist perspective include Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-
determination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004); Simon Caney, “Global Poverty and
Human Rights: The Case for Positive Duties,” in T. Pogge, ed., Freedom from Poverty as a
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30 Human Dignity and Human Rights

these perspectives in their best light we can see that they are complementary
and that in fact we need both to make good normative sense of the contem-
porary practice of human rights. To put it briefly, the humanist perspective
articulates the important point that there is a set of abstract rights that are held
by everyone against everyone else in virtue of their common humanity, not
their membership in any specific institutional structure; and the political
perspective makes sense of the fact that human rights are, and should be,
pursued in practice largely through the identification of specific rights con-
nected with institutional frameworks. This chapter explains why these two
core points are compatible and indeed crucial for a satisfactory account of
human rights, and thus why their simultaneous articulation warrants a shift
from the contrasting way in which the two approaches are currently framed.
To develop the proposed synthesis, I identify five analytic dimensions and
consider five reasons motivating the view of human rights discourse as tied to
specific institutional structures:
(1) Content. Institutional structures are not only instrumental in violating
or protecting human rights. They also generate specific social relations,
and thus specific rights.
(2) Coherence with practice and justification. The view of human rights as
institutionally bounded is particularly coherent with current legal and
political practice.
(3) Self-determination and diversity. Where there are institutions incorp-
orating forms of political self-determination, agents can identify what
rights have priority given their historical circumstances and autono-
mously decide what specific implementations to undertake.
(4) Correlative duties. Robust institutions help to routinely identify who
has a responsibility to do what for whom. This is important for
rendering duties correlative to human rights perfect rather than merely
imperfect. Even when duties are imperfect, seeing institutions rather
than individuals as duty-bearers is more appropriate, and provides a
more flexible allocation of responsibilities.
(5) Feasibility. Robust institutions increase the feasibility of the fulfillment
of human rights, making human rights demands more realistic and
practically relevant.³

Human Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 275–302; James Griffin, On Human
Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Martha Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). See further note 61 below.
³ As I will show, the issues in this conceptual matrix are related. E.g., a full account of content
will need to address issues regarding correlative duties and feasibility.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 31

I do not doubt that these considerations provide reasons for adopting the
political perspective. My concern in this chapter is how we should think about
the relation between this adoption and the humanist perspective. This adop-
tion is not normally presented as entailing an outright rejection of the
humanist view, but it does often rely on the claims that (a) the humanist
perspective faces serious challenges in accounting for some of the intuitions
mentioned and/or that (b) in accounting for the nature of human rights we do
better by developing the political view independently of the humanist one.
However, this chapter argues that the proper articulation of the intuitions is
not only compatible with, but in fact calls for, humanist considerations.
Regarding content, I argue in section 2.2 that the humanist perspective
identifies a set of abstract rights that contribute to selecting the appropriate
specific rights that the political perspective demands we pursue. Regarding
justification, I advocate in section 2.3 a deliberative reflective equilibrium
approach in which humanist considerations provide a substantive layer of
reasoning cementing our ability to both defend and criticize aspects of current
human rights practice. Such a layer, I claim in section 2.4, is also crucial for
explaining why self-determination and sensitivity to diversity are important
and what their limits should be. Regarding correlative duties, I show in section
2.5 that the abstract rights that humanism unearths yield specifically sharp
demands that are nonetheless also appropriately flexible to fit varying circum-
stances. Finally, regarding feasibility, I argue in section 2.6 that humanism
helps frame dynamic duties to expand feasible sets of political action and thus
to be both sensitive to current political circumstances and critical of any
premature view of them as indefinitely fixed. Hence, a humanist perspective
is crucial to recognize the significance of institutions, frame their shape and
impact, and explain why their creation or transformation is needed. Political
reasoning, to be normatively plausible, should itself draw on humanist con-
siderations. It is best to see humanist and political considerations about
human rights, once properly construed, as working in tandem. We should
not pursue a political approach independently of humanist considerations.
I have mentioned the core claims involved in the humanist and political
perspectives. These claims can of course be developed in different ways. My
concern in this chapter is not, however, to propose a detailed conception of
human rights. My goal is more general and preliminary: it is to show that, and
how, the core claims involved in the two perspectives should be simultan-
eously mobilized in order to develop any satisfactory specific conception. In
section 2.2 I identify features of what I take to be a plausible humanist
perspective. Regarding the political perspective, I largely focus on aspects of
the formulation recently provided by Charles Beitz. I do this not only because
of space constraints. Beitz presents an admirable (perhaps the strongest) case
for a political view. And, crucially, Beitz clearly advocates versions of the two
claims ((a) and (b) in the previous paragraph) that I contest. He argues that
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32 Human Dignity and Human Rights

the naturalistic view “distorts our perception of the human rights of international
doctrine,” and that “we do better to approach human rights practically, not as the
application of an independent philosophical idea to the international realm, but
as a political doctrine constructed to play a certain role in global political life.”⁴
His political approach is presented as a “fresh start” following a “debunking” case
against the traditional presumption that human rights should be conceived as
claims that all human beings have in virtue of their shared humanity.⁵

2.2. CONTENT

An obvious reason to see reference to political institutional structures as

crucial for an account of human rights is that they are tremendously import-
ant in both the violation and the promotion of human rights. Large-scale
violations of human rights, such as the Nazi genocide, are most often under-
taken by highly organized state apparatuses, which are uniquely capable of
mobilizing resources and imposing tasks on populations. For the same
reasons, states have also been the main promoters of human rights. Bodily
integrity and subsistence, for example, are best secured by fair and efficient
juridical and security systems, and social services and regulations on the
economy. But these considerations are not enough to motivate a contrast
between political and humanist perspectives. The reason is that the signifi-
cance of political institutions is here conceived as largely instrumental. The
humanist can readily agree that we must pay attention to institutional structures
given that they can serve to both violate and promote human rights in a
particularly comprehensive way, while holding on to a pre-institutional account
of the rights the institutions are said to violate or promote.
The possibility of a serious contrast emerges once we notice that the content
of human rights themselves may be determined by the presence of certain
institutional structures. If we look at the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, we will notice that many of the rights mentioned would not make sense
unless certain institutional structures were present. As Beitz argues in his
challenge to traditional humanist views, rights such as those to impartial
trial, to take part in the government of the country, and to free elementary
education are such that they “describe features of an acceptable institutional
environment,” and thus “we can’t give meaning to the thought that these
rights might exist in a state of nature.”⁶ This appears to generate a dilemma for
humanists: either they reject their core claim that human rights are to be

⁴ IHR, 48–9, see also 102–4. ⁵ IHR, 50–1, 96.

⁶ Beitz, WHRM, 41; see IHR, 55. The rights mentioned are included in Articles 10, 21, and 26
of the Declaration.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 33

grounded in features shared by all human beings as such (that is, independ-
ently of any institutional context), or they run the risk of cementing arbitrary
skepticism against central demands made in current human rights practice.⁷
This challenge to the humanist perspective relies on the first consideration
mentioned in section 2.1. But the humanist perspective can be plausibly
articulated so as to help account for it. To show this, let me introduce a
distinction between abstract and specific rights. Human rights can be formu-
lated at different levels of abstraction. We can, on the one hand, formulate a set
of specific rights identifying claims that people in the contemporary world
have against their own government and fellow citizens, and against inter-
national organizations, foreign governments, and foreign citizens. The rights
formulated in the Declaration largely operate at this level.⁸ We can, on the
other hand, formulate a set of abstract rights concerned with extremely
important interests shared by all (or most) human beings, and whose protec-
tion involves responsibilities for anyone who can affect their satisfaction. For
example, one can, with Griffin, say that it is crucial for human rights to protect
the conditions of human normative agency, which include some appropriate
level of autonomy (ability to form and revise conceptions of a worthwhile life),
minimum provision (material conditions enabling agents’ successful pursuit
of their conception of the good), and liberty (limits on the extent to which
agents may interfere with other agents’ pursuits).⁹ Or one can, with Nickel,
appeal to a set of general basic interests that people have and whose protection
is a condition for living a decent life. These high-order interests might ground,
for example, secure claims to life, to lead one’s life, to avoid cruel or degrading
treatment, and to avoid severely unfair treatment.¹⁰ Finally, one can, with Sen
and Nussbaum, see human rights as claims to develop a set of central human
capabilities.¹¹ One can identify such a set as a precondition for living a life of
human dignity, and thus as involving basic human interests. Once we have a

⁷ For the worry concerning skepticism, see Beitz, IHR, 50, 53, 66–7, 138.
⁸ I say “largely,” because some rights in the Declaration are extremely abstract (such as
Article 3, which says that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person”), and
because rights as they appear in the International Covenants, and even more so in international
treaties and in national constitutions and laws, are much more specific.
⁹ James Griffin, On Human Rights, 32–3.
¹⁰ James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 62. For similar approaches, see Allen
Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-determination, 128–31; and Simon Caney, “Global
Poverty and Human Rights: The Case for Positive Duties.” Buchanan, Caney, Griffin, and
Nussbaum (mentioned in the text shortly) explicitly defend a humanistic perspective.
¹¹ See Amartya Sen, “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights,” Philosophy and Public Affairs
32 (2004), 315–56; and Martha Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2006), 69–81, 284–91. Nussbaum’s account includes conditions securing
people’s capabilities with respect to life; bodily health; bodily integrity; the use of their senses,
imagination, and thought; the engagement of their emotions; the use of their practical reason; the
development of social affiliation; the concerned relation with other species; activities involving
play; and the control of their political and material environment.
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34 Human Dignity and Human Rights

compelling picture of these basic interests and the abstract rights protecting
them, we can articulate specific rights ranging over different possible social
and political contexts. Such specific rights identify the protection that the basic
interests deserve in certain historical circumstances.
There are different ways of formulating abstract rights, of course. It is not
crucial for the argument of this chapter to settle the discussion as to how to
draw up the list. I will offer an approach to this issue in Part II of this book.¹²
What is important now is that the distinction between abstract and specific
rights helps us to show (i) that there is no problematic contrast between
political and humanist approaches to the content of human rights, and (ii)
that in fact both are important in providing a full picture of that content. This
is so for several reasons. The first is that the distinction allows us to say that the
two perspectives focus on making claims about two different kinds of rights.
Whereas the political view largely focuses on the specific rights of contem-
porary legal documents, the humanist view largely focuses on more general
moral claims. Since these rights belong to different categories of abstraction,
claims about one category need not be faulted for not playing the role
normally played by claims about the other. Thus it would not be warranted
to challenge the humanist view by saying that some of the rights of the
Declaration would not be included among the abstract rights it identifies.
For the same reasons, it is false that a humanist would be dogmatically led to
say that certain rights of the Declaration such as the ones mentioned above
(the rights to impartial trial, to take part in the government of the country, and
to free elementary education) are not human rights because they could not
hold everywhere, regardless of certain specific social and political circum-
stances. This would assume that humanism must, as it need not, conflate the
two categories of rights.
It might be objected that the distinction between the two categories of rights
does not get us very far because one must, in addition, show that there is
reason to talk about both in a full account of human rights. This would not be
so, the challenge proceeds, because the abstract rights the humanist focuses on
presuppose asocial circumstances that are radically discontinuous with the

¹² I believe that some combination of Griffin’s and Nickel’s lists of abstract rights would be
appropriate. Griffin is correct in highlighting the specificity of normative agency in distinguish-
ing humans from other beings. No reasonable account of human dignity could fail to attend to
the features of human agents as reasoning pursuers of good lives. But human rights need not only
protect interests that all humans have which are not also interests of other beings. What is crucial
is that human rights range over extremely important concerns that all humans have. The decisive
contrast is between what humans need only as members of a specific group or society and what
humans need in any context. Some of what they need in any context may be similar to what other
beings need (such as staying alive, or avoiding excruciating pain). The capability approach, on
the other hand, is well equipped to account for the whole gamut of basic human interests.
However, the links between capabilities, interests, and rights are not fully worked out. The
dignitarian approach I present later in this book fills the gaps.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 35

actual circumstances for which the rights of the Declaration are formulated.
But this reply wrongly presupposes that a humanist view must assume an
atomistic picture of human nature. This picture may have been accepted by
some early defenders of natural law theory, but there is no reason to suppose
that humanism could not be formulated so that it sees human beings as
essentially social.¹³ We should think of a more plausible, charitable construal
of humanism. On this construal, to formulate the abstract rights we assume
quite general features of human beings in their social life. These include, for
example, their capacity to reason prudentially and morally about what is good
and right, their mortality and physical and psychological vulnerability, their
use of language, and their relative capacity to modify their environment
through their intentional action. We also assume that humans face relative
material scarcity, and display certain tendencies to social conflict of interest
and occasionally aggressive and non-cooperative dispositions, as well as more
benign tendencies to cooperation, respect, concern, and sympathy. Such
assumptions are irreducible to any specific social circumstance, but are still
true of all of them. The humanist can still say that in any social context people
have abstract claims to the conditions of their normative agency, to avoid
certain forms of degrading and unfair treatment, or to develop certain central
capabilities.¹⁴
Thus, humanists can develop a plausible picture of what humans “as such”
have abstract rights to. A political approach could incorporate that picture.
Beitz, for example, does not deny that a practical approach could appeal to
deeper values such as those connected with the idea of personhood. But he
worries that general ideas of this kind could be “too abstract to settle

¹³ This is why I think that the label “humanism” is more appropriate than “naturalistic
theory.” The former shares with the latter the view that human rights are, at the fundamental
level, moral claims every person has against every other in virtue of their shared humanity, and
that these have normative precedence over, and serve to judge, any specific set of institutions. But
humanism need not also endorse the contentious assumptions many traditional defenders of
natural law theory had regarding human nature and the methodology for deriving rights from
accounts of it. Beitz recently acknowledged (when considering Griffin’s and Nussbaum’s theor-
ies) that a “naturalistic” view could be developed that is not asocial. But he argues that such a
view faces four serious difficulties: (i) it fails to “incorporate or make use of considerations about
the discursive functions of human rights within existing practice”; (ii) it is narrowly focused on
the perspective of beneficiaries of remedial action regarding human rights deprivations, without
illuminating the perspective of contributors; (iii) its “normative content” is “likely to fall short of
the list of protections actually found in international human rights doctrine”; and (iv) it would
problematically assume that where there are discrepancies between international doctrine and
naturalistic theory the latter must have at least prima facie precedence (IHR, 65–8). In this
section I defuse challenges (i) and (iii). I address (iv) and (ii) in sections 2.3 and 2.5 respectively.
The dignitarian approach offered in Parts II and III of this book provides a humanist perspective
that addresses all these challenges in a constructive way.
¹⁴ Arguably, some general features of the human condition of this kind underpin the need for
legal and political structures in the first place. See H. L. A. Hart, The Concept of Law, 2nd ed.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 91–8, 193–200.
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36 Human Dignity and Human Rights

disagreement about the content of human rights doctrine or . . . arbitrarily
constrain the doctrine’s substantive scope.”¹⁵ I have already addressed the
worry of arbitrary skepticism about content. But I also think that abstract
rights are not trivial, and would prove important in identifying the more
specific rights the political perspective is keen to focus on. Abstract rights
are not only plausible in the absence of the kind of complex institutions typical
of modern settings; they also help account for more specific rights once factual
considerations about specific contexts of social action are taken into account.
To return to Beitz’s challenging examples, why should we care about people
having access to impartial trials, to take part in the government of their
country, and to free elementary education? To answer this question, we should
not only refer to certain features of the modern world, such as the presence of
juridical systems, frameworks of political decision-making, and formal edu-
cational institutions. We also need to understand what renders certain treat-
ments of people by those institutions acceptable. An intuitively correct answer
to this further question would appeal (inter alia) to the kind of human
interests and abstract rights the humanist talks about. Juridical systems should
include impartial trials because people have an extremely important interest in
not being treated unfairly. Political decision-making should be open to
people’s participation because otherwise their autonomy would be comprom-
ised. And their autonomy would also be compromised if they did not have the
level of education necessary to shape their life-plans in an informed and
critical way in their social context.
Thus, the humanist story about abstract rights leads naturally to the polit-
ical story about specific rights once we take account of the institutional context
in which the protection of the abstract rights is engaged. And the political
story naturally connects with the humanist story once we wonder how the
specific provisions addressing institutional contexts are to be identified.
Hence, we need not say, with Beitz, that instead of insisting that “human rights
be justified by considerations of common humanity as such” we should just see
them as “special rights” arising from special relationships that people have in the
institutional landscape of the modern world.¹⁶ This would assume that the
categories of rights just distinguished are radically discontinuous when they
are not. For another example, consider the Declaration’s right to an adequate
standard of living. As Beitz says, “any plausible explanation of the moral basis of
this right will have to refer to features of people’s social relations.”¹⁷ We cannot

¹⁵ IHR, 138. ¹⁶ Beitz, WHRM, 42; IHR, 71–2.

¹⁷ WHRM, 42. “International human rights, to judge the contents of the Declaration and
covenants, are suited to play a role in a certain range of societies . . . that have at least some of the
defining features of modernization: a reasonably well-developed legal system . . . , an economy
with some significant portion of employment in industry rather than agriculture, and a public
institutional capacity to raise revenue and provide essential collective goods” (p. 43). See
IHR, 57–8.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 37

account for them by simply considering “characteristics that people might be
said to possess when they are considered in abstraction of any social situ-
ation.”¹⁸ But notice that the right to an adequate standard of living may be
construed both as an abstract and as a specific right. People in any social
context need minimum material provision to have a life and to lead their life,
and thus the claim to an adequate standard of living is, in a sense, an abstract
right. What exact form of material provision specific people require is a matter
of specific needs they have in different contexts. To arrive at a more concrete
list of demands at this level, we can apply the humanist list of abstract rights to
those contexts to yield the political lists of specific rights.

2.3. COHERENCE W ITH PRACTICE

AND J USTIFICATION

A central worry about the traditional humanist approach raised by Beitz is that
it does not show proper deference to the actual practice of human rights as we
find it today. It imposes on that practice a test of justification that is foreign to
it. No claim that fails to fit the Procrustean philosophical picture—that human
rights are derived from claims that all humans make on every other in virtue of
their common humanity—deserves the name. Beitz suggests that we avoid this
philosophical straitjacket and develop instead an account of human rights
based on a description of the current international practice. Beitz thus formu-
lates an explicit contrast between the traditional humanist view (which he calls
“orthodox” or “philosophical”) and his preferred political account, the “prac-
tical” conception. This contrast is motivated by a worry about a perceived
dogmatism on the part of the traditional view. It suggests that, instead of
imposing external strictures on the practice of human rights, we proceed
immanently, trying to develop the “best conception” of its core aims, and
work from there.¹⁹

¹⁸ Beitz, HRLP, 198.

¹⁹ “The practical view, by contrast [to the ‘orthodox’ or ‘philosophical’ view], takes the
doctrine and discourse of human rights as we find it in the international political practice as
basic. Questions like What are human rights? What human rights do we have? and Who has
duties to act when human rights are violated? are understood to refer to objects of the sort called
‘human rights’ in contemporary international life, however these are best conceived. There is no
assumption of a prior or independent layer of fundamental values whose nature and content can
be discovered independently of reflection about the international realm and then used to
interpret and criticize international doctrine. Instead, the functional role of human rights in
international discourse and practice is regarded as definitive of the idea of a human right, and the
content of international doctrine is worked out by considering how the doctrine would best be
interpreted in light of this role” (HRLP, 197; see IHR, 102–3).
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38 Human Dignity and Human Rights

To assess the practical view, we need to consider what it means. For
example, does it ask us to take international practice as our heuristic starting
point in the process of discovery of the appropriate list of human rights?
Nobody would complain about this. Certainly humanists would not complain
if we began our reflection about both specific and abstract rights by consider-
ing our reactions to what goes on in international practice. The difficult issue
is not where we start, but where we end up going and why. Does the practical
view tell us, more ambitiously, that international practice already provides us
with the justification of any such lists? If it said this, then it would run the risk
of sliding into an obviously problematic form of conventionalism. Surely we
have reason to say that those involved in the practice of human rights should
believe that there are certain human rights when and because people have
them, not that people have them when and because those involved in the
practice believe so. If the drafters of the Declaration and the delegates at the
UN General Assembly had denied that freedom of speech or religious freedom
are human rights, we would not be compelled to accept as correct the contents
of such an alternative Declaration simply because it was claimed to be correct
by those drafting it and voting for it. Noticing this elementary difference
between something being the case and something being claimed or believed
to be the case does not involve any deep philosophical foundationalism. It
simply states a precondition of any critical thinking that aims at identifying
what is true rather than merely reporting what some people take to be true.
Now, most defenders of the political approach are not crude conventional-
ists. They say that although we should start with practices as they are, we
may come to criticize aspects of them, demanding that beliefs involved in
them be changed. This is certainly Beitz’s view.²⁰ But how do we come to
criticize the contemporary practice of human rights? If we look at it, we find a
myriad of often opposing views. Disagreements include contending views
on what rights should be recognized, how they should be interpreted and
applied, and how they should be weighed against each other in cases of conflict.
Some accept, and others deny, that there are socioeconomic human rights.²¹
Some accept, and others deny, that there is a human right to democracy.²² Some
accept, and others deny, that civil and political rights have priority over

²⁰ Beitz’s “hope is to replace conceptions of human rights that invite skepticism with one that
is more sympathetic to the aims and conduct of the existing practice without sacrificing a
capacity to criticize it” (IHR, 198–9). See WHRM, 46; HRLP, 205; IHR, 105. See also Beitz’s
critique of “agreement theories” (IHR, ch. 4), and his sharp defense of women’s rights in the face
of conflict with prevailing moral beliefs in some cultures (IHR, 191–4).
²¹ See, respectively, the papers in T. Pogge, ed., Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right; and
Maurice Cranston, What Are Human Rights? (London: Bodley Head, 1973).
²² Carol Gould, Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights; and Joshua Cohen, “Is There a
Human Right to Democracy?” in C. Sypnowich, ed., The Egalitarian Conscience (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 226–48.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 39

socioeconomic rights.²³ How are we to settle such disputes? Beitz suggests that
we critically arbitrate these disagreements by considering how the different
claims fit the “aims” or “role” of the existing human rights practice.²⁴ But, as
Beitz acknowledges,²⁵ contention exists not only regarding the content of the
Declaration, but also about the aims and role of human rights discourse itself.
Some claim, and others deny, that its role is reduced to identifying the condi-
tions under which foreign interference with the internal life of states is war-
ranted.²⁶ Some claim, and others deny, that human rights ground
responsibilities of individuals that are as important as those of institutions
(including states).²⁷ Some believe, and others deny, that the practice of human
rights is mostly a veiled mechanism by means of which some powerful states
rationalize their domination of weaker ones.²⁸ How do we identify and defend
the standards of the “best conception” of human rights practice? The methodo-
logical demand of coherence with a description of the practice may be too
indeterminate, as any participant in the practice could say that the doctrine of
human rights should express their own (contentious) construal of that practice’s
point. Furthermore, the very idea that the justification of certain claims depends
on their coherence with the practice in which they arise is itself a contentious

²³ See the general discussion in Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor
Books, 1999).
²⁴ IHR, 105–6. ²⁵ IHR, 108.
²⁶ Rawls, The Law of Peoples; and James Nickel, “Are Human Rights Mainly Implemented by
Intervention?” in R. Martin and D. Reidy, eds., Rawls’s Law of Peoples: A Realistic Utopia?
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 263–77.
²⁷ Henry Shue, “Mediating Duties,” Ethics 98 (1988); and Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and
Human Rights, 2nd edn. (Cambridge: Polity, 2008).
²⁸ These discussions were already present among the drafters of the Declaration. See on this
the extremely rich historical account in Mary Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt
and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (New York: Random House, 2001). An example
regarding the issue of responsibility can be seen in the insistence by René Cassin that duties of
individuals (as well as institutions below and above the state) are as crucial as the duties of states
(pp. 93, 113–14). This is why Cassin proposed, just before its adoption, that the title of the
Declaration be changed to “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” from “International
Declaration of Human Rights.” Glendon explains: “The title ‘Universal,’ [Cassin . . . ] later
wrote, meant that the Declaration was morally binding on everyone, not only on the govern-
ments that voted for its adoption. The Universal Declaration . . . was not an ‘international’ or
‘intergovernmental’ document; it was addressed to all humanity and founded on a unified
conception of the human being” (p. 161). The last paragraph of the Declaration’s Preamble
confirms this view, saying that it presents “a common standard of achievement for all peoples
and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society . . . shall strive by
teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive
measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and
observance.” This approach has a powerful illustration in the Convention for the Elimination of
all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, which ranges over “the political, economic, social,
cultural, civil or any other field” (Art. 1). Another example is the emerging discussion on the
need to see certain institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade
Organization as directly carrying responsibilities concerning human rights. See Cristina Lafont,
“Democratic Accountability and Global Governance: Challenging the State-centric Conception
of Human Rights,” Ethics & Global Politics 3 (2010), 193–215.
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40 Human Dignity and Human Rights

philosophical claim whose defense must be philosophical (and thus engage the
kind of inquiry that defenders of the political perspective might like to avoid).
I am not advocating an outright rejection of Beitz’s “practical” account. My
intention here is to suggest an amendment of it, and to urge that we acknow-
ledge the importance of humanist considerations for its further articulation.
Regarding the first point, consider Beitz’s suggestion that we introduce a sharp
distinction between the concept of human rights and their content and
justification.²⁹ The idea here is that we can navigate disagreements by provid-
ing a description of the understanding of the former (of human rights’ aims
and role) in contemporary practices and then by engaging in substantive
argument on the latter. Thus, for example, Beitz suggests that the meaning
of human rights is that they are “the constitutive norms of global practice
whose aim is to protect individuals against threats arising from acts and
omissions of their governments.”³⁰ Once we have this concept in hand, we
can proceed to develop substantive accounts of the content and justification of
human rights by identifying (i) urgent individual interests facing standard
threats in modern states; (ii) “first level” requirements on governments to
protect the interests of their residents; and (iii) “second level” pro tanto
reasons for foreign governments and agents to assist or challenge governments
that fail to fulfill their primary duties.³¹
One should notice that in this proposal the account of the concept of
human rights severely constrains any account of their content and justifica-
tion. For example, since as a matter of the meaning of human rights states are
identified as the primary agents, any substantive account of the content and
justification of human rights duties will also have to take states as primary. But
this involves packing into a definition substantive claims (such as the primar-
ily institutional, and state-centered nature of human rights, and the existence
of basic positive duties³²) that are in fact contested by many participants in
the practice. As we saw, current debates run very deep. One could respond by
revising the description of the meaning of the practice to make it less conten-
tious. But perhaps the problem here is that an account of meaning cannot after
all be so readily detached from issues of content and justification. Rather than
going in sequence from meaning to content and justification, we may have
reason to continuously address the three in an ongoing attempt to find a
“reflective equilibrium” in our thinking about human rights. We will some-
times feel compelled to revise our account of the meaning of the practice when
it collides with our considered judgments about the content and justification
of certain rights made within it. Furthermore, we should see that such an

²⁹ IHR, 10–11, 104–6, 126. Of course, an account of meaning affects any account of content
and justification. Beitz acknowledges this, but as we will see he does not consider that the relation
goes the other way around as well.
³⁰ IHR, 197. ³¹ IHR, 109, 137. ³² IHR, 114–15, 128–9.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 41

equilibrium is a target of deliberation, not description: what we are primarily
concerned with is not finding out what we (or others) have been thinking
about human rights, but what to think about them.³³
These suggestions (regarding reflective equilibrium and its deliberative
nature) would involve a revised practical view that I would myself endorse.
And in this revised view humanist considerations on what human persons as
such may claim on all others can play a crucial role in shaping practice, our
view of its meaning, contents, and justification.³⁴ Thus, as I said above, the idea
of “starting” with the international practice of human rights is quite reason-
able. It is true that we will not get a full picture of what specific human rights
we have reason to endorse unless we consider the specific contexts in which
discussions and demands about “human rights” arise. Without reference to
such contexts, any list of abstract rights would be highly indeterminate and
unfit for guiding domestic and international political action. But when we see
things in the “deliberative reflective equilibrium” way I suggested, there is in
fact reason to engage the humanist perspective rather than to proceed inde-
pendently of it. I will make two points to elaborate on this claim. These points
work in conjunction with the points made in section 2.2 (which shows that on
a plausible construal, humanism accepts, and in fact demands, that we con-
sider specific contextual settings in order to identify and justify specific rights
applying the more general moral concerns articulated in abstract rights).
I proceed to address the crucial issue of whether we should take states as
definitionally central in sections 2.4–2.6.
The first point is that humanist considerations already operate within the
contemporary practice of human rights. This is evident as soon as we read the
Preamble and Articles 1 and 2 of the Declaration. The Preamble opens by
referring to the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and
inalienable rights of all members of the human family” as being “the founda-
tion of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” That we have to “recognize”
humans’ dignity and their rights is incompatible with assuming that the
utterances of the Declaration simply create them.³⁵ Article 1 says that “[a]ll
human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,” and “are endowed
with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of
brotherhood,” and Article 2 claims that “everyone is entitled to all the rights

³³ On the distinction between descriptive and deliberative accounts of reflective equilibrium,

see Thomas Scanlon, “Rawls on Justification,” in S. Freeman, ed., The Cambridge Companion to
Rawls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 139–67.
³⁴ Even within a coherentist epistemological outlook certain substantive moral principles may
operate as relatively invariant. See Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, “Coherentist Epistemology and
Moral Theory,” in W. Sinnot-Armstrong and M. Timmons, eds., Moral Knowledge (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 137–89, at 151.
³⁵ Glendon argues that this renders the Declaration incompatible with a legal positivist reading.
The Declaration recognizes rights; it does not confer them. See A World Made New, 176.
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42 Human Dignity and Human Rights

and freedoms set forth in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such
as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or
social origin, property, birth or other status.” These clauses clearly assume that
there are features of human beings as such (such as their being “endowed with
reason and conscience”) that should ground universal concern (“brother-
hood”), that human rights are appropriate to the “dignity” of all persons,
regardless their specific circumstances (such as their “race, colour, sex, lan-
guage, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property,
birth or other status”). These claims give a humanist framing to the whole
Declaration—and I will in fact develop a positive account of this framework in
Parts II and III of this book. They force us to keep in mind that, as we go about
identifying specific claims for contemporary times (such as the specific socio-
economic rights the Declaration goes on to mention, which clearly are bound
to specific modern economies), we think about what humans seen in the way
mentioned deserve. These assertions are intuitively plausible. And they are
neither morally vacuous nor philosophically trivial. In fact, the drafters were
involved in heated debates about them. It is true that they agreed to disagree on
the most fundamental grounds of human rights, as they realized that they could
not, and did not need to, agree on whether rights were grounded in any
particular religious view, or any deep metaphysical or moral theory. But it is
also true that some, less fundamental moral and philosophical views were very
much at the center of their discussion. These included conceptions of “brother-
hood,” “dignity,” “conscience,” “freedom,” “equality,” and the relative standing
of individuals, social groups and states.³⁶
The second point concerns global public reasoning regarding the meaning,
content and justification of human rights. My claim here is that humanist

³⁶ See Glendon, A World Made New. In 1947, the drafters of the Declaration consulted an
international UNESCO committee including thinkers from a great variety of traditions. They
concluded that agreement was possible on some core convictions on the basis of which the
Declaration could be articulated, but also that it would not be wise to go behind those convictions
and try to reach an agreement on what more fundamental religious, moral or philosophical
doctrine most successfully grounded them (77–8, 112, 222, 226). Notice that this conclusion does
not say that no philosophical ideas or values are important to the international political debate
on human rights, but that they need not be as deep as those that inevitably arise in more
comprehensive philosophical exercises (within specific cultures, religions or foundational moral
theories). For examples of debates on core ideas framing the Declaration, see pp. 38–42, 68–9,
75–6, 141–2, 146–7, 148–51. Although the drafters put ultimate principles aside, they certainly
took substantive moral views on board. As an example, consider the discussion between Charles
Malik and Hansa Metha during the first meeting of the Human Rights Commission. Malik said
that when we talk about human rights, “we are raising the fundamental question, what is
man? . . . Is man merely a social being? Is he merely an animal? Is he merely an economic
being?” (p. 39). Metha complained that the Commission should avoid “ideological” disputes.
Malik replied: “Whatever you may say, Madam, must have ideological presuppositions . . . and no
matter how much you may fight shy of them, they are there, and you either hide them or you are
brave enough to bring them out in the open and see them and criticize them” (p. 41). The
drafters engaged in quite explicit humanist considerations regarding people’s common human-
ity, their basic interests and dignity in social life in general (pp. 227–33).
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 43

considerations can help in shaping the procedure and substance of it. As some
defenders of the political perspective have argued, human rights are becoming
the currency of contemporary debates about global justice, or at least of its
most urgent demands. These debates do not have the structure of a philosophy
seminar. Participants are not called to search for the ultimate foundations
of human rights. Their aim (or, rather, the aim of many) is to achieve a
consensus providing shared grounds for international political action. It is
then important to avoid what might be seen as the foundationalist overtones
of traditional philosophical versions of the humanist approach. To this extent,
the political approach is likely right to recommend what Cohen calls a
“justificatory minimalism” that brackets discussion on ultimate philosophical
foundations.³⁷ But we should also avoid strategic abridgments. The goal is not
just to seek consensus, but to build it on the basis of methods and assumptions
that are normatively sound. Otherwise the consensus will be a mere modus
vivendi lacking in stability and moral authority. Many defenders of the
political view are of course aware of this, and they think that global public
reasoning does not consist in merely reporting the intersection of already
existing normative beliefs or in providing a medium for rhetorical manipula-
tion and threats in international forums.³⁸ But the question is: How do we
identify and defend any proposal about the appropriate procedures and goals
of global public reasoning? Should we do it without appealing to substantive
ideas of the kind advocated by humanism?
I believe that the answer is No. As we saw above, international debate on
human rights is shot through with substantive general moral claims about the
status of individuals in their social relations, claims that cannot be reduced to
any current institutional framework because they are meant to ground the
assessment of any such frameworks. Humanist concerns are already operative
within the international practice of discussion on human rights in a way that
seems, on reflection, correct. Such a discussion aims (at least in the view of
some participants) not only at the amelioration of current institutional struc-
tures, but also at their progressive change. Our dignity as agents with “reason
and conscience” and our duty to act in a “spirit of brotherhood” shape the
moral motives for joining international discussions about what specific human
rights we should acknowledge and how we should implement them. We care
about having a form of non-strategic, respectful, and consensus-searching
discussion because (inter alia) we recognize that the dignity of others is
incompatible with imposing on them institutions they could not autonomously

³⁷ “Minimalism About Human Rights,” 192. The bracketing is only a prima facie recommen-
dation, and it concerns political debates, not deeper philosophical ones carried out in civil
society.
³⁸ Cohen, “Minimalism About Human Rights”; Kenneth Baynes, “Discourse Ethics and the
Political Conception of Human Rights,” Ethics & Global Politics 2 (2009), 1–21.
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44 Human Dignity and Human Rights

accept. For the same reason we also care about global public discussion being
inclusive, open to all relevant voices, comprising not only representatives of
governments, but also individuals and organizations of domestic and global
civil society.
We can see the very ideal of justificatory minimalism as grounded in a
combination of normative and empirical assumptions. The empirical assump-
tion is that the modern world displays a depth of cultural diversity such that it
is highly unlikely that public reasoning will yield converging results on
ultimate philosophical foundations. The normative assumption is that polit-
ical structures should track the reasoned consent of those they affect. A call for
robust, but still relatively “minimal” practices of public justification makes
sense precisely because our respect for the autonomy of others demands that
we justify our shared institutions on substantive moral premises they can
accept, while being mindful that we should not expect such justification to
yield convergence on even deeper moral premises that are just too contentious
for everyone to acknowledge (at least in the short term).³⁹
As we saw in section 2.2, humanist commitments can also shape the content
of the specific rights we come to recognize. It is true of many of the human
rights of the Declaration that they are, as Beitz puts it, “standards appropriate
to the institutions of modern or modernizing societies coexisting in a global
political economy in which human beings face a series of predictable threats”
and that “the composition of the list of human rights is explained by the nature
of these threats.”⁴⁰ But for us to recognize some threats as normatively relevant
for the generation of human rights claims, we need to assume that there are
certain morally important human interests that are affected by them. Now,
humanism operates as a module within global public reasoning, searching for
a shared understanding of what those interests and the abstract rights pro-
tecting them are. Thus, when we say that global public reasoning should seek
shared grounds for assessing domestic and international institutional struc-
tures, we also want to say that such assessment should consider how alterna-
tive feasible orderings of those structures affect certain important interests
which human beings typically have. Without this substantive layer of reason-

³⁹ It might be said that we need not ask about the normative point of the practice of public
reasoning because it is simply unavoidable given our modern institutional landscape, in which
institutions with pervasive impact on people’s lives cannot function without being deemed
legitimate by those subject to them. But this would be too weak. Legitimation might be secured
without open, critical, and cooperative public reasoning. And if this is unlikely, it might partly be
because we have normative reasons (and care about them) to seek a specific kind of legitimation
that does not circumvent our “reason and conscience.” In any case, regardless of whether public
reasoning is functionally unavoidable, we want to know whether it is morally desirable.
⁴⁰ WHRM, 44. See IHR, 58.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 45

ing, the content of global public debate would lose a significant guideline, and
much of its normative point.

2 . 4 . S EL F - D E T E R M I N A T I O N A N D DI V E R S I TY

Another motivation for adopting a political perspective on human rights is that

it is well equipped to recognize the importance of national self-determination
and the need to address cultural diversity. Where there are institutions that
incorporate forms of political self-determination, agents can identify the kinds
of rights whose implementation has priority given their historical circum-
stances, and decide in an autonomous fashion what specific implementations
to undertake. State sovereignty and diversity have always been important topics
in the debate on human rights. Even among the drafters of the Declaration
there were heated debates, with many participants worrying that human rights
discourse might be used to threaten the independence of nations and their
culture.⁴¹ It is undeniable that the humanist perspective imposes severe con-
straints on the sovereignty of states and on any argument grounded in refer-
ences to cultural traditions. But the political perspective would agree that one of
the points of human rights is precisely to set limits on what can be done in the
name of state sovereignty and cultural purity. So there really is not a serious
contrast between the political and the humanist views here.
But there might be an issue of emphasis. The humanist view does not take
the current organization of the world in terms of nation-states or peoples for
granted.⁴² What is crucial is that individuals are able to determine the shape of
the political processes that affect their basic interests, and that they select the

⁴¹ Glendon, A World Made New, ch. 12.

⁴² Here the contrast is particularly strong with Rawls’s account in The Law of Peoples, which
takes peoples rather than individuals as the ultimate units of international normative analysis,
and shortens the Declaration’s list of human rights to fit the preferences of certain cultural
frameworks. Among the Declaration’s rights missing in Rawls’s list are the rights to freedom of
expression, freedom of association (except for a circumscribed version of it required to enable
freedom of conscience and religious observance), and participation in democratic political
structures. Rawls also acknowledges only a meager set of socioeconomic rights focused on
subsistence. A humanist might accept that some claims should not be pushed through foreign
intervention. But they would not infer that they are not human rights, or that they should not be
among the central issues in global public reasoning. For a critical discussion of Rawls’s view, and
a powerful account of why a humanist view would do better, see Allen Buchanan, “Taking the
Human out of Human Rights,” in R. Martin and D. Reidy eds., Rawls’s Law of Peoples, 150–68;
and Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-determination, 158–76. Other political views are less restrictive.
Cohen takes individuals, not peoples, as the basic normative units, and sees global public reason
as treating human rights as “norms associated with an idea of membership or inclusion in an
organized political society,” leaving it open whether the relevant political society is national or
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46 Human Dignity and Human Rights

kind of implementation of human rights that is most appropriate given their
endorsement of their culture (or at any rate the aspects of it that do not
undermine human rights). Governments and states have largely a derivative
status. Whether we have reason to keep them as they are is largely a matter of
what they do for individuals and their fundamental rights.
Thus, the humanist approach is particularly helpful in providing us with the
critical distance we need toward political institutions and cultural frameworks.
With that critical distance, we can notice that there are both positive and
negative interactions between a humanist commitment to abstract rights and
the recommendation that we respect cultural diversity and institutions involv-
ing political self-determination. The positive interactions are mainly of three
types, all of which serve to show that the political and the humanist perspec-
tives can and should work in tandem. At an epistemic level, we must of course
notice that abstract rights can be given different articulations in different
cultural contexts, and that the presence of mechanisms of political empower-
ment helps the agents affected to identify their appropriate implementation
through specific rights, institutions, and policies. Such mechanisms would also
provide those agents with a way to decide which rights to prioritize when their
application is bound to conflict.⁴³ A second level of interaction is motivational.
The willingness to sustain institutions and policies implementing human
rights is strengthened when they are not imposed in a patronizing way but
are accountable to those they affect. Such motivation is also strengthened if
talk of universal human rights is linked to specific narratives concerning the
experiences of communities and groups. An elaboration of the trauma of the
Nazi years, and a revaluation of the Aufklärung tradition, provides Germans
with a particularly rich medium to cement allegiance to human rights. Some-
thing similar takes place in Latin America through a critical revision of the
complexities of the encounter between European colonialists and immigrants
and native-Americans, or through a reflection on the costs in terms of civil,
political, and social rights imposed by the military dictatorships in the 1970s
and 1980s. Finally, political self-determination and the ability to relate to one’s
cultural communities are directly valuable. The first gives further expression to
people’s autonomy, and the latter services people’s interest in developing
strong fraternal bonds with others.
In all these respects, the humanist and the political perspectives comple-
ment each other. In fact, they are important to keep each other in check. The
humanist approach runs the risk of relapsing into a foundationalist theory
with little capacity to guide political action in specific social contexts. And the

global (“Minimalism About Human Rights,” 197). Beitz also challenges Rawls’s “social liberal-
ism,” advocating instead a “cosmopolitan liberalism” that sees individuals rather than peoples as
basic. Beitz, “Social and Cosmopolitan Liberalism,” International Affairs 75 (1999), 515–29.
⁴³ See Sen, Development as Freedom, 31–3, 241–2.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 47

political approach runs the risk of taking too much for granted from the status
quo and of failing to make sense of the universalist moral aspirations that are
crucial to render the practice of human rights a progressive development in
modern politics. The political perspective’s emphasis on specific political
structures provides a way for humanism to avoid an “abstract universalism”
that misses that human rights are elaborated and pursued in different ways in
different contexts, and that it makes a moral, motivational and epistemic
(besides, obviously, a prudential) difference if such elaborations and pursuits
are undertaken by politically empowered agents. The humanist view, on the
other hand, helps keep a critical distance from any existing political and cultural
configuration, reminding us that their normative status is always dependent
upon their consistency with a general project of securing the conditions for a
dignified life for every individual. When current political and cultural frame-
works become fetters rather than enablers in the realization of this project
(when they engender domestic or international trampling with or indifference
for the basic interests of individuals), then humanism helps us to keep an
uncluttered sense of what the direction of political reform should be. Thus, it
is not surprising that human rights discourse has been a major influence in
proposals for limiting state sovereignty by strengthening sub-state and supra-
state institutions to increase the ability of those affected by states’ action to
defend their basic interests.⁴⁴ From the point of view of human rights, there is
nothing sacrosanct about the modern invention of nation-states. Where there is
a negative correlation between the promotion of basic human interests and state
sovereignty and cultural purity, the humanist view generates an appropriately
sharp sense of where the priorities lie.

2.5. CORRELATIVE DUTIES

To say that someone (a right-holder) has a right to have access to a certain

object O entails that other agents (the duty-bearers) have certain correlative
duties. These duties may be negative, such as the duty not to deprive the right-
holder of access to O. Or they may be positive, such as duties to provide the
right-holder with O, or protect the right-holder’s access to O from others’
interference. Negative duties are normally easy to articulate, as they mostly
impose obligations of forbearance. Positive duties, on the other hand, are
notoriously difficult. This is particularly the case with socioeconomic rights.
The Declaration mentions several (such as the rights to an adequate standard
of living, education, and work), but it is not very specific about who the

⁴⁴ David Held, Global Covenant (Cambridge: Polity, 2004).

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48 Human Dignity and Human Rights

duty-bearers are, and what actions they should take toward fulfilling the rights.
To some extent this vagueness is intentional and indeed appropriate. The
drafters wanted the Declaration to apply to diverse contexts, both in the
present and in the future, and to allow each country to have some room to
choose how best to implement the rights. For example, the quite general
nature of the formulation of socioeconomic rights was meant to allow for
different ways of articulating the relative contribution of market mechanisms,
state provision, and voluntary assistance that would be most likely to work
given different countries’ historical circumstances and traditions. Taking into
account the limits of resources faced by poor countries, the Declaration,
and even more clearly the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights, also construed obligations to fulfill socioeconomic rights as
being gradual and as involving international cooperation.⁴⁵ This led some
critics to say that these human rights are not real rights, but just desirable
goals. In response, some defenders have said that the goals are obligatory, and
that there are institutional mechanisms to tighten them in such a way that
specific targets, kinds of agents, and types of actions can be identified at
different stages in the process of gradual implementation.⁴⁶ I will explore in
later chapters how this process of tightening can be developed and justified.
Let us assume that this response to the critics is correct, that socioeconomic
rights can be construed as yielding, in addition to certain perfect duties, a set of
high-priority goals whose fulfillment may be gradual rather than complete and
immediate, and require the intervention of multiple agents. This response
would also defuse a motivation for a particularly narrow political view
according to which for a human right to exist there must be institutional
agents that have been assigned, and can discharge, perfect correlative duties to
fully and immediately fulfill the right. But I want to consider the possibility
of another challenge associated with a less narrow political construal. The
response to the challenge just mentioned appears to enable a new challenge to
a humanist view relying on a philosophical account of human rights as a
species of moral rights.⁴⁷ The new difficulty, as formulated by Beitz, is that
moral rights are normally assumed to ground perfect duties on the part of
specific individuals to undertake specific actions that immediately and com-
pletely fulfill the relevant claims. But it seems that this model is not, as we have
just seen, honored in the case of the socioeconomic human rights of the
Declaration and the Covenant. First, these documents mostly focus on duties
of institutions, and individuals’ responsibilities appear to be largely secondary

⁴⁵ See Preamble and Articles 22 and 28 of the Declaration and Articles 2.1, 11.2, 13.2, 14, and
23 of the Covenant.
⁴⁶ For a classical statement of the critique see Cranston, What Are Human Rights? For
accounts of how human rights and goals might relate, see Nickel, Making Sense of Human
Rights, 24–6, 81. I respond to Cranston in chapter 3.
⁴⁷ Beitz, HR, 631.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 49

(such as to support the appropriate institutions). Second, they are quite open
as to what specific institutions are to be involved and the extent to which their
actions will fulfill the rights at stake. Given this, a humanist understanding of
human rights as moral claims might give rise to doubts as to whether many
rights in the Declaration, such as the socioeconomic rights, really are rights.
No such skepticism would emerge from the broader political view, because it
does not assume that the rights of the international practice of human rights
need to fit any predetermined philosophical mold. These considerations may
provide a reason to avoid the humanist strictures and develop the political
perspective independently.
But the foregoing considerations do not provide such a reason. Four points
are important here. The first is to recall that humanism is not forced to reject
the institutional allocation of responsibilities. It does not assume that, at all
times, the immediate duty-bearers must be individuals. The core idea is that
individuals are the fundamental duty-bearers without necessarily being the
immediate ones. They have a collective duty to protect basic human interests
that is independent from any existing institutions, and would retain it in their
absence. Institutions are human creations one of whose roles should be to
discharge that duty. Once created, institutions may very well be the main
immediate duty-bearers.⁴⁸ If a government is much more likely to secure that
the people under its jurisdiction have access to food during a period of
economic crisis, why would we want to say that individuals should act on
their own instead? In this case, the hungry should make claims, primarily, on
the government. But this is not because the government is the fundamental
duty-bearer. Rather, it is because the government often provides the fairest
and most efficient device by means of which people can act to secure the
satisfaction of the right to subsistence of the hungry.
A second point concerns the nature of moral rights and duties. There is no
reason for the humanist to assume a moral theory according to which some-
thing is not a right unless it has only correlative duties that are perfect. Moral
rights can be construed as grounding different kinds of duties, some perfect
and some imperfect. Consider the moral right to life. This right certainly
grounds a perfect duty not to kill (assuming certain standard exceptions—
such as permitting killing in self-defense). But it also makes moral sense to say
that people should be rescued when facing life-threatening circumstances.
Everyone else has strong prima facie reason to act to help the one facing

⁴⁸ They are not the only immediate duty-bearers. If Harry is lying on the street and will die
unless emergency assistance is provided, Mary may not say that she is permitted not to give
Harry first aid before an ambulance arrives because it is only the duty of the official health care
system to assist people like Harry. It is not unreasonable to construe Mary’s obligation to help as
grounded on Harry’s human rights. Furthermore, since sometimes institutions work very badly
and help is needed urgently, people may have reason to act on their own without waiting for
institutions to intervene or to be appropriately reformed.
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50 Human Dignity and Human Rights

these circumstances if they can do so at reasonable cost to themselves. But
who, if any, in fact turns out to have a perfect duty to perform a rescue cannot
be determined in advance. We need to look at the situation, and see who can
act, and at what cost, to decide if there is a perfect duty that anyone has. But as
we go about determining this, we proceed on the assumption that the victim’s
condition of dire need creates strong reason for anyone able to act to seriously
consider doing so. This broader, imperfect duty is perfectly intelligible, in the
same way that the broad obligatory goals correlative to socioeconomic human
rights of people in developing nations are. There is some indeterminacy in the
identification of duty-bearers and acts fulfilling imperfect positive duties cor-
relative to most rights. But this indeterminacy occurs at all levels of normative
reasoning. So since we can reasonably conceive of both perfect and imperfect
duties as correlative to rights at the level of moral theory and at the level of
political theory, the challenge of mismatch between moral and political accounts
of human rights loses its ground.
A third, and related, point is that the moves from imperfect to perfect
duties, and from interpersonal to institutional mechanisms of assistance, are
not radically discontinuous. The humanist would naturally demand them.
Here again the political and the humanist approaches should, when properly
construed, work in tandem. Since, normally, institutional frameworks clearly
identifying duty-bearers with specific tasks to fulfill in specific ways the claims
of the right-bearers are more likely to yield efficient and fair provision, the
humanist will call for a political articulation of the relevant rights. As I argued
elsewhere, it is because all individuals have reason to have their needs met and
to be called to make no more than their fair share in assisting others that
institutions are appropriate devices for accomplishing the fulfillment of rights.
Thus, where those institutions are deficient or absent, individuals have a pro
tanto obligation to reform them or to create them; and when they exist and
work well, they have the obligation to sustain them. They articulate a division
of moral labor that expresses rather than substitutes the kinds of moral
considerations any set of individuals involved in social life would find reason-
able.⁴⁹ The political conception can accept this. It need not embrace a fetish-
ism of institutions according to which human rights exist only where and
because the institutions scheduling their fulfillment exist.
Finally, consider another positive contribution of the humanist perspective
regarding its practical implications in the allocation of responsibilities for the
fulfillment of human rights. It is common to say that the primary duty-bearer
when it comes to the protection of an individual’s human rights is the govern-
ment under which that individual lives. A government may fail, however, to
make the necessary provisions. In these circumstances, it is often said that other

⁴⁹ Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012), ch. 2.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 51

governments have “second level” responsibilities to challenge the first govern-
ment (when it chooses not to help even though it can) or assist it (when it
wants to but cannot provide what is demanded). Beitz endorses this picture in
his “two level” model of human rights responsibilities.⁵⁰
On a humanist perspective, this sequential picture of assignment of respon-
sibilities may be too weak. It may be more reasonable to say that all govern-
ments should work in tandem rather than in sequence in order to foster
conditions under which the human rights of all human beings are protected.
This point (to which I will return in chapter 3) has a strong humanist
rationale. Take into account the important, framing Article 28 of the Declar-
ation, which says that “[e]veryone is entitled to a social and international order
in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully
realized.” This article can be interpreted in different ways. A humanist
approach would be particularly sharp. If human rights are primarily claims
that every person can make on everyone else, then domestic and international
structures should be submitted to the critical test of whether they successfully
work to secure the human rights of every individual. If some forms of
international simultaneous action are speedier, or involve a more widespread
and even allocation of burdens of contribution, then there is no need to
assume that foreigners have only “second level” duties. Consider the case in
which there is great poverty in country A, there is great wealth in country B,
and the government of A can succeed at eradicating the severe poverty in
A but only at the cost of erasing the middle class in A and weakening A’s
bargaining power in its trade relations with B. In such circumstances, would it
not be fair that B step in by offering aid or by helping to organize trade so
that unequal bargaining power does not translate into diminished economic
opportunities for the weaker? This would not be a requirement if we held on to
the “two levels” picture, but it might be so if we think that institutions,
domestic and international, must be (inter alia) devices by which individuals
across the world, in a spirit of brotherhood or solidarity, attend to the human
rights of all.⁵¹
The point introduced in the previous paragraph has important conse-
quences for addressing the problem of painful tradeoffs triggered by scarcity
of some resources. The primary responsibility for the realization of human
rights is not only a matter of domestic responsibilities. Certain states and their
people may either hamper or enable the realization of human rights of people

⁵⁰ IHR, 109.
⁵¹ Similar considerations apply to rights that are less directly related to moral rights of all
against all—such as certain civil and political rights framing the relation between governments
and their citizens. As we saw in section 2.2, such rights can be seen as specifications of deeper,
general abstract rights. Given that, and a humanist commitment to universal solidarity, we can
couple agent-relative duties to improve the fulfillment of the rights of one’s fellow citizens with
agent-neutral duties to foster the rights of citizens in any political framework.
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52 Human Dignity and Human Rights

in other countries. The implementation of human rights in any single country
should not, then, be assessed in isolation from the relations a country has with
the others. An important consideration, then, concerns the shape of the
international order. Given the blocking and enabling powers that such an
order has, one should explore the proper ways of regulating it if one is serious
about implementing human rights in specific (especially in poor) countries.
This point is important in order to have a complete picture of what needs to
be in place for human rights to be realized in any country in the world,
including the proper treatment of the issue of the tradeoffs that some govern-
ments would have to make given scarcity of resources. Certain decisions to
pursue certain rights at the expense of others would in fact not be necessary if
international assistance existed, or harmful interference were lacking, ex ante
(rather than merely ex post as the sequential view criticized here assumes).
A striking example concerns the discussion over how to respond to the risk
of a swine flu pandemic that appeared to emerge in 2009. The UN Secretary
General, Ban Ki-moon, called for “global solidarity” in the allocation of
resources to respond to the crisis. This would mean, for example, that if
vaccines are created, they should be made available to everyone, not only to
wealthy countries that can pay high prices for them. Another worry here is
that wealthy countries pre-ordered significant stocks of a flu vaccine before
it was even produced, generating concerns about future global supplies.
Addressing this issue, Michele Childs of Médecins Sans Frontières said that
rich countries were “putting in place these agreements with vaccine manufac-
turers to basically jump the queue,” and that instead “what needs to be done is
all of the countries need to agree how [vaccines] will be equally shared, based
on need, so if one country has got a huge outbreak then they need to be getting
the vaccines first.”⁵² Now, if a solidaristic scheme securing universal access
were not in place, poor countries might have to devote enormous resources to
purchase the vaccines to save the lives of their people, or to respond to the
consequences of a massive outbreak of the pandemic if they have no vaccines,
and in the process abandon policies targeting the implementation of other
human rights. Greater global solidarity would make these painful decisions
unnecessary, and should then be pursued given that it would support the more
complete fulfillment of human rights in many countries.

⁵² “Cases of Swine Flu Near 10,000.” BBC News, 19 May 2009. Available at http://news.bbc.co.
uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8056808.stm. This paragraph and the preceding one draw on Pablo Gilabert,
“The Importance of Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of Human Rights:
A Response to James Nickel,” Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2010), 425–38.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 53

2. 6. FEASIBI L ITY

Let us consider the last reason for adopting the political construal of human
rights, which turns on considerations of feasibility. As I discuss in detail in
chapter 3, feasibility is significant for any normative conception, including one
centered on human rights. A normative conception must be such that it does
not only help us to criticize certain social frameworks by showing that they fall
short of ideal ones we could conceive. Besides being an evaluative exercise, a
normative conception should also be able to ground action-guiding prescrip-
tions to move from the criticized frameworks to better ones. But this it cannot
do without factoring in considerations of feasibility identifying the limits of
our abilities to change our circumstances. More specifically, a normative
conception of human rights must not only identify a set of putative rights
R such that (a) their realization is morally desirable. R must also be such that
(b) their realization is accessible from where we are now, and, once reached, be
stable. In addition, desirability and feasibility considerations should combine
to demand that (c) the process of reform leading to the realization of R be
achievable without imposing unreasonable costs on those affected by it.
Condition (c) depends on the more general point that the justification of
rights requires considerations of moral desirability and feasibility that are sensi-
tive to the interests of all the agents involved. When we justify a right, we should
not only consider the interests of the right-holder, but also those of the duty-
bearers. In general, to say that A has a right to O against B involves saying that it
is feasible and reasonable to demand from B that they respect and promote, in
some ways to be specified, A’s access to O. The specification of what B owes to
A regarding O tracks the moral importance of A’s interest in O, the feasible ways
for B to respect or promote A’s access to O, and the subset of such feasible forms
of respect and promotion that do not involve morally unacceptable burdens on
B (given the importance of B’s own interests) and on A (given the importance of
other interests of A besides that concerning access to O).
Now, the political perspective is particularly welcome because its focus on
specific economic, institutional, and cultural frameworks allows it to account
for (b) and (c) besides (a). In contrast, the humanist view might appear to be
insensitive to political context, and thus limited to the proposal of desirable
abstract goals without accounting for whether and how they are achievable at
reasonable cost to those affected.
However, even regarding the issue of feasibility a political perspective
should not be developed independently of a humanist one. First, recall that
human rights claims can be construed at different levels of generality. We can
distinguish between abstract rights, the rights of the Declaration, the rights as
specified in international treaties and covenants and in national constitutions,
and the claims that certain individuals may have against governments and
other organizations and individuals in certain circumstances. This list involves
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54 Human Dignity and Human Rights

decreasing generality as we move from abstract moral statements to their
specific articulation and implementation. Conditions (a) through (c) are
relevant to all levels, but the sensitivity to specific context advocated by the
political approach becomes increasingly acute as we move from the first to
the last three levels. However, there is no reason to avoid the humanist
perspective here, and there is reason to engage it. As we saw in section 2.5,
robust institutions would greatly enable the efficient and fair implementation
of human rights. Where they exist, many collective action problems can be
solved, and thus the implementation of human rights can be more fairly and
efficiently secured. And this is certainly an important motivation for adopting
a political perspective. But for the reasons already mentioned, humanism
properly construed would also recommend that we entertain the contextual
considerations that would allow us to envisage the best articulation and
implementation of abstract rights in specific historical circumstances. Import-
antly, it would also help frame that task. The accessibility and stability of a
human rights regime would be enhanced by mobilizing people’s humanist
reasons for having it. And the appraisal of transition costs would itself need to
consider such reasons.
Secondly, notice that human rights can not only be construed at different
levels of generality; they can also involve complexity at the temporal level.
Current cultural and institutional configurations may pose obstacles to the
implementation of human rights, but those obstacles might be removed in the
future. Thus, powerful countries have stood in the way of recognizing human
rights as enforceable. To this day, the United States has not ratified the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Poor coun-
tries are often unable to fully realize the rights of their people due to institu-
tional incapacity or lack of resources. And we are still a long way from securing
a robust culture of global solidarity and international institutions capable of
regularly coordinating and enforcing efforts to secure the human rights of all.
This may make the full realization of the rights of the Declaration inaccessible
in the short term. But in the long term these obstacles could be removed. We
should not trim the Declaration’s list of rights, for example, simply because we
cannot fully and immediately implement them at reasonable cost. As long as
their realization is compatible with general facts about human beings in social
life in modern times, we can keep them as guidelines for cultural and institu-
tional change. The practice of human rights is still politically underdeveloped.
It is, as Beitz helpfully puts it, an “emerging practice.”⁵³ And here no doubt the
political and the humanist views should work in tandem to develop that
practice. But it is important to warn against taking current contextual config-
urations as indefinitely fixed when they are the very object of critical appraisal

⁵³ IHR, 42–4. See p. 121 on historical expansions of feasibility sets.

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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 55

and the target of historical reform. There is a real danger of holding as constant
what should be seen as variable. For example, in the age of globalization, an
exclusive focus on states as agents of global justice may be too narrow. Our
ongoing search for a deliberative reflective equilibrium may well lead us beyond
it. This is not only because, as a matter of fact, states are losing capacity of
action under the impact of global structural mechanisms resisting their control.
It is also because, as a normative matter, the generation of non-state and supra-
state agencies might prove desirable to foster the protection of human rights.
The humanist perspective is distinctively helpful to cement this point, by
affording us the kind of critical distance from the status quo that is indispens-
able for thinking about how to push the limits of the politically feasible in
historical time.⁵⁴
To conclude, the fact that some rights cannot be completely and immediately
fulfilled in the present should not motivate despair. Instead, current cultural and
institutional obstacles should motivate us to see that rights function at different
levels of generality, so that certain categories of rights may be implemented in
different ways and to different extents in different contexts. Furthermore, we
should acknowledge dynamic duties to create cultural and institutional condi-
tions enabling the further realization of rights that is not at present feasible.⁵⁵
These two points can be accepted by a political construal as long as it does not
prematurely lower its normative standpoint to fit passing contingent features of
the status quo. The humanist stance provides a constant and necessary correct-
ive against any such normative adaptation by helping us to keep an eye on what
human beings as such need and can aim at to secure a dignified life.

2.7. CONCLUSION

Let me step back and outline the main contours of the debate between the
humanist and the political perspectives, and of the synthesis between

⁵⁴ Thus, we can, with Rawls, see a conception of human rights as a “realistic utopia” whose
demands are both desirable and feasible, and notice that the limits of the “practicably possible”
are not easy to grasp because they “are not given by the actual, for we can to a greater or lesser
extent change political and social institutions and much else” (The Law of Peoples, 5–7, 12). We
can, however, argue that Rawls’s own account of human rights fails to sufficiently probe the
extent to which we can indeed change our contemporary institutions and the culture underpin-
ning them. We may also reconsider Beitz’s recommendation of a state-centric view of human
rights practice, warning caution regarding the suggestion that we “take certain basic facts about
the world’s political structure as fixed and consider the purpose of a practice of human rights
within this structure” (IHR, 128). It is not just that some of our normative aims may have to
change when some facts change. We may also have to change some facts to fit our existing sound
normative aims.
⁵⁵ See chapter 3.
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56 Human Dignity and Human Rights

them proposed in this chapter. Here is a summary statement of the two
perspectives:⁵⁶
Political Perspective: Human rights are claims that individuals have
against certain institutional structures, in particular modern states, in virtue
of interests they have in contexts that include them. They normally warrant
international support.
Humanist Perspective: Human rights are claims that individuals have
against all other individuals in virtue of interests characteristic of their
common humanity.
Defenders of these perspectives might account for human rights in different
ways. For example, some defenders of the humanist perspective focus on
identifying general human entitlements, and see any institutional articulation
of those entitlements in some context as contingent rather than as constitutive
of the concept of human rights.⁵⁷ Human rights are primarily moral claims
that humans have independently of any role in specific associations. They are
grounded in the common humanity of all persons, and their justification can
proceed by means of ordinary moral reasoning. Humanists criticize the
political perspective for losing sight of these points. Defenders of the political
perspective, for their part, see human rights as mandating constraints and
goals for state institutions, and as warranting international action to support
their fulfillment.⁵⁸ They in turn criticize the humanist approach for failing to
address worries about the parochialism of the moral conceptions they rely on,
or for not showing fidelity to the specific human rights practices and institu-
tions that emerged after 1945.⁵⁹ Finally, some challenge humanists by saying
that they cannot consistently account for rights such as the rights to impartial
trial, to take part in the government of one’s country, and to access free
elementary education, as these rights only hold for certain specific modern
institutional contexts.⁶⁰
I have argued that we have reason to search for a synthetic articulation of
the two perspectives. In fact, both seek to be faithful to valuable aspects of
current human rights practice and develop a broadly shareable (rather than
parochial) framework for normative reasoning within it, but they concentrate

⁵⁶ The section draws on Pablo Gilabert, “The Capability Approach and the Debate Between
Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights. A Critical Survey,” 301–5.
⁵⁷ John Tasioulas, “Towards a Philosophy of Human Rights,” Current Legal Problems 65
(2012), 1–30, at 18.
⁵⁸ Joseph Raz, “Human Rights without Foundations,” in S. Besson and J. Tasioulas, eds., The
Philosophy of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010), 321–37, at 334–5.
⁵⁹ These charges are discussed in John Tasioulas, “Taking Rights out of Human Rights,”
Ethics 120 (2010), 647–78, at 652, 654.
⁶⁰ See Articles 10, 21 and 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Beitz, WHRM, 41;
IHR, 55.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 57

on capturing different important features of it. The political perspective
captures the point that human rights should (at least in some social contexts)
have some institutional embodiment. The humanist perspective captures a
characteristic feature of human rights as human entitlements, and concen-
trates on unearthing the general moral basis and content of them (their
underlying human interests and values). We should recognize both features
of the human rights practice: this practice is geared to framing the domestic
and global institutional landscape of contemporary social life, and is based on
general human interests and values. We should seek to articulate the project of
human rights in a capacious way that captures both points.⁶¹

⁶¹ My characterization of the two perspectives identifies their most basic and general points.
But, of course, there are different specific developments of them. Regarding the political
approach, different versions arise from different views of the relevant functions of human rights.
Some see human rights as conditions on states’ sovereignty, as triggers for international
“intervention.” See John Rawls, The Law of Peoples; Raz, “Human Rights without Foundations.”
Others see human rights more broadly as grounds for “international concern.” See Beitz,
IHR. The details about what forms of international action are warranted vary accordingly.
E.g., since his aim is to articulate the sui generis international practice of human rights rather
than to justify the foreign policy of a liberal state, Beitz’s view does not yield a severely truncated
list of human rights as Rawls’s does. Furthermore, not all who embrace a political view accept
that human rights should be characterized as a subset of universal moral rights. Some stress other
functions besides the triggering of international action. E.g., some see human rights as bench-
marks for the legitimacy of states. See Bernard Williams, In the Beginning was the Deed
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005). Different articulations emphasize different
aspects of political practice. E.g., Joshua Cohen emphasizes the ideas of membership of a political
community and global public reasoning, whereas Beitz thinks that such ideas are not central. The
humanist perspective can also be developed in different ways. Human rights can be justified by
reference to the preconditions of human agency (which in turn can be construed in various ways).
See Carol Gould, Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004); James Griffin, On Human Rights; William Talbott, Which Human Rights should be
Universal? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Talbott, Human Rights and Human
Well-Being (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Or they can be based on a more pluralist
view that draws on various interests, freedoms, or capabilities, some of which are not usefully
reduced to constituents of or contributors to preconditions of agency. See Martha Nussbaum
Creating Capabilities; James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights; Brian Orend, Human Rights:
Concept and Context (Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2002); John Tasioulas, “Human Rights,
Universality, and the Values of Personhood: Retracing Griffin’s Steps,” European Journal of
Philosophy 10 (2002), 79–100. Justifications might invoke interests of humans across history.
See Talbott, Which Rights Should Be Universal? Or they may focus, more modestly, on modern
times. E.g., in apparent contrast with the view presented in “Toward a Philosophy of Human
Rights” (p. 18) in an earlier text, Tasioulas presents the more circumscribed view that “human
rights are those possessed in virtue of being human and inhabiting a social world that is subject to
the conditions of modernity.” See Tasioulas, “The Moral Reality of Human Rights,” in T. Pogge,
ed., Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 75–101, at
76–7. Furthermore, the proposed justification of human rights might be broadly consequentialist
(Talbott), broadly deontological (Nickel), or teleological (Griffin). Finally, ideas of freedom and
autonomy can be seen as having distinctive significance for the content and justification of human
rights or as one aspect of a more fundamental and encompassing category of well-being. See
Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-determination. More recently, Allen Buchanan posed a
sweeping challenge to most contenders in the debate, arguing that they assume a mistaken
“mirroring view” according to which there is a one-to-one correlation between moral and legal
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58 Human Dignity and Human Rights

I have introduced a distinction between abstract and specific rights, noting
that the humanist perspective concentrates on the former and the political
perspective concentrates on the latter, and that we should draw on both to get
a full normative understanding of human rights.⁶² We can use this distinction
to simultaneously capture the two features of human rights practice men-
tioned in the previous paragraph, and thus to develop the desired synthesis
between the two perspectives on human rights.
The political perspective is correct that institutional embodiment is crucial
for contemporary human rights practice. This practice has developed with an
explicit, and valuable goal of shaping modern institutions (in particular, states
and international organizations⁶³). Although most defenders of the humanist
perspective do not deny that institutions are important for the pursuit of
human rights, they sometimes take institutional embodiment as not essential
for human rights. I think that a stronger recognition of the importance of
institutions is necessary to make good normative sense of human rights
practice in the contemporary world. To seriously protect general human
interests, we should pay attention to the specific forms they take in specific
contexts. We should consider both the institutional and the interpersonal
threats they face. When certain institutions are necessary for the protection
of those interests in a certain context, we should recognize specific rights (and
correlative duties) in that context that mention them. A concern for the actual
fulfillment of abstract rights requires the identification of specific rights, some
of which will normally have institutional dimensions. Although no specific

human rights. Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Pres, 2013). For
a response to Buchanan’s challenge, see John Tasioulas, “Exiting the Hall of Mirrors: Morality and
Law in Human Rights” (February 10, 2017). King’s College London Law School Research Paper
No. 2017–19. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2915307.
⁶² See also section 5.3.3 of chapter 5, and Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, chs. 4–5
(where Nickel presents a different, but I think congenial, account of abstract and specific claims).
Specific human rights in the contemporary world are urgent claims that people have against their
own government and fellow citizens and against international organizations, foreign govern-
ments, and foreign citizens. Abstract rights are general claims based in extremely important
interests shared by all (or most) human beings, and whose protection involves responsibilities for
anyone who can affect their fulfillment. As I noted in chapter 1, section 1.3, we could, more
carefully, identify a spectrum going from more to less abstract rights. I gave these examples: (1)
fairly abstract rights that hold in any (or most) social context(s); (2) the rights mentioned in the
Universal Declaration; (3) the rights identified in international covenants, conventions, and
treaties; (4) the rights stated in national constitutions; (5) the specific rights as construed by
governments’ laws and policies; and (6) individuals’ claims in various situations (as addressed,
e.g., by courts’ rulings or interpersonal judgments). This sequence can itself proved too sche-
matic. Thus, some rights mentioned in the Declaration (such as the right to life in Art. 1) should
be listed in (1). The main point, however, should be clear, and it is that rights differ in levels of
abstraction in ways that are significant for their understanding and justification.
⁶³ However, I do not take this to imply that every human right must be an institutional claim,
or that the relevant institutions must only be those that already exist. There are human rights
claims at the interpersonal level, and the modern system of states is not the only conceivable
institutional embodiment of human rights.
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Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights 59

institution is essential for human rights as such, consideration of institutions
when they are crucial for the identification and fulfillment of specific human
rights certainly is. This consideration is clearly crucial in contemporary
contexts.
On the other hand, we also have reason to appeal to abstract rights, and thus
mobilize the insights of the humanist perspective. First, reference to general
human values helps us understand key elements of current practice. Just
consider the Preamble and Articles 1 and 2 of the Universal Declaration,
which include universal ideas of “brotherhood,” “reason,” “conscience,” “free-
dom,” “equality” regardless of nationality, class, gender, and other “status,”
and (importantly for this book’s project) the “inherent dignity” of persons. As
pointed out in section 2.3, these intuitively attractive ideas give a humanist
rationale to the whole Declaration.
Second, reference to abstract rights helps explain why some institutions and
some treatments of people by them are morally justifiable. To justify certain
specific institutions as securing human rights, we need to identify human
interests and values and consider whether and how the institutions would
affect their support. To avoid circularity (or conventionalism) we cannot take
for granted the specific institutions we are trying to assess. A deeper and more
general layer of moral reasoning must be uncovered. Importantly, this applies
to three examples mentioned above (see five paragraphs back): the values of
fair treatment in criminal trial and punishment, development of cognitive
powers, and self-determination in collective decision-making are arguably
quite general and relevant for explaining the specific rights listed. Any social
context is likely to include mechanisms of trial and punishment, education,
and collective decision-making, and the specific organization of these practices
should track the important general values mentioned and frame them in
specific ways appropriate to the challenges and possibilities of the contexts
addressed.
Finally, by considering the extent to which certain institutions involve a
reasonable and feasible specific articulation of abstract rights, we can make
normative comparative judgments, both backward-looking and forward-
looking. We are historical agents for whom these questions are practically
relevant: (a) Do our modern institutions involve progress when compared to
earlier ones, or should we restore the latter if we can? (b) Even if our modern
institutions involve progress when compared to previous ones, might there
still be fundamental changes we should try to make if we can? Question (a) has
always been salient in advocacy for universal rights. It was present in the
European and American revolutionary cycle starting in the late eighteenth
century, in the development of the international human rights institutional
framework following World War II, and during the emergence of democratic
regimes following military dictatorships in Latin America in the 1980s. Ques-
tion (b) is becoming salient in the current process of deepening globalization,
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60 Human Dignity and Human Rights

as the framework of nation-states (assumed as parametric by most defenders
of the political perspective) is revealing itself as insufficiently equipped with
effective problem-solving institutions. Our current international institutional
landscape is undergoing dramatic change and displays many open possibilities
we must choose from. Abstract rights provide us with a moral compass we can
use to choose between alternative feasible institutional designs for the future.
This is not the only conceivable compass, but it is one that springs naturally
from the idea of human rights.
In sum, the distinction between abstract and specific rights helps us develop
a view of human rights that absorbs the good intuitions in the humanist and
political perspectives and moves beyond a dilemmatic construal of them. We
can thus articulate a more appealing view of the normative structure of human
rights practice, which includes the following points:
(i) Current human rights practice involves appeal to both kinds of rights.
(ii) There is no necessary conflict between the fundamental insights of
humanist and political perspectives because they focus on different
kinds of rights (the former on abstract rights and the latter on specific
rights).
(iii) There is no radical discontinuity between abstract and specific rights.
The humanist perspective need not involve an atomistic picture of
human nature. It can formulate abstract rights assuming quite general
features of human beings in their social life, and welcome (and indeed
help explain the need for) institutional elaborations appropriate for
different contexts.
(iv) Finally, abstract rights are not trivial. In fact, they contribute to the
selection of the specific rights that the political perspective says we
should account for (as I illustrated above in the case of rights to
impartial trial and free elementary education, and to take part in the
government of one’s country).
The dignitarian framework offered in Parts II and III of this book will
develop these points. But before proceeding with that constructive account,
I will address, in chapters 3 and 4, two other preliminary debates that also call
for attention to key features of the effective political practice of human rights.
They concern the significance of feasibility and power.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights

3.1. INTRODUCTION

To be justifiable, the demands of a conception of human rights must be such

that (a) they focus on the protection of extremely important human interests;
and (b) their fulfillment is feasible. This chapter provides a discussion of (b),
the Feasibility Condition. I will focus on basic socioeconomic rights. The latter
include access to food, clothing, housing, basic medical care, and basic educa-
tion. It is hard to deny that these rights, which allow people to avoid severe
poverty, are associated with extremely important human interests whose satis-
faction, or real opportunity for satisfaction, are conditions for living a basically
good or decent life. There is, however, some skepticism as to whether these
rights meet the Feasibility Condition. They thus provide a good case for
exploring how to understand the content and fulfillment of that condition.
The Feasibility Condition is animated by the common principle that
“ought” implies “can.” The idea is familiar. Rights imply obligations. If
I have a right to a certain object O, then I have a claim against others that
they take very seriously my interest in O (for example, by not depriving me of
access to O, or by assisting me in gaining access to O). Obligations, however,
are conditional upon the ability of duty-bearers to fulfill them. You cannot
have a duty to do what you cannot do. Since rights imply obligations and
obligations imply feasibility of compliance, infeasibility of compliance with
certain obligations implies the absence of such obligations and the absence of
their correlative rights.
A standard challenge to socioeconomic human rights is that they fail to
satisfy the Feasibility Condition. Maurice Cranston provides a representative
formulation of this challenge. Cranston contrasts socioeconomic rights with
civil and political rights. The latter are clearly feasible, as they demand only that
we refrain from harming others. The former, on the other hand, demand that
we provide others with certain goods. This provision is costly, and indeed not
possible in many poor countries. Since we will return to it often, it is a good idea
to cite a central passage from Cranston’s article:
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62 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Rights bear a clear relationship to duties. And the first test of both is that of
practicability. It is not my duty to do what is physically impossible for me to do.
You cannot reasonably say it was my duty to have jumped into the Thames at
Richmond to rescue a drowning child if I was nowhere near Richmond at the
time the child was drowning. What is true of duties is equally true of rights. If it is
impossible for a thing to be done, it is absurd to claim it as a right. At present it is
utterly impossible, and will be for a long time yet, to provide ‘holidays with pay’
for everybody in the world. For millions of people who live in those parts of Asia,
Africa, and South America where industrialization has hardly begun, such claims
remain vain and idle.
The traditional “political and civil rights” can . . . be readily secured by legisla-
tion: and generally they can be secured by fairly simple legislation. Since those
rights are for the most part rights against government interference with a man’s
activities, a large part of the legislation needed has to do no more than restrain the
government’s own executive arm. This is no longer the case when we turn to “the
right to work,” “the right to social security,” and so forth. For a government to
provide social security it needs to do more than make laws; it has to have access
to great capital wealth, and many governments in the world today are still poor.
The government of India, for example, simply cannot command the resources
that would guarantee each one of the 480 million inhabitants of India “a standard
of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family,” let
alone “holidays with pay.”¹
Cranston’s contrast between civil and political rights and socioeconomic
rights is misleading in many ways. As Henry Shue has shown, civil and
political rights can be quite costly too, as they involve protection besides
non-interference (think about the costs of maintaining an effective system of
criminal law).² Amartya Sen has recently suggested that another serious
problem with Cranston’s challenge is that it construes the Feasibility Condi-
tion too strongly. According to Sen, immediate and complete realizability is
not a condition for the cogency of a right. Even if we are currently unable to
fully realize a certain right, if we are able to partially fulfill it, or if we are able to
introduce political reforms expanding the extent of its possible fulfillment,
then it does make perfect sense to say that the right exists. The Feasibility
Condition should then be construed as demanding “social influenceability,”
not complete and immediate realizability.³
I find Sen’s way of construing the Feasibility Condition attractive. Sen does
not, however, provide a sustained account of what “feasibility” and “social
influenceability” mean, or should mean, in the context of human rights. It is

¹ Maurice Cranston, “Human Rights, Real and Supposed,” in P. Hayden, ed., The Philosophy
of Human Rights (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2001), 163–73, at 69–70.
² Henry Shue, Basic Rights, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), ch. 2.
³ Amartya Sen, “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 32
(2004), 315–56.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 63

not clear how influenceable, and in what ways, an interest or a freedom must
be for it to qualify as the basis of a human right. In fact, the notion of feasibility
has received little attention in philosophical texts about social justice and
human rights. The objective of this chapter is to take some steps toward filling
this gap. Taking my cue from Sen’s insightful discussion, I will provide a more
detailed account of why feasibility constraints should indeed be seen as flexible
and dynamic. I begin by presenting, in section 3.2, some general introductory
considerations on the relation between the notions of moral desirability,
feasibility, and obligation in a conception of justice (which also apply to
human rights). In section 3.3, I provide an analysis of the notion of feasibility.
This idea is in fact quite complex, including different types, domains, and
degrees. The same is the case with the obligations associated with human
rights norms, and in sections 3.4 and 3.5 I discuss several ways in which we
may have reason to respond to alleged circumstances of infeasibility regarding
the fulfillment of basic socioeconomic human rights.
I emphasize that what follows is a conceptual exploration. My objective is to
examine the notion of feasibility within the domain of basic socioeconomic
human rights. I consider the results tentative. Some exploration of this sort is,
however, of great importance given that the notion of feasibility remains
widely used but hardly clarified. Furthermore, as I hope to show, what views
we have about what infeasibility is and how we should respond to it will
necessarily have serious implications for the theory and practice of human rights.

3 . 2 . D E S I R A B I L I T Y , F E A S I BI L I T Y , AN D O B L I G A T I O N

Is feasibility a necessary condition for a conception of social justice to be

acceptable? This would be so if the principles of a theory of social justice were
“ought”-statements imposing duties on the agents to which they apply. We
need, however, to clarify how “ought”-statements and feasibility consider-
ations relate to each other within a conception of justice (1), and to make sure
that we do not conflate considerations of moral desirability and considerations
of feasibility (2).
(1) Is “feasible” part of the meaning of “just”? Suppose that you compare three
societies, S1, S2, and S3, and that your standard of justice is that there ought to
be equal distribution of a certain advantage F. (Assume, for simplicity’s sake,
that no other standard of justice is relevant.) Now, suppose that the distribution
of F in S3 is more egalitarian than in S2, and that the distribution of F is more
egalitarian in S2 than in S1. From this it would follow that S1 is less just than S2
and that S2 is less just than S3. Now suppose that S3 is infeasible and that S1 and
S2 are feasible. Does this mean that S3 is not just? This conclusion would be
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64 Human Dignity and Human Rights

awkward. Thus, in a sense, “feasible” is not part of the meaning of “just.” You
can, however, conclude that you ought to help establish S2, while you do not
have a duty to help establish S3. How can we make sense of this situation? How
is it possible that you have a duty to pursue an option that is less just than
another? Surely you should pursue the option that is more just? Two points are
necessary to clarify this problem.
The first is that we must distinguish between different senses of “ought.”⁴
An important distinction is between cases of “ought” which directly affect
practical deliberation, yielding obligations, and cases of “ought” which do not.
One can interpret the claim that “everyone ought to have enough to eat” as
linked to a set of duties on the part of a set of agents to see to it that everyone
has enough to eat. Or alternatively one can interpret it as saying simply that a
world in which everyone has enough to eat would, in a certain respect, be a just
world. We can call the first “ought” “the ‘ought’ of obligation,” and the second
“the ‘ought’ of moral desirability.” The dictum “ought” implies “can” applies
to the first interpretation of “ought,” not to the second. Since discussions about
social justice invoke “ought”-claims of the two kinds, it is important to make
sure that we know which one we are dealing with when we apply the
Feasibility Condition.
A second, related point concerns the distinction between “less justice” and
“injustice.” The judgment that the presence of S2 would be an injustice does
not follow from the judgment that S2 is less just than S3. For S2 to involve
injustice, it must be the case that S3 is feasible, which by hypothesis is not the
case. For there to be injustice, people must be not treating one another in
certain ways they could, or treating one another in ways they could avoid. If S2
is feasible but S3 is not, then there is no injustice, even if there is less justice.
Judgments of injustice track the “ought” of obligation. It is, then, important to
distinguish between comparative judgments about justice and claims about
injustice. The conceptual difference is that claims about injustice link to
obligatory actions directly, presupposing feasibility. Claims of comparative
justice can link to obligation but only hypothetically. To say that S3 is more
just than S2 can lead to the claim that one has an obligation to help establish
S3 only if one could do so.
To conclude, we can put the points made here by distinguishing between
something being morally desirable, feasible, and obligatory. For something to
be obligatory, it has to be morally desirable (that is, service some moral value,
such as, for example, equal access to advantages). But it must also be feasible. If
you cannot do something, it seems absurd to say that you ought to do it. The
question whether you ought to do A seems to appropriately arise only when

⁴ For an excellent analysis of “ought,” see Ralph Wedgwood, “The Meaning of ‘Ought’,” in
R. Shafer-Landau, ed., Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2006), 127–60. I focus here on moral forms of “ought.” Wedgwood’s analysis is broader.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 65

doing A is practically available to you (that is, it is feasible for you).⁵ It is, then,
perfectly possible for A to be more morally desirable than B and for you to
have no obligation to do A as opposed to B.⁶
Does this mean that deliberations about social justice should avoid com-
parative judgments of moral desirability? It does not. Comparative judgments
can have an orientating function. Knowing that S3 is more just than S2 is
important because even though we cannot secure S3 now, in the future we
might be able to. Furthermore, comparative judgments obviously help us to
select among feasible options (for example, to explain why we should go for S2
rather than S1).
(2) A conception of justice, if it is in the business of identifying obligatory
social action, must be sensitive to what is feasible. But it is also important that
we do not conflate considerations of feasibility with considerations of moral
desirability.
This conflation is not uncommon. An example occurs in a paper on socio-
economic rights by James Griffin, which includes a powerful discussion of the
consequences of the principle that “ought” implies “can.” Griffin convincingly
argues, against Cranston, that limitations of economic resources cannot be
invoked to say that there are no correlative obligations, but only to say that
they may not be as extensive as initially thought. He goes on to argue that there
are some cases in which the principle does impose strong limits on welfare
rights: “One cannot, in the relevant sense of obligation, meet a demand if the
demand is beyond the capacity of the sort of people that on other especially
important grounds one would want there to be.”⁷ People as we want them to
be would have deep commitments (for example, through ties of love and
affection), and as such they cannot comply with demands that impose serious
limitations on the fulfillment of those commitments. I think that Griffin is
right to say that a sensible discussion of obligations to promote socioeconomic
rights must include a consideration of other important moral considerations,
including people’s deep commitments. It is a mistake, however, to see this as
being, primarily, an issue of what people “can” do. If X cannot do A without
failing to honor certain deep commitments, then the conclusion is not really
that X cannot do A, but (if the moral weight of the prerogative to pursue one’s
deep commitments is sufficiently strong in the relevant circumstances) that it
is not morally desirable to demand that X should do A.
We must then distinguish between what is infeasible for people to do and
what is not morally desirable to demand from them. A conception of justice

⁵ See on this R. M. Hare, Freedom and Reason (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963), ch. 4.
⁶ We can put this more formally. Let “p” stand for “X does A,” “Op” for “it is obligatory that
p,” “Dp” for “it is morally desirable that p,” and “Fp” for “it is feasible that p.” The following are
consistent claims: Op implies Fp; not-Fp implies not-Op; Dp; not-Fp; not-Op. The general point
here is that Op implies Dp and Fp.
⁷ James Griffin, “Welfare Rights,” The Journal of Ethics 4 (2000), 27–43, at 36.
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66 Human Dignity and Human Rights

should identify points of intersection between moral desirability and feasibility
without confusing them. The distinction is important because there are two
quite different ways in which an “ought”-statement involving an obligation
might fail. Imagine that you are told that (a) you have a duty to prevent every
crime in your city. This is something you cannot do. But it is something you
might consider doing if you could. The failure of the duty-statements is here
one of feasibility, which must be distinguished from a failure of moral desir-
ability. If someone told you that (b) you ought to kill everyone in your city that
you intensely dislike, you could perhaps succeed at doing it. But you would not
seriously consider doing it. Similarly with principles of justice stating rights
and correlative duties: we must make sure, when we assess them, that we
distinguish between failures of feasibility and failures of moral desirability.
This distinction will prove important when we consider dynamic responses to
cases of infeasibility. A failure of feasibility which is not also a failure of moral
desirability may reasonably ground, as a response, an attempt to expand
agents’ feasible set. This would not happen when the failure is, as in (b), one
of moral desirability. Thus, the element of moral desirability captured by (a)
would ground, for example, your support for institutional reforms improving
security and criminal justice in your city.

3.3. KINDS OF F EASIBILITY

The notion of feasibility is quite complex. We can, in fact, distinguish between

different types (1), domains (2), and degrees (3). These distinctions have significant
consequences for our treatment of the Feasibility Condition for human rights.
(1) Types. Let us start by considering different types of feasibility. What could
it mean that the demands of an alleged human right are infeasible? In the
passage from Cranston cited above, something to notice about it is the
ambiguous use of the notion of “practicability.” The “physical impossibility”
in the Thames rescuer example is certainly different from the (alleged) eco-
nomic impossibility in the example about India. What kinds of possibility
should be really targeted by the Feasibility Condition?
We can distinguish between minimal and expansive accounts of feasibility.
Minimal accounts focus on logical or physical possibility. The fulfillment of a
right is feasible, in this sense, if a state of the world in which the correlative
duties are honored is not logically or physically impossible. This constraint is
obviously reasonable. The problem is whether we want to construe the
Feasibility Condition as also imposing other constraints. Candidates that
spring to mind immediately are economic, political, and cultural feasibility.
Should the Feasibility Condition include these too?
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 67

Two intuitions seem to clash here. The first, motivating a more expansive
account of feasibility, is that we should avoid impotent voluntarism. We can
find innumerable historical examples of pursuits of highly desirable social
schemes that failed even when they were logically, physically, and biologically
attainable. Anarchism might be a case. International arrangements not backed
by legal and economic sanctions and incentives might be another. Political
wisdom seems to require, then, that we pay attention to economic, political,
and cultural parameters. The second intuition pulls in the opposite direction,
suggesting that we should avoid capitulation in the face of seemingly insur-
mountable obstacles that could be removed through lucid political reform. We
also have historical examples showing that what seemed economically, polit-
ically, or culturally impossible turned out to be perfectly workable. Successful
revolutions are an obvious example. Processes of deep reform such as the
creation of welfare states in industrialized societies are another. More gener-
ally, there is a difference between something being hard, and something being
impossible to do. Duties sometimes impose demands that are difficult to fulfill,
but this is not a ground for deeming such a fulfillment impossible.⁸
Can we accommodate both intuitions? Yes. The incorporation of economic
concerns about available resources is obviously important. We must, however,
avoid a narrow view of where the relevant resources need to come from. In
Cranston’s passage, it is simply assumed that the resources for addressing
poverty in a country should only come from that country. This is rightly not
the view held by most human rights activists, and may be in tension with
standard human rights documents. I will return to this issue below. What
I shall do now is consider how the relevance of political and cultural param-
eters can be accounted for. We can, I think, do three things.
The first is to recognize the significant impact of political and cultural
parameters. Sen’s work is helpful to understand why. If we want to secure
human rights, then our target must be the real opportunity for people to access
the objects of those rights. The notion of “capability,” central to Sen’s frame-
work, refers to what is “feasible” for people to achieve, what they are “sub-
stantively free” to do or be.⁹ Promoting socioeconomic rights may require
attention to specific parameters that affect the capabilities of people. We
should, for example, notice that a focus on resources (such as income and
wealth) is not sufficient for securing capability with respect to the avoidance of
poverty. This is because people differ in significant ways from each other.¹⁰

⁸ This is emphasized by Kantians, who read the dictum “ought” implies “can” as highlighting
agents’ freedom to fulfill their duty. See Marcia Baron, Kantian Ethics almost without Apology
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 44–5.
⁹ Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 75.
¹⁰ A central point in Sen’s critique of resources-based conceptions of justice is that they
overlook the “conversion problem” (the fact that individuals with equal resources may
have significantly unequal economic prospects—abilities to convert resources into valuable
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68 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Some differences are biological (think about congenital disability or age).
Other differences are cultural. What people need to secure self-respect, and
to “appear in public without shame,” varies in different cultural environments.
Political parameters are also significant. In the absence of public scrutiny and
democratic accountability, rulers tend to fail to attend to the interests of their
subjects. As Sen often notes, famines do not occur in democracies, and an
increase in political freedom normally leads to an increase in social and
economic opportunity.
The second thing we can do is to distinguish between strict impossibility
and improbability. The talk of impossibility may sometimes be too strong.
When we say that institutional design aimed at equal resources is not appro-
priate for securing equal capability, we do not want to say that it would be
strictly impossible for equal capability to arise in a context where there is equal
resource distribution. Perhaps those who need more than an equal share could
get it, through voluntary transfers, from those who need fewer resources to
achieve equivalent levels of capability. When we say that political empower-
ment is very important, we do not want to say that it would be strictly
impossible, in its absence, for rulers to cater to their subjects’ fundamental
interests. Some “enlightened despots” might exist who will not let their
politically powerless subjects starve. What we really want to say, when
demanding a more fine-tuned analysis of capabilities, is that it would be highly
improbable for people to achieve certain capabilities unless certain parame-
trical considerations are seriously addressed. The language of capability
involves a more expansive use of the notion of feasibility. But the resulting
notion includes “hard” aspects (the ones comprised by the minimal account of
infeasibility as strict impossibility), and “soft” aspects (the ones comprised by
the complement of the minimal account in the expansive one, which focuses
on improbability).
A third thing to notice is that economic, political and cultural parameters
are malleable. Though we cannot make possible what is logically impossible,
we can make feasible, in the future, what is economically, politically or
culturally infeasible now. I return to this crucial point in section 3.5.
Economic feasibility depends not only on the presence of resources, but also
on the willingness of agents to create or use them in certain ways. Economic
feasibility is, like political and cultural feasibility, of the “soft” kind. Does it
really make sense to include soft parameters in one’s account of feasibility?

functionings—as a result of differences in their circumstances). Sen, Inequality Reexamined

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 27–30, 33, 37–8, 81–7, 110–12, 120–1. See
also Ingrid Robeyns, “Assessing Global Poverty and Inequality: Income, Resources, and Cap-
abilities,” Metaphilosophy 36 (2005), 30–49. As Martha Nussbaum puts it, by focusing on what
people can really do and be, the reference to capability “gives us a benchmark as we think about
what it really is to secure a right to someone.” Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2006), 287.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 69

Many authors are reluctant to do this.¹¹ They resist moves from “X is not
willing, or motivated, to do A” to “X cannot do A.” This suspicion is reason-
able. Certainly, your not being willing to do something does not by itself make
it impossible for you to do it. For example, the fact that you do not feel affected
by the suffering of distant others (who do not speak your language, share your
religion, etc.) is not enough ground for saying that it is strictly impossible for
you to give up some of your money to help them. Furthermore, our willingness
or unwillingness to do things is something that can change. We should not,
however, be insensitive to the impact of psychological mechanisms. Even if
they are not natural laws, they are still significant in shaping social life.¹² If we
are careful to recognize that motivational structures affecting economic,
political, and cultural frameworks impose only “soft” forms of feasibility
constraints, and that these are malleable, then we will see that we have reason
to factor them into our feasibility assessments. Doing so would help us to
avoid the pitfall of impotent voluntarism without relapsing into capitulation
with unjust social realities that we could change. In fact, to change these
realities, it is important that we understand and address what so often makes
them resilient to transformation. We could of course reserve the word “infeasi-
bility” to refer to the “hard” instances involving strict logical or physical
impossibility, and choose other words to refer to “soft” constraints. What is
really important, however, is that in each case we know what type of constraints
we are dealing with, and that we pay due attention to all of them.¹³
(2) Domains. The different types of feasibility considerations can apply to at
least two important domains. To refer to them, some writers helpfully distin-
guish between stability and accessibility.¹⁴ Thus, when we assess the feasibility
of a moral and political ideal, we can first ask whether a social scheme fulfilling
it would be stable. Assuming that we have such a scheme in place, we consider
whether it would be sustainable, likely to remain in place. We can also ask
whether the social scheme is accessible, whether there is a path of political
action through which it can be generated when it is still not in place.

¹¹ See Peter Singer, “Outsiders: Our Obligations to Those Beyond Our Borders,” in
D. Chatterjee, ed., The Ethics of Assistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),
11–32. For the opposite view see David Miller, “The Ethical Significance of Nationality,” Ethics
98 (1988), 647–62.
¹² See Jon Elster, Explaining Social Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
¹³ The notion of “feasibility” is routinely used to include “soft” parameters. See Geoff Brennan
and Philip Pettit, “The Feasibility Issue,” in F. Jackson and M. Smith, eds., The Oxford Handbook
of Contemporary Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 258–79. Arjun Sengupta
sees the feasibility test for a human right as stating that if the correlative duties are discharged,
then the right “will be, with high probability, realized.” See “Poverty Eradication and Human
Rights,” in T. Pogge ed., Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2007), 323–44, at 330.
¹⁴ See, e.g., G. A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism? (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
2009). See also Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy and Self-determination (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004), 61–2.
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70 Human Dignity and Human Rights

The distinction is useful in classifying feasibility charges against concep-
tions of socioeconomic human rights. Those charges may target the sustain-
ability of domestic or international human rights regimes, claiming that there
could be no effective institutional structures enforcing them, that there are not
enough economic resources for them to rely on, or that there would not be
enough support for them by people in different countries, who might not
acknowledge or feel motivated to support enforceable positive duties of justice
to help satisfy the basic needs of their compatriots or, more likely, those of
foreigners. Alternatively, these charges may target the accessibility of human
right regimes, doubting that we can gather enough political will and power to
create them in the face of strong opposition from certain key players.
(3) Degrees. Does it make sense to say that feasibility is a matter of degree?
In a way it does not. It cannot be more or less possible for an agent to fulfill a
certain demand. The fulfillment either is possible or it is not. There is,
however, another way to refer to degrees of feasibility that does make sense.
This arises when we consider different circumstances of fulfillment of a
general demand. These circumstances include the number of duty-bearers,
of right-holders, the extent to which the demands are fulfilled, and the time
and place in which they are fulfilled. Though it does not make sense to say that
a certain state F of fulfillment of demands is more feasible in the “hard” sense
than another state G, we can say that more is possible (in the “hard” or in the
“soft” sense) in F than it is in G with respect to a certain demand. Perhaps the
circumstances in F and G are such that more agents can simultaneously do
more of what is demanded from them in F than they can in G.
We can then distinguish, for example, between complete infeasibility,
complete feasibility, and several degrees of partial feasibility with respect to
the fulfillment of a certain right R. Complete infeasibility exists if it is impos-
sible for any duty-bearer to fulfill R for any right-holder at any time and in any
place. Complete feasibility exists when it is possible for all to fulfill R for all, at
all times and in all places. Several degrees of feasibility arise when some but
not all duty-bearers can do what they allegedly should, when some but not all
right-holders can get what they are entitled to, when more or less can be done
by those who can do something, and when these varying levels of fulfillment
apply to some times and places but not to others. The idea of degrees of
feasibility is naturally more significant in the case of “soft” forms of feasibility.
And it is indeed routinely invoked in moral and political deliberation.¹⁵

¹⁵ E.g., an article engaging debates on the introduction of new transport technologies in the
United States argues that some technical obstacles could be overcome but present some eco-
nomic and political obstacles or varying degrees of difficulty. “With projects like this, though,
good engineering is never enough. Politics and economics are more forbidding obstacles.” Some
states like “Texas—where bureaucracy is less stifling—might be a more feasible place to try” the
new ideas than others. “The Future of Transport: No Loopy Idea.” The Economist, August 17,
2013, 65–6.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 71

In addition, we can notice that from the perspective of the agents, given their
epistemic limitations, often what can be done is no more than to develop
probabilistic assessments about the likelihood that certain demands would be
fulfilled in F and G when agents try to fulfill them. Thus different schedules of
fulfillment (of the kind mentioned above) might themselves be construed as
involving probabilities of success upon trying.¹⁶
Something that is crucial here is that judgments of feasibility are indexed to
circumstances. Demands that are infeasible in certain circumstances C1 may
turn out to be feasible in circumstances C2. The insight by Sen, mentioned in
section 3.1, that feasible sets can be expanded so that rights which are not fully
realizable now become more realizable later on, actually requires that we think
about feasibility in terms of degrees, and that we see extents of feasibility as
open to change. Thus, the right to have enough to eat may be more realizable
where there are democratic institutions, international cooperation, and a
culture of human solidarity than in circumstances where these are not in
place or are very weak. But when the latter is the case, changes might be made
so that new, more favorable circumstances arise. Economic, political, and
cultural frameworks, being “soft,” are malleable. So feasible changes could
then (at time t1) turn C1 (at t1) into C2 (at t2), thus making feasible at a later
time what is not feasible at an earlier time.
(To make sentences less cumbersome, I will not always phrase references to
feasibility in a scalar way. But it should be clear from what is said in this
section that I take the concept of feasibility to often merit a scalar use.)

3. 4. KI NDS OF OBLIGA TI ON A ND FEASIBI L ITY

Can a putative claim be a human right if its fulfillment is infeasible? The

answer to this question depends on how we conceive the “ought” involved in
human rights statements. If we do it in the moral desirability sense of “ought,”
then infeasibility of fulfillment does not affect the existence of the right. If we
interpret human rights as connecting with obligations, then the Feasibility
Condition kicks in. But how it does apply depends on how we construe
the notion of feasibility and what obligations it might be predicated upon.
In this section, I will consider different kinds of obligations connected with
socioeconomic human rights and their relation to the forms of feasibility
identified in the previous section.

¹⁶ This point and further issues concerning the non-binary, or scalar nature of “soft”
feasibility constraints are developed in appendix 2. See also Pablo Gilabert and Holly Lawford-
Smith, “Political Feasibility: A Conceptual Exploration,” Political Studies 60 (2012), 809–25; and
Pablo Gilabert, “Justice and Feasibility: A Dynamic Approach,” in M. Weber and K. Vallier, eds.,
Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 95–126.
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72 Human Dignity and Human Rights

(1) Interests and freedoms, reasons, and kinds of obligations. Sen helpfully
suggests that we should see human rights as statements about the ethical
significance of certain central interests or freedoms. The recognition of
human rights provides moral reasons to react in reasonable ways to various
circumstances in which people’s access to the objects of such central interests
or freedoms is at stake. Reasonable responses may turn into duties of different
kinds. Sen claims that there is a general obligation to “give reasonable consid-
eration to a possible action,” and that different kinds of duties may result from
deliberation about how to discharge this general obligation in different cir-
cumstances.¹⁷ Three sets of distinctions can be made about the kinds of more
specific obligations discharging the general obligation of reasonable consider-
ation. The distinctions are common in the literature on human rights, and
I will simply recall them here.
One distinction is between negative and positive duties. We may have
negative duties not to deprive people of access to the objects of their socio-
economic rights. We may also have positive duties to help them maintain or
gain access to such objects. Another distinction is between perfect and imper-
fect duties. The former duties involve a clear identification of who is to do
what for whom in what circumstances, while the latter are more open-ended,
leaving duty-bearers some playroom to decide who is to be assisted when, or
how. Sen argues, plausibly, that obligations correlative to human rights must
be seen as both negative and positive, and as both perfect and imperfect.
Elsewhere I have also argued that we should reject narrow accounts of duties
of justice that only focus on negative and perfect duties.¹⁸
Another distinction has to do with different levels of generality. A positive
duty to help others avoid destitution may be articulated at different levels.
First, the duty may be seen as a general ethical demand on all individuals,
deriving its force from the importance of avoiding severe poverty for having a
basically good or dignified life. Second, this general demand may be specified
as a set of legal norms scheduling different responsibilities within a country or
between countries. These norms would, for example, identify national govern-
mental agencies, international institutions, and corporations as duty-bearers.

¹⁷ Sen, “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights,” 338–42. Sen follows Scanlon in seeing
principles of obligation as articulating the status and relative weight of different moral reasons in
certain circumstances. E.g., principles of aid need to appropriately balance reasons associated
with the standpoint of both providers and receivers. See T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each
Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), ch. 5.
¹⁸ Positive duties can be duties of justice, and imperfect duties can be articulated in such a way
that specific requirements are generated. See Pablo Gilabert, “Contractualism and Poverty
Relief,” Social Theory and Practice 33 (2007), 277–310; “Kant and the Claims of the Poor,”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81 (2010), 382–418; “Justice and Beneficence,”
Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19 (2016), 508–33. See also
Elizabeth Ashford, “The Duties Imposed by the Human Right to Basic Necessities,” in Pogge,
ed., Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right, 184–218.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 73

Third, the positive duty may be honored by officials and citizens through
specific policies and practices. The latter would of course include support and
application of existing institutional schemes aimed at fulfilling socioeconomic
rights. They would also include the creation of such institutional schemes when
they do not exist. In sum, as Shue has put it, any reasonable assignment of duties
correlative to human rights will involve a complex “division of labor” among
several agents who are in a position to help.¹⁹
(2) Levels of generality. How do concerns about feasibility relate to these
different putative obligations? I want to focus on two specific ways in which we
may have reason to respond to cases of partial infeasibility of the “soft” kind,
affecting positive duties to help eradicate severe poverty. The first kind of
response, which I address now, focuses on levels of generality. The second, to
be discussed in section 3.5, focuses on temporal variation.
An alleged specific duty may be unrealizable, but the general duty from
which it springs may receive alternative specifications that are realizable.
Suppose, for example, that Cranston is right that many poor countries do
not have enough economic resources to secure the putative socioeconomic
rights of their people. This situation does not show that there are no socio-
economic human rights. What it shows is that certain domestic duties to fulfill
socioeconomic human rights cannot be fully met. But this still leaves the
possibility that there may be international duties to assist poor people in
other countries to avoid poverty. It also leaves the possibility of duties to
engage in partial fulfillment of socioeconomic human rights within a country.
The two possibilities are in fact envisaged in human rights documents, which
emphasize both international cooperation and assistance and duties of “pro-
gressive realization” of basic socioeconomic rights. In both cases, we see
alternative specifications of the universal demand to give reasonable consid-
eration to the extremely important interest that all persons have in the objects
of their socioeconomic rights.²⁰
Think about the human right to basic medical care. Perhaps a country may
presently not be able to secure freedom from all curable diseases. But if it can
eradicate some, then it has duties to partially fulfill this right. If other countries
have medical technology that could help prevent diseases in the first country,
then they should, in principle, make them available in fair ways. Here the
difference between basic and advanced medical care is relevant, as even the
wealthiest countries have to set limits on the extent to which they can supply
medical care to their own residents. International assistance regarding basic

¹⁹ Henry Shue, “Mediating Duties,” Ethics 98 (1988), 687–704.

²⁰ For references to international cooperation and to “progressive realization,” see the Pre-
amble and Articles 22 and 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Articles 2.1,
11.2, 13.2, 14, and 23 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
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74 Human Dignity and Human Rights

medical care has a level of moral urgency and feasibility that international
assistance regarding advanced medical care does not have.
The point about international cooperation and assistance can, and I think
should, be put in a more forceful way than it often is. Cooperation and
assistance should not be seen merely as an example of “back-up duties.” The
common picture of “back-up duties” says that the primary duty-bearers in the
promotion of human rights are the governments and peoples of each country,
and that foreign governments have duties to step in only when domestic
governments or their people cannot do all that would be desirable from the
point of view of human rights fulfillment. This sequential approach is prob-
lematic. It overlooks the fact that the extent to which each country is able to
secure the human rights of its people partly depends on the international
economic and political order (including patents and trade regimes, military
interventions, etc.).²¹ It may also reinforce certain forms of inequality and
unfairness in international relations. Imagine that a country A is quite poor,
and that another country B is quite rich. Imagine that A can secure access to
basic medical care for its poor residents but only at a serious cost to its middle
class or to its bargaining power in international trade negotiations. If we follow
the sequential picture, then there are no duties on the part of B. An alternative
would be a simultaneous rather than sequential approach. This approach
would recommend that A’s people overcome their severe deprivations partly
through B’s assistance, without having to reduce part of its population to a
condition close to poverty and without A becoming more vulnerable in
international negotiations with B. This morally superior scenario would be
even more reasonable if the government of B, as it often happens, has been
using its asymmetric power to shape international relations in such a way that
the people from A suffer more economic hardships than could have been the
case had fairer terms of interaction been pursued.
I acknowledge that this sharp interpretation of the ideas of international
cooperation mentioned in international human rights legal documents might
be revisionary with respect to their usual interpretation. But if international
legal frameworks, and the wider political practice of human rights, are to
respond appropriately to the equal and inherent dignity of all human persons,
then it seems that such revisions might be worth exploring.²²
Is partial feasibility of fulfillment sufficient for the existence of a human
right? Or should one demand complete realizability? Cranston seems to
demand the latter. This, we saw, is not reasonable. If partial fulfillment is

²¹ On this fact’s explanatory force, see Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights,
2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity, 2008).
²² As Allen Buchanan notes, current international human rights legal practice is quite limited
when it comes to international cooperation, even if a more expansive view might be appropriate
on the basis of moral arguments. Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 26, 119, 120–1, 279ff.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 75

possible, then there are duties and rights. I can imagine three worries with
respect to this view. The first objection would be that there are really no
universal rights when not everyone can obtain the object of such rights. But
this need not be the case if we accept the plausible suggestion by Sen that the
primary duty associated with a human right is not to secure the provision of
the object of that right, but to give reasonable consideration to action leading
to such provision. Sometimes reasonable consideration might not yield pro-
vision, or complete provision. There might be circumstances, for example, in
which fulfilling a certain right would conflict with fulfilling weightier rights.
But this possible result does not erase the claim involved in the right-claim. It
does not even erase the existence of an equal claim by all. Suppose, for
example, that A and B lay claim to an object O, and that C is the duty-
bearer. Assume that C cannot provide both A and B with O. Does this mean
that A and B do not have an equal claim to O? In the absence of relevant
differences between A and B, C does not have any reason to prioritize A over
B or B over A. A and B have equal claims. If C cannot satisfy both A and B,
then perhaps the appropriate response is to choose by lot which one will
receive O. This response seems to be reasonable because A and B are seen as
having equal claims.
A second objection might be that this view of partial realizability tends to
downgrade rights into goals. According to Cranston, for example, we must
distinguish between “rights” and mere “ideals or aspirations”:
All these words—“right,” “justice,” “duty,” “ought,” “obligation”—are the key
terms of what Kant called the “categorical imperative.” What ought to be done,
what is obligatory, what is right, what is duty, what is just, is not what it would be
nice to see done one day; it is what is demanded by the basic norms of morality
and justice.
An ideal is something one can aim at, but cannot by definition immediately
realize. A right, on the contrary is something that can, and from the moral point
of view must, be respected here and now.²³
This objection relies on the assumption that rights are necessarily distin-
guished from ideals or aspirations (in short, goals) in terms of obligatoriness.
This assumption is mistaken. It is true that some goals are supererogatory (an
example is heroism). But some goals may be obligatory.²⁴ This is particularly
the case when the goals at stake are derived from human rights. The goal of
securing that all persons avoid severe poverty may not be fully realizable now,
or at times other demands may have priority. But this does not make the goal

²³ Cranston, “Human Rights, Real and Supposed,” 172.

²⁴ Kant himself argues that there are obligatory ends (such as beneficence) which one should
adopt, and depart from only when other demands are, in the circumstances, stronger. See The
Metaphysics of Morals in Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. by M. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996), Ak 390–4, 452–4.
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76 Human Dignity and Human Rights

optional rather than obligatory. Any departure from the realization of the
goal needs special justification. The presumption is that when one can, one
must fulfill it. To illustrate, the UN Millennium Development Goals (which
included halving extreme poverty by 2015) were meant as obligatory goals, not
just as things that “would be nice to see done one day.”
It is important to notice that the language of human rights need not exclude
the language of goals. In their general form, human rights statements are quite
indeterminate and they do not specify their own implementation. They
impose instead a duty of the highest priority for individuals and governments
to identify ways to protect certain important interests through (a) specific
rights and entitlements but also, when these are insufficient or not presently
feasible, through (b) urgent goals of institution-building. Although only the
former can be immediately realized, both involve obligation. Someone who is
not treated in accordance with an obligatory goal is wronged just as much as
someone who is denied a specific right. Consider the abstract right to basic
medical care. A poor person who needs urgent medical care and is denied
access to existing public hospitals is wronged. But so would be a poor person
whose government either does not adopt the goal of building public hospitals
when they are needed or does adopt the goal but does not take available and
reasonable steps to fulfill it. Both cases involve failure to honor the human
right to basic medical care. In the first case this abstract right is specified in
terms of a more specific right (to have access to existing public hospitals),
whereas in the second case it is construed as yielding obligatory goals (to take
available and reasonable steps to build public hospitals).
The relation between rights and goals certainly merits a more detailed
consideration than I can provide here. An excellent discussion has been
presented by James Nickel in Making Sense of Human Rights.²⁵ Rights are
usually distinguished by involving high priority, definiteness and bindingness.
Nickel notes, however, that certain goals have high priority or make quite
definite demands (whereas some rights have low priority or are quite indef-
inite). Thus, goals concerning specific forms of future action to protect
important interests which cannot presently be protected may be “right-like”
(p. 81). Furthermore, abstract rights claims (such as human rights) “may
function in a way not too different from high priority goals” (p. 26). Nickel
insists, however, that even if abstract rights are similar to high-priority goals,
they are still different: “when abstract rights can be made concrete in particu-
lar cases, they differ from priority goals by conferring on the guidance they
provide a binding character that high priority goals lack and cannot confer”
(p. 26). It is not clear to me why high-priority moral goals cannot confer

²⁵ James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (2nd ed., Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 24–6.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 77

bindingness. In any case, since the goals I refer to here are derived from
abstract human rights, their bindingness should be evident.
A third objection to the account of partial realizability is that it does not
fully address the question “How much partial feasibility is necessary for rights
to exist?” Even if Sen is right that “the condition of full feasibility cannot be a
condition of coherence” of rights,²⁶ we may still want to know how much
partial feasibility is necessary. Sen construes the Feasibility Condition in terms
of “social influenceability.” But how much influenceability of what kind is
necessary? One can imagine different answers to this question. One answer
could be quite demanding, even if it stops short of requiring complete
feasibility. An example is Nickel’s version of the feasibility test, according to
which “a necessary condition for the justification of a specific right is the
possibility of successfully implementing it in an ample majority of countries
today.” A somewhat less demanding condition would appeal to what can be
done in modern times (that is, currently or in the foreseeable future).²⁷ The
former answer drops full feasibility, but demands near-full feasibility in the
present. The latter retains full feasibility, but construes the time-span of
fulfillment more broadly. Sen’s own account does not settle the issue. It does
seem to preclude very low levels of feasibility, however. Sen says that if the
social influenceability of a certain interest or freedom is very low, then it might
not be a good candidate for grounding a human right. Sen gives the example of
“tranquility.” “While quite possibly extremely important for the person, [it] is
too inward-looking—and too hard to be influenced by others—to be a good
subject matter for human rights.”²⁸
How should we settle this discussion? I think that a hypothesis worth
considering would be a partial revision of Nickel’s proposal. The revisions
would be four. First, the reference to a “majority” of cases would refer not only
to countries, but also to instances of fulfillment within countries (this point is
motivated by our previous discussion of duties of partial fulfillment). Second,
we could refer to what is feasible not only today, but also in the foreseeable
future. As I will argue shortly, part of the job of human rights talk is to orient
political action aimed at the expansion of current feasible sets. Third, we can
consider different types of feasibility. Nickel focuses on resources. But we
should also factor in political and cultural parameters. In doing so, however,
we must remind ourselves that political and cultural parameters are much
“softer” than resource-related ones (even though the latter are also “soft” when
compared to logical and physical parameters—as is evident if one considers

²⁶ Amartya Sen, “Consequential Evaluation and Practical Reason,” Journal of Philosophy

XCVII (2000), 477–502, at p. 498.
²⁷ Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 78. A version of the second view seems to me to be
suggested in John Tasioulas, “The Moral Reality of Human Rights,” in Pogge, ed., Freedom from
Poverty as a Human Right, 75–101, at 81.
²⁸ Sen, “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights,” 330.
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78 Human Dignity and Human Rights

technological innovation). It is not enough that sufficient resources are sitting
around; it must also be feasible to generate institutions and practices allocating
these resources in ways that will secure the relevant rights.
Fourth, we can see this revised Feasibility Condition as determining
whether reference to a certain moral demand is to be at the foreground of
our global political agenda (for example, by being carefully specified through
domestic and international legal requirements). For something to be at the
foreground of a political agenda, the level of its social influenceability (either
currently or in the foreseeable future) must be quite significant. This does not
mean that what is not greatly influenceable is not morally significant. It seems
to me that, in a wider ethical sense, whenever there is some influenceability,
there may be a duty. This applies, I think, to Sen’s example of “tranquility.”
Securing “tranquility” for all or for most people may be “too hard,” but
securing it for some people in some cases could, and should, be done. But if
access to a certain object could only be secured in very few cases for the
foreseeable future then the social influenceability is extremely low. Once we
see the talk of human rights as part of a global political project,²⁹ we realize
that reference to a right to this object might be excluded, at least in some
instances of that project such as in the statement of specific and legally binding
requirements for the short or medium term.³⁰
In identifying a set of basic human rights, we need to avoid both concep-
tions which are too maximal and conceptions which are too minimal. The
former weaken the urgency of human rights talk. Not everything that would be
morally desirable to see realized in politics is a matter of justice, and not
everything that is a matter of justice is a matter of human rights. Human rights
constitute the most urgent demands of basic global justice. On the other hand,
a conception that is too minimal capitulates to grievous injustices which
could otherwise be addressed. Capturing the middle way between these two
extremes is not easy. What must orient us is, as we saw, considerations
regarding the extremely urgent moral significance of the interests to be protect-
ed and the relative feasibility of their widespread protection in the foreseeable
future. In this chapter, I stress the importance of avoiding conceptions that are

²⁹ See Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 7; and Charles Beitz, “Human Rights and the
Law of Peoples,” in Chaterjee, The Ethics of Assistance, 193–214.
³⁰ Another possibility worth exploring has been suggested to me by Rowan Cruft. It is to
distinguish two kinds of duties correlative to a right: (a) those whose violation constitutes
violation of the right and (b) those whose violation does not constitute violation of the right.
Members of a government introducing discriminatory policies in the application of health care
might exemplify (a), and voters choosing the politicians forming that government might
exemplify (b). We can then identify two different kind of failures corresponding to these
requirements: (a) those involving human rights violations, and (b) those involving human rights
deficits. Some requirements which we might not want to state as legal requirements could still be
important candidates for second category, which is arguably also important within human rights
practice.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 79

too minimal. But I acknowledge that certain rather maximal demands could
also be problematic. As we saw with the case of “tranquility,” some demands
may be quite desirable but infeasible to secure for the majority of humans in the
foreseeable future. Others may be more feasible but not clearly related to the
extremely urgent demands whose satisfaction is a precondition for a basically
good or decent life. I will return to the issue of how expansive human rights
claims should be taken to be in Part III of this book.

3.5. DYNA MIC DUTIES AND POLITICAL

EMPOWERMENT

In terms of the distinction between the two domains of feasibility, the most
serious problems concern accessibility rather than stability. The stability of a
global order securing basic socioeconomic human rights is not hopeless
for two reasons. First, sufficient resources exist to eradicate severe global
poverty at no grievous cost to anyone.³¹ Second, there is a growing inter-
national consensus on the importance of human rights and global norms, and
this consensus would be certainly deepened if people grew up under domestic
and international institutions honoring them. Thus, arguably, a world order
securing basic global justice would be stable. The real challenge concerns the
issue of accessibility, of how to move from here to there. Institutions securing
the fair and legitimate allocation of duties to secure basic socioeconomic rights
are largely absent, and there is some resistance on the part of members of rich
countries to embrace their introduction.
(1) Dynamic duties. As mentioned above, a second kind of response to
situations of partial infeasibility focuses on temporal variation. A right may
be unrealizable now, but may become realizable as a result of lucid political
action that generates conditions for the feasibility of its fulfillment. Imagine a
scenario such that (a) a certain institutional scheme S2 is considerably more
morally desirable than another S1; (b) S2 is accessible in circumstances C2 but
not in C1; (c) we are, here and now, in C1, not C2; (d) S1 is accessible in C1;
and (e) S1 is very likely to generate C2. If (a)–(e) are true, and the moves to S1
and from S1 to S2 do not involve unacceptable moral costs, then it seems
plausible to say that we have a duty to pursue the trajectory of reform leading
to S1 in C1 and to S2 in C2. Notice that the second segment in this trajectory
contributes to the justification of the first, and that the trajectory involves

³¹ According to Pogge’s calculation, by giving up 1.2 percent of their annual aggregate

income, the global rich can provide sufficient funds for eliminating global poverty. See World
Poverty and Human Rights.
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80 Human Dignity and Human Rights

making accessible, at a later time, what may not be accessible now. Let us call
duties of this sort, involving the expansion of the feasible sets of political
action, dynamic duties. These duties are peculiar in that they are focused not
merely on what is to be done within certain circumstances, but also on
changing certain circumstances so that new things can be done.
In the context of human rights, dynamic duties differ from standard duties
in the following way: the latter are duties to bring about certain states of
fulfillment of human rights within given circumstances; the former are duties
to bring about new circumstances in which further fulfillment of human rights
can be secured. To illustrate, consider some of the claims in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights. Article 25 says that
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 liveli-
hood in circumstances beyond his control.
Perhaps we cannot fully fulfill these demands now. We can, however, envisage
successive reforms extending our capacity to secure food, clothing, housing,
and basic medical care for all. The Preamble of UDHR presents the list of
human rights as a “common standard of achievement for all peoples and all
nations,” which we are supposed to honor through “progressive measures,
national and international.” These measures might involve a process of reform
introducing new social arrangements and a new international order. Such a
process involves dynamic duties. In fact, we can understand the several
references to processes of successive reforms in the Social Covenant as articu-
lations of dynamic duties. We can also see the crucial Article 28 of UDHR,
which says that “everyone is entitled to a social and international order in
which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully
realized,” as stating an obligatory goal for dynamic duties to progressively
achieve.
(2) Political empowerment. An appeal to dynamic duties helps address the
flexibility of constraints on feasibility and obligation in a productive way.
Particularly important is to pursue dynamic processes through which agents
(a) identify general obligations and explore their alternative feasible applica-
tions while they also (b) entertain interventions generating conditions of
feasibility that are not yet present. I conclude this chapter by making some
remarks suggesting that certain mechanisms of political empowerment such as
institutional experimentation, public reasoning, and protest are quite signifi-
cant in addressing contexts where fulfillment of socioeconomic rights appears
to be infeasible.
Institutional experimentation. A common obstacle in current debates on
global justice and human rights is the spurious dilemma between (a) a
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 81

conservative approach that takes for granted the Westphalian view of states
as fully autonomous and as unconstrained by international duties of justice
and (b) ambitious though hardly realistic demands to institute a global
democracy modeled on domestic democratic institutions. Our circumstances
of globalization mean that the Westphalian framework is becoming increas-
ingly unrealistic and, in any case, quite unsatisfactory from a human rights
perspective. But assuming that a full global democracy is morally desirable, it
is not feasible for the foreseeable future. What we need instead is to adopt a
transitional standpoint seeking a dynamic middle way between the horns of
the alleged dilemma.
Such an approach would emphasize institutional experimentation. We can
entertain multiple paths of reform developing new domestic and international
institutions increasing the political empowerment of people across the globe
and enabling them to secure their socioeconomic rights.³² Let me just mention
some examples from recent literature, emphasizing their dynamic significance.
Two of the most demanding proposals include the creation of a Global
Parliament and (within the UN) of an Economic and Social Security Council
coordinating and enforcing international policies of poverty reduction and
development.³³ These may be inaccessible now. But they may become access-
ible as a result of other reforms that can be pursued now, such as the creation
(already under way) of regional institutions (for example, the EU and the
Mercosur). Other, less ambitious reforms are perhaps more immediately
available. One example concerns changes in policies within wealthy countries,
as with proposals for introducing taxation of the richest in the US to secure the
funds necessary for the country to honor its pledge within the Millennium
Development Goals³⁴ or subsequent commitments. Another example concerns
the reform of international institutions such as the World Trade Organization
(WTO). Joseph Stiglitz has recently introduced a number of short-term and
long-term proposals. (Changes in the WTO to secure fair trade benefiting rather
than exploiting developing countries are particularly crucial, as “rich countries
have cost poor countries three times more in trade restrictions than they give in
total development aid.”)³⁵

³² See Simon Caney, “Cosmopolitan Justice and Institutional Design: An Egalitarian Liberal
Conception of Global Governance,” Social Theory and Practice 32 (2006), 725–56.
³³ See, respectively, Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss, “Toward Global Parliament,” Foreign
Affairs 80 (2001), 212–20; and David Held, Global Covenant (Cambridge: Polity, 2004), 111, 164.
³⁴ Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty (New York: Penguin, 2005), 307–8.
³⁵ Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (New York: Norton, 2006), 78. Two short-term
proposals are “strong freedom of information acts” making the proceedings of the WTO
open to public scrutiny and a bolstering of “the ability of developing countries to participate
meaningfully in decision making, by providing them with assistance in assessing the impact on
them of proposed changes” (p. 253).
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82 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Multiple motivations. Surely the most appropriate motivation to secure
human rights is one that appeals to the moral reasons backing those rights.
Though certainly not impotent, such reasons are not always in fact motivating.
A dynamic approach need not, however, only appeal to them (though of
course it must also appeal to them). Institutional experimentation and protests
may mobilize other forms of motivation. Important players in rich countries
may come to support international schemes protecting socioeconomic rights
because of the penalties involved in failing to comply with legal norms. And
they may support the introduction and enforcement of such norms because of
the fear of political turmoil that they may face in their absence. Furthermore, a
world without poverty would also be a world where international economic
opportunities would increase. As David Beetham has suggested, the develop-
ment of an international human rights regime, like the introduction of the
welfare state in industrialized societies, “is a matter of incentives as much as of
exhortation or moral leadership.”³⁶
Challenging adaptive preferences and ideological assumptions. Nussbaum and
Sen criticize some welfarist approaches to social justice that focus merely on
the level of people’s satisfaction with their condition.³⁷ A problem with these
approaches is that they fail to see that in circumstances of severe deprivation,
people develop “adaptive preferences,” lowering their aspirations in the face of
what they perceive as very limited feasibility sets. A related phenomenon, which
we may call “ideological assumptions,” consists in many people developing false
beliefs about their condition of oppression or domination as one that is fair for
them to face. The phenomena of adaptive preferences and ideological assump-
tions are clearly susceptible to critique, and practices of public deliberation are
particularly helpful in this respect.³⁸ In spaces of open critical communication,
people can subject to scrutiny their empirical and normative beliefs about what
they can do and what they deserve. The result can very well be that they realize
that they can do and strive for more than they initially thought and that, in fact,
they deserve to get more than they have been getting. Such change of cultural
parameters involves an expansion of the feasible set of political reforms, as the
latter is partly shaped by the empirical and normative beliefs that agents have
about what they can and are entitled to do.
Securing more inclusion. Protest is an important political resource, and right,
for people whose voice and interests are systematically ignored by political

³⁶ David Beetham, “What Future for Economic and Social Rights?” Political Studies XLIII
(1995), 41–60, at 58.
³⁷ See Martha Nussbaum, Women and Human Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2000), ch. 2.
³⁸ On the role of public debate in the critique of ideological assumptions, see Jürgen
Habermas, Legitimation Crisis (Boston, MA: Beacon, 1975). Sen (in “Elements of a Theory of
Human Rights”) also emphasizes its role in the justification and application of rights.
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The Feasibility of Human Rights 83

institutions.³⁹ Institutional experimentation and public deliberation often
emerge, or become more inclusive, as a result of practices of protest by those
who are normally excluded. This is particularly so in the case of socioeco-
nomic rights. A good example is provided by Argentina during the severe
economic crisis at the turn of the millennium. New, serious attempts to
redesign institutions and policies to combat poverty, and several forums of
public debate, were generated only after massive protests in 2001–2. Similarly,
current debates and reforms in international institutions are partly the
result of international protests sparked by the burgeoning social movements
focused on global justice. These practices of protest can clearly have a dynamic
impact in expanding the power to secure universal socioeconomic rights.
The World Social Forum slogan that “another world is possible” might, in
this way, become self-fulfilling.
To conclude, I have argued in this chapter that the theory and practice of
human rights must be sensitive to feasibility considerations, but that assertions
about infeasibility, when accurate, should not be construed as simply muting
claims about duties of justice. They should, instead, be seen as partially
limiting the scope of such duties while also motivating us to envisage the
transformation of what makes their realization infeasible. There are dynamic
duties to expand agents’ capability to shape the political processes under
which practical possibilities are partially created and conceived.

³⁹ See Roberto Gargarella, “The Right of Resistance in Situations of Severe Deprivation,” in

Pogge, ed., Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right, 359–74. For a discussion of the relations
between protest, public deliberation, and institutional experimentation see Pablo Gilabert,
“Global Justice and Poverty Relief in Nonideal Circumstances,” Social Theory and Practice 34
(2008), 411–38.
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Human Rights and Power

4.1. INTRODUCTION

Chapter 3 ended on a positive note. It argued that although human rights must
be justified and pursued in a way that pays attention to feasibility consider-
ations, what sometimes are presented as fixed and unsurpassable obstacles that
make ambitious human rights requirements unrealistic are in fact malleable
over time. Indeed, in the face of such political, cultural, or economic obstacles,
we might have dynamic duties to expand our ability to successfully pursue
morally appealing conceptions of rights instead of dropping them from our
practical agenda. But this optimistic moral picture might sound naïve if we
consider the fact that there are deep inequalities of power domestically and
internationally. This chapter considers this worry. In fact, this provides a
natural continuation of the discussion from chapter 3, as there the question
of whether it is feasible to fulfill a putative human right is coextensive with the
question of whether agents have the effective power to do so.
Human rights are particularly relevant in contexts in which there are
significant asymmetries of power, but where these asymmetries exist the
human rights project turns out to be especially difficult to realize. The stronger
can use their disproportionate power both to threaten the human rights of
others and to frustrate attempts to secure their fulfillment. They may even
monopolize the international discussion as to what human rights are and how
they should be implemented. This chapter explores this tension between the
normative ideal of human rights and the facts of asymmetric power. It has two
objectives. The first, pursued in section 4.2, is to reconstruct and assess a set of
important power-related worries about human rights. These worries are
sometimes presented as falsifying the view that human rights exist, or at
least as warranting the abandonment of human rights practice. The chapter
argues that the worries do not support such conclusions. Instead, they motiv-
ate the identification of certain desiderata for the amelioration of human rights
practice. The chapter proceeds to articulate twelve such desiderata. The second
objective, pursued in section 4.3, is to propose a strategy for satisfying the
desiderata identified in the previous section. In particular, the chapter suggests
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Human Rights and Power 85

some ways to build empowerment into the human rights project that reduce
the absolute and relative powerlessness of human rights holders, while also
identifying an ethics of responsibility and solidarity for contexts in which
power deficits will not dissolve. The main point, then, is that power analysis
does not debunk the human rights project. Properly articulated, it is an
important tool for those pursuing it.
Philosophical work about human rights has not systematically addressed
issues of power. This is in part understandable because such issues involve
empirical questions that philosophers are not best equipped to answer. How-
ever, given the tension mentioned in the previous paragraph, a full account of
human rights must include considerations about power. More generally, a full
account of human rights should include such considerations because human
rights are to be pursued through political practice, and political practice often
involves asymmetric power relations. Philosophers can in fact make a contri-
bution when it comes to the conceptual and normative articulation of how
power matters for our understanding and pursuit of human rights. This
philosophical work may proceed at a relatively high level of abstraction and
be primarily concerned not with empirical description of power structures or
with specific policy recommendations but with the general concepts and
substantive principles that shape the human rights project. Philosophers
should not apologize for working at that level if they clarify how their inquiry
connects to more specific descriptions and recommendations. Philosophical
proposals are helpful to organize and orient our practical reasoning. And
this is particularly needed in the case of the relation between human rights
and power, on which conceptual clarity and normative articulation is
largely lacking.
Before proceeding, let me briefly state the characterizations of power and of
the human rights project that I will deploy in this chapter. These character-
izations are general and broadly shareable, and allow for making thematic the
relevant issues to be discussed. I start with power. In certain circumstances C,
an agent A has power with respect to whether some outcome or state of affairs
O occurs to the extent that A can voluntary determine whether O occurs. In
certain circumstances C, an agent A has power over a subject S (where S is
either a thing or an agent, be it agent A or some other) with respect to whether
some final outcome or state of affairs O occurs to the extent that A can voluntarily
determine whether S exists or behaves in such a way as to generate O.¹ The

¹ I thank Adam Etinson for discussion on this formulation. As I explain further in chapter 7,
this characterization is very open and does not preempt substantive debates: it allows for degrees
of power; it includes power over oneself and over others; it can apply to both individual and
collective agents; it includes “good” and “bad” ways of exercising power (e.g., through rationally
convincing someone to do something or through force, coercion or manipulation); it includes
power over things besides persons (e.g., technological power to transform material environ-
ments); it includes various possible subjects of power: not just someone’s action, but also the
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86 Human Dignity and Human Rights

general idea is simply that an agent’s power is their ability to shape aspects of the
world as they choose. Regarding human rights, I am using the account of them
(presented in chapter 1) as moral entitlements that have special moral urgency,
hold universally at least in modern times, are primarily critical rather than
positive standards, and should often at least in part be pursued through political
action and institutions. The political project of human rights, at least since the
end of World War II, comprises several forms of domestic and global action and
institutions geared to the fulfillment of a set of basic civil, political, and socio-
economic rights. The key international documents of the human rights move-
ment, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), and the Inter-
national Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), include a general
statement of such rights. The practice is emergent.² It rallies around a project
that is itself in the making. There is dispute about what claims should be
recognized as human rights and how they should be justified and implemented.
We need an account of how power is significant for each of these areas of
discussion, and the rest of the chapter provides reflections and proposals meant
to contribute to such an account.

4.2. EXPLORING P OWER-RELATED

WORRIES ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS

4.2.1. What Might Be the Upshot of the Worries?

Many scholars have voiced power-related worries about human rights. In this
section I survey some of them. This is not an easy task because often the
authors presenting such worries are not clear about what their upshot is
supposed to be. There are at least three quite different possible judgments
that might result from power-related worries:
Inexistence: there are no human rights.³
Abandonment: the human rights project should be abandoned.
Shaping: the human rights project should be (re)shaped in certain ways.

formation of their beliefs, desires, and other features and circumstances. For a survey, see Steven
Lukes, Power: A Radical View, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave, 2005).
² Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 42–4.
³ The claim may be less sweeping, saying that some human rights do not exist. I assume here
that human rights have the four features identified in section 4.1. In particular, I assume that
human rights are not only legal rights but also moral rights. The legal existence of human rights
is an obvious empirical fact. The target of the objectors I respond to is their moral existence.
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Human Rights and Power 87

In this subsection I present a preliminary argument for the claim that the most
appealing practical judgment to entertain is Shaping. In section 4.2.2 I discuss
several power-related worries and identify what I take to be their strengths and
mistakes, with a particular focus on unearthing desiderata for the shaping of
the human rights project.
A common difficulty in the literature on human rights and power is the lack
of careful distinction between descriptive and normative talk. The former
comprises reports, explanations, and predictions about what some people
think, say, or do. The latter, in contrast, comprises claims as to what some
people ought to think, say, or do. This difference should apply in human rights
discourse. In this context, normative claims are about what human rights
there are. They purport to refer to normative facts about what treatment
individuals are entitled to in their social life. Descriptive claims, on the other
hand, purport to refer to empirical (psychological, social, etc.) facts about
what people believe they are entitled to in their social life, and they report,
explain, or predict how people act with respect to some putative entitlements.
Normative claims address such putative entitlements directly, affirming their
existence or inexistence, and make judgments about the duties that correlate
with them.⁴
To illustrate, consider the following utterances:
(a) “[P]ower and interests define the dominant conception of human rights
in any historic period”
(b) “[R]ights should be understood as a process that reflects particular
historic configurations of power relations”⁵
(a) is a descriptive claim. (b) is somewhat ambiguous, and the text in which it
appears sometimes hints at a normative and sometimes at a descriptive
interpretation. The normative version could be mistaken. We want to be
able to distinguish between rights that are taken as existing and rights that
actually exist. This distinction helps us make sense of a typical role of rights
talk, which is to challenge dominant conceptions of rights. It could be prob-
lematic to say, in the normative mode, that a right to freedom of religion exists
in a social setting in which the majority accepts it and enforces it institution-
ally but did not exist a generation earlier when only a minority accepted it
or when it was not institutionally implemented. It is indeed important to

⁴ A source of confusion may be that normative talk, in purporting to refer to certain facts (in
claiming their existence), seems to engage in a kind of description. But what is purportedly
referred to is characterized in directly normative phrases (as what some agents are entitled to,
have a duty to, etc.). The “normative facts” referred to concern what ought to be the case, not
what is the case.
⁵ Tony Evans, The Politics of Human Rights: A Global Perspective, 2nd ed. (London: Pluto,
2005), 26, 34.
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88 Human Dignity and Human Rights

ascertain whether a certain putative right is backed by a particular historical
configuration of power relations. But such configurations do not settle the
normative issue of whether people have the putative right. In other places the
author of the text in which (a) and (b) appear insists that he is not contesting
the ideal of human rights, but providing an analysis of power relations that
would in fact support action geared to its fulfillment.⁶ This kind of disclaimer
is common in power-based critical discussions of human rights. Thus, Mutua
speaks about the “basic nobility and majesty that drive the human rights
project,” and Kennedy recommends that we think pragmatically so that
“the purposes of human rights are achieved.”⁷ But notice that the disclaimer
makes sense precisely because there is a difference between descriptive and
normative talk about power and human rights. As we will see it is of course
also important to properly combine descriptive and normative claims in
political reasoning. But their conflation frustrates clear thinking about how
to achieve it.
Power-related worries often involve the claim that human rights practice
fails to fulfill, or even sets back, its own aims. What is the normative
significance of this descriptive point if true? Does it warrant Inexistence,
Abandonment, or Shaping? It seems to me that it normally fails to warrant
Inexistence. First, as we saw, those making the descriptive point sometimes
presuppose the existence of the rights about whose fulfillment they puzzle.
They embrace the aim of the practice that power relations allegedly set
back, which is the fulfillment of human rights. They cannot say that we do
not have the rights they think we should realize. More importantly, the
truth of the descriptive claim does not by itself affect the existence of
human rights. The existence of a human right is a normative fact about
what people owe to each other. As such, it is independent from other facts
about whether people pursue, or succeed at fulfilling, human rights. People
may fail to seek (or achieve) what they ought to seek (or achieve). If the
dominant powers successfully frustrate the pursuit of some rights, this does
not entail that the rights do not exist. Saying the contrary would imply the
absurd conclusion that human rights do not exist when the power asym-
metries are maximal and the top dogs are systematically able to set back the
urgent interests of the under dogs. It would actually generate a perverse
incentive for human rights violators to become as asymmetrically powerful
and dominating as possible, as the best way to respond to the criticism that
they violate human rights.

⁶ Ibid., 8.
⁷ Makau Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2002), 10. David Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue: Reassessing Inter-
national Humanitarianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 4.
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Human Rights and Power 89

So power-related worries do not yield Inexistence.⁸ What is really at stake is
not the truth of human rights principles, but the practice seeking their
fulfillment. Do the worries yield Abandonment? Abandonment is a normative
recommendation. It may of course be simply based on the normative claim
that there are no human rights. But we are considering the more circuitous
(and prima facie more appealing) challenge based on the view that overall it is
more desirable (taking the fulfillment of human rights themselves as our
evaluative yardstick) to drop the human rights practice than to engage in it.
This might seem to be so if the practice aimed at fulfilling human rights
principles were systematically self-defeating. Perhaps trying to fulfill human
rights is like trying to fall asleep. Perhaps we should abandon the practice in

⁸ There is an association between some power-critiques and the Inexistence claim. I have
addressed a version of these critiques that stands at odds with its own moral character—i.e., its
(explicit or implicit) commitment to basic norms of respect and concern which it regards as
being violated by the practice of human rights as it stands. But I acknowledge that there could be
other skeptical, relativistic, or nihilistic versions of power-critique. I believe that we must
distinguish between human rights as moral entitlements and as conventionally articulated
statuses. Normative argument is based on the former, not the latter. Conventions can be morally
mistaken. My view of this distinction assumes a form of cognitivism about moral human rights.
There are some irreducibly normative truths referring to what we have moral reason to do, and
moral human rights are among them. (For a discussion of how this kind of cognitivism does not
entail unsavory metaphysical assumptions that reason-involving properties exist as natural
properties in the spatio-temporal world or in some non-spatio-temporal part of reality, see
Derek Parfit, On What Matters; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011, sect. 113.) Given space
constraints, I cannot address other power-related worries about the existence of moral human
rights that challenge this view. One possible such worry surmises that human rights exist only
where there are specific institutional articulations and effective mechanisms of enforcement of
them and that since these are absent in the current world human rights do not exist in it. This
view is counterintuitive because one of the roles of human rights talk is precisely to justify the
introduction of enforcement mechanisms where they do not exist, are feasible to introduce, and
are needed to protect important human interests. But a defender of this challenge could reply
that my response is merely a move in “power politics,” an attempt to impose the satisfaction of
my moral beliefs on others. On this view, the existence of human rights is a subjective matter of
what we invent and establish through power politics, not an objective matter of independent
normative facts that we can discover. This nihilism is at odds with my intuitions that our moral
beliefs about human rights track objective normative reasons, and that they need not be linked
with a will to impose our moral attitudes on others. But I acknowledge that this challenge
deserves further discussion. For exploration of the challenge just mentioned, see Raymond
Geuss, History and Illusion in Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 143–6.
A second challenge is perhaps inspired by Carl Schmitt’s account of “the political” as a domain
of radical antagonism in The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1996). It says that human rights talk is either at odds with political practice (which is funda-
mentally about how to fight our enemies, not about how to fraternize with every human being)
or a tactical device within it. Human rights talk is either hopelessly naïve or it displays rhetorical
manipulation. Although I believe that conflict is a common feature of politics, and that
universalist discourse is often used hypocritically, I disagree that radical antagonism is in every
case a necessary or desirable feature of politics, and that we cannot or should not disentangle
universalist commitments from their manipulation. But, again, I acknowledge that this challenge
deserves further discussion. I thank Adam Etinson and Elizabeth Frazer for their comments
about the issues addressed in this footnote.
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90 Human Dignity and Human Rights

the hope of preventing mechanisms that set back its purpose. If this were the
case, then although human rights principles would not be false, they would be
deficient as action-guiding propositions. This is worrisome because we intui-
tively see normative principles as having the two roles of helping us determine
whether certain practical outcomes are morally desirable and of helping us
decide what to do. If pursuing the fulfillment of human rights principles were
bound to be self-defeating, then those principles would not be action-guiding.
But these considerations need not really yield Abandonment. If a principle
does fulfill the role of determining the moral desirability of certain final
outcomes of action, then even if it were to be self-defeating as a direct guide
to action, it could be orientating in an indirect way. If the final outcome that is
morally desirable according to the principle is not likely to be achieved by
directly aiming at it, then we could aim at bringing about other outcomes that
will cause the final outcome as a by-product. When we engage in this plan-
ning, it is the final outcome that guides us in the selection of intermediate
outcomes. Returning to the example of sleep: we can decide to solve math-
ematical puzzles, read a novel, etc., which in turn will relax us or tire us out
and make us fall asleep. We should not simply close our eyes and tell ourselves
“Fall asleep now!” Something similar could be the case with human rights.
Perhaps we could pursue changes in the international economic and political
order that would create incentives for powerful agents to act in ways that
would prevent human rights violations. We are familiar with indirect mech-
anisms at the domestic level. A state can motivate agents to do what is right by
engaging their greed (through economic incentives) and fear (through threats
of penalties).
The previous response to Abandonment accepts, for the sake of argument,
that the direct pursuit of human rights is overall self-defeating. But I have not
found in the relevant literature evidence for that overall claim. To support it,
the defender of Abandonment would have to show that a global political
environment in which we engage in human rights advocacy would likely be
worse than another in which we do not. To show this it is not enough to
mention a set of appalling examples about power-relations subverting human
rights purposes. Abandonment is a sweeping proposal, and it requires com-
prehensive evidence. In fact, one of the most comprehensive recent empirical
studies of contemporary human rights practice suggests that on balance the
international practice has been positive.⁹ Given the absence of comprehensive

⁹ Beth Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic Politics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), ch. 9. Simmons says that the common senti-
ment that “international law has done very little to improve the rights chances of people around
the world . . . has largely developed in an evidenciary vacuum” (p. 350). Kennedy acknowledges
the difficulty of justifying sweeping comparative claims about the consequences of engaging and
not engaging in the human rights project (Dark Sides of Virtue, 32–3). Beitz shows that general
skeptics about the human rights practice cannot avoid defending a general claim about its
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Human Rights and Power 91

support backing its claim about the systematically self-defeating nature of
human rights practice, the presence of important empirical support for the
opposite claim, and the inherent moral desirability of human rights, we should
be reluctant to embrace Abandonment.
But even if it were true (against the existing evidence) that the human rights
practice has been overall self-defeating, this would not yield Abandonment.
The relevant comparison in the assessment of the practice should be broader,
including not only (i) what has happened in the human rights practice so far
and (ii) what would have happened had the human rights practice not been
pursued, but also (iii) what could have happened, or could happen in the
future, if the human rights practice had been, or were, shaped in other ways.¹⁰
This leaves us with Shaping, the most plausible upshot of power-related
worries about human rights. The idea here is that the worries can provide us
with reasons to arrange the human rights practice in certain ways. The rest of
this chapter explores Shaping. Before proceeding, it is important to highlight
the fact that the human rights project involves many possible patterns of
domestic and global action,¹¹ and that the same power-related worries that
warrant rejection of some forms of action in some circumstances may not
defeat others. For example, even if unilateral foreign coercive intervention is
likely to be a bad response to human rights violations in the overwhelming
majority of cases, other forms of action including international diplomatic
criticism, campaigns by grass-root international human rights movements, or
domestic resistance may be appropriate.

4.2.2. Specific Power-Related Worries and Desiderata

for Shaping Human Rights Practice

4.2.2.1. Parochialism and Imposition

A typical power-related worry about human rights practice is that it involves
an imposition of particular values by stronger Western societies on weaker,
non-Western ones.¹² This worry relies on two claims. The first, empirical

relative undesirability (The Idea of Human Rights, 207). Allen Buchanan argues that on balance
the introduction of a system of international legal human rights like the current one is morally
good (even if it could and should be improved). See The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), ch. 4.
¹⁰ The comparison could be complicated further by including (iv) what could have happened,
or could happen in the future, if a normative ideal different from human rights had been, or
were, pursued in its stead.
¹¹ James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 101. Beitz,
The Idea of Human Rights, 33–40.
¹² Chris Brown claims that “[t]he contemporary human rights regime is, in general, and for
the most part, in detail, simply a contemporary, institutionalized and universalized version of the
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92 Human Dignity and Human Rights

claim is that the origin and content of human rights doctrine reflect parochial
values that are not widely accepted amongst people in non-Western societies.
The second, normative claim is that it is wrong to disregard the will or
opinions of others by externally imposing the implementation of human rights
principles on them.¹³
These claims are problematic, especially if they are used to support Inex-
istence and Abandonment. The use of the empirical claim faces five familiar
challenges. First, the origins of contemporary human rights doctrine were not
so parochial. The drafters of the UDHR included members of different world
cultures, and they consulted a variety of intellectuals across the world to
develop an account that would resonate widely.¹⁴ Second, the development
of an international legal framework for the pursuit of human rights was
primarily pushed not by representatives of the strongest Western countries
(they in fact often blocked or delayed it), but by leaders of relatively weak
democratic and Third World countries and by NGOs, public intellectuals, and
activists.¹⁵ Third, the content of most human rights stated in the UDHR
protect interests that are widely recognized. For example, the interests in not
being tortured, having enough to eat, being educated, having housing, access-
ing employment, and avoiding unfair trial are clearly not merely “Western.”
There are of course other claims in human rights documents that are contro-
versial, such as those concerning more demanding social rights, strong polit-
ical rights, and non-discrimination on the basis of gender. (Notice that some
of these rights are disputed by some people in the West.) However, fourth, as
Nickel has argued, even if the statement of some individual rights may have
originated in the West, their wider relevance is now quite obvious given that
they focus on protecting individuals (and groups) against some threats from
the modern state, an institution that is now ubiquitous across the world.¹⁶
Further, fifth, we should avoid a conventionalist view according to which a
right exists only if those possibly affected by its implementation already accept
that it exists. Normative claims about human rights are not reports of public
opinion. We should avoid the fallacy of moving from the empirical claim that
there is disagreement about a right to the normative claim that there is no such

liberal position on rights.” “Universal Human Rights. A Critique,” International Journal of

Human Rights 1 (1997), 41–65, at 43. Slavoj Žižek claims that “ ‘human rights’ are, as such, a
false ideological universality, which masks and legitimizes a concrete politics of Western
imperialism, military interventions and neo-colonialism.” “Against Human Rights,” New Left
Review 34 (2005), 115–31, at 128–9. Kennedy argues that the human rights project is “tainted” by
its parochial origins: it is less effective as a result, and its generalization of Western liberal ideas
and political frameworks “impoverished local political discourse” in countries where other viable
and potentially effective ideas were marginalized (The Dark Sides of Virtue, 18–21).
¹³ Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights, 203 (Beitz construes the second claim differently).
¹⁴ Mary Ann Glendon, A World Made New (New York: Random House, 2002), ch. 5.
¹⁵ Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights, 40–1, 46–9, 352–3.
¹⁶ Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 173–4.
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Human Rights and Power 93

right. Women had rights against discrimination before the belief that they do
became an item in mainstream political agendas. Another common fallacy
that operates in the neighborhood is the genetic fallacy according to which we
should judge the plausibility of an idea by considering its origins. The truth
value of the normative claim that there is a human right to democracy is not
threatened by the truth (if it is a truth)¹⁷ of an empirical historical report
saying that the belief in the value of democracy is Western in origin.
The normative claim seems plausible. But it should be qualified. It is not
necessarily always true that the disvalue of external imposition outweighs the
value of the outcomes that could only be reached through it. Serious emer-
gencies can warrant exceptions. But in any case we must see that the current
practice of human rights is not one in which coercive international action is
widespread. In fact, the two Covenants include (in their Article 1) strong
clauses stating the self-determination of peoples, and their implementation is
normally led by domestic political actors.¹⁸ On the other hand, we should not
only worry about international imposition. We should also worry about
domestic imposition. It is not uncommon for worries about foreign interference
to be voiced by agents who want to maintain domestic practices of oppression
and domination. This is not only the case when it comes to some “non-
Western” leaders challenging strong political human rights whose fulfillment
would threaten their authoritarian rule. It was common for example in the
United States, when many political leaders worried about official recognition of
international human rights law that could be used to challenge the oppression
of African-Americans in the American south.¹⁹ Certain forms of imposition
might (with the usual caveats regarding likely effectiveness and avoidance of
unacceptable consequences) be justifiable in extremis to protect some from
severe impositions by others. This need not be a form of paternalism, as those
protected may already resent their condition.²⁰
But the empirical and normative claims involve genuine concerns for
Shaping. The history of colonialism and the contemporary global imbalances
in economic, military, and cultural power must put us on guard. It is indeed
problematic when the articulation of the content and implementation of
human rights is in the hands of disproportionately powerful agents and does
not seriously include all those to whom they would apply. It is also a problem
when some powerful agents act in self-righteous ways, without proper
acknowledgment of their own deficits. For example, Americans proselytizing
for democratic governance around the world should also pay attention to the

¹⁷ Amartya Sen argues that democratic values also sprung independently in many Asian
societies. See The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), ch. 15. “Like
fire, or painting or writing, democracy seems to have been invented more than once, and in more
than one place.” Robert Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 9.
¹⁸ Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights, 365–73. ¹⁹ Ibid., 40, 43.
²⁰ Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights, 84–5.
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94 Human Dignity and Human Rights

serious pathologies facing their domestic politics, shaped as it largely is by the
influence of people with large sums of money to fund campaigns, control the
media, and offer lucrative jobs to public servants after they leave office. In
response, human rights practice should accept the following desiderata:
(D1) Epistemic openness: We should have a fallibilistic attitude towards
the correctness and completeness of the set of human rights we currently
accept. We should pay attention to the voice and point of view of people
from diverse social settings.
(D2) Presumption against external imposition: Absent strong countervail-
ing considerations, the implementation of human rights in a social context
should be such that the agents in that context have effective opportunities to
control it.
(D3) Humility: When criticizing others, those pursuing human rights
should not be condescending and arrogant, and they should be open to
criticism.
Who is the “we” addressed by D1 and similar formulations? Every agent insofar
as they have duties correlative to human rights. I do not mean to erase the
different responsibilities of individuals belonging to different groups, or occu-
pying different positions in domestic and international power hierarchies. Quite
the contrary, D1–D3 precisely call for awareness of inequalities in power—and
this should include recognition of the history that created them. But the
different responsibilities that are identified in this way should be geared to the
fulfillment of a common human rights project that includes us all as equals
(even if doing our part to fulfill it may involve different specific tasks).²¹

4.2.2.2. Hegemonic Manipulation

Antonio Gramsci argued that “the supremacy of a social group manifests itself
in two ways, as ‘domination’ (dominio) and as ‘intellectual and moral leader-
ship’ (direzioni).”²² Whereas the former exacts compliance through force or
coercion, the latter recruits the willing consent of the members of subordin-
ated groups through persuasion. The achievement of the second kind of

²¹ Both the differences and commonalities mentioned in the text seemed important to critics
of colonialism and imperialism. E.g., Frantz Fanon lampooned colonists’ use of the “discourse of
the equality of the human person” to mask their unequal concern for the lives of colonized
people. He identified with clarity and precision the different causal and ethical roles of the
members of the two groups in the history of colonialism and in the end of it. But he also
characterized the revolutions by peoples in the Third World as aiming to “rehabilitate the human
being, to make the human being triumph everywhere” (réhabiliter l’homme, . . . faire triompher
l’homme partout). Frantz Fanon, Les Damnés de la Terre (Paris: Gallimard, 1991), 122–3, 140.
²² The Antonio Gramsci Reader, ed. D. Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000),
249 (see also 195, 205–6, 211–12, 306–7, 333–4, 345).
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Human Rights and Power 95

supremacy is what Gramsci called “hegemony.” Hegemonic mechanisms
involve (inter alia) normative discourses that capture some of the interests
of the members of subordinated groups while being on balance tilted in
favor of the interests of the members of the group shaping the discourses,
thus cementing the power of the latter over the former.
Might human rights discourse work as a hegemonic device? Some believe
that it does. Each contender in the Cold War used human rights discourse to
bleed support from the other: the USSR emphasized the underperformance of
the US regarding the civil rights of African-Americans and the social rights of
workers, and the US criticized the violations of freedom of speech, association,
and political participation in the countries under Soviet control.²³ Each funded
purportedly non-governmental human rights organizations that articulated
these criticisms.²⁴ Some characterize human rights discourse as a tool wielded
by capitalists to cement their power in the contemporary global economy.
According to Evans, “[h]uman rights are conceptualized as the freedoms
necessary to maintain and legitimize particular forms of production and
exchange”; they focus on a “set of values delimited by an assumed normative
consensus that legitimizes activities associated with market discipline, specif-
ically, negative rights and those associated with property.”²⁵ There is also the
general suspicion that the “enforcement of human rights by the international
community is determined, in practice, by the foreign-policy imperatives of
the major powers.”²⁶ At the limit, human rights are invoked as part of the
justification of coercive interventions that in the eyes of many are primarily
motivated by economic or geopolitical interests rather than by human rights
concerns. For example, many think that the American invasion of Iraq was
about control of oil rather than about responding to international terrorism
or promoting democracy. Finally, there is the widespread phenomenon of
inconsistent implementation. The US ratified the ICCPR but not the
ICESCR. While it criticized the Soviets for trampling on civil and political
rights, it supported the dictatorship of Pinochet in Chile, which violated both
in egregious ways. It is common for foreign aid to be focused on countries with
which the donor country has extensive trade links, disregarding other coun-
tries even if they need more help.²⁷ International prosecution and criticism for

²³ Glendon, A World Made New, ch. 11.

²⁴ Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights, 47–8.
²⁵ The Politics of Human Rights, 43, 44. Evans also stresses how socioeconomic (and even
political) rights are ignored and undermined to create attractive conditions for investment and
intensive exploitation of labor by multinational corporations. Such corporations have extensive
influence on governments and international decision-making agencies (such as international
trade organizations) (ibid., 44–5, 50).
²⁶ Brown, “Universal Human Rights: A Critique,” 53–4. See also Žižek, “Against Human
Rights.”
²⁷ The Harper administration of the Canadian government decided to end its aid efforts
toward several countries, alleging that the “operation costs” were too high. Many of those
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96 Human Dignity and Human Rights

war crimes commonly targets leaders of poor countries, but very rarely if at all
leaders of powerful countries.²⁸ These phenomena seem to support the view
that human rights discourse surfaces in strong ways only when it is likely to
serve the strategic interest of powerful agents.
The foregoing considerations obviously do not warrant Inexistence. The
instrumental use of human rights talk does not disprove the existence of the
human rights talked about. In fact, it exploits the widespread and independent
conviction that those rights exist. What about Abandonment? Would the
relatively powerless be better off if human rights were not part of the domestic
and international political vocabulary? As I said before, this is hard to ascer-
tain. But there are reasons to think that the use of human rights discourse has
very important positive effects. To begin with, human rights are not only
invoked by the powerful. Appeal to them was, and is, a common normative
resource in the struggle of subaltern groups such as women under patriarchal
regimes, the working poor in wealthy and developing countries, and mistreat-
ed prisoners across the world. Second, hegemonic manipulations can be
unmasked and criticized by referring to human rights. For example, contem-
porary international and domestic economic arrangements can be faulted for
their violation of the human rights of workers in sweatshops and their
association with political regimes that flout the civil and political rights of
protesters. Third, although human rights discourse can be coupled with
different wider normative conceptions of social organization (such as capital-
ism and socialism), it imposes constraints on them by identifying a minimum
of decency and dignity for any agent subject to their rules. Even if human
rights discourse is subject to hegemonic articulations, it involves recognition
of a form of basic justice that should be welcomed rather than dismissed. It
would be worse if such basic moral core were not on the table as something to
reckon with (even through manipulation). Finally, as Koskenniemi points out,
the hegemonic pattern of discourse has the pragmatic consequence of helping
build an international political community in which general rights and duties
are routinely invoked and discussed, and this forces players in the hegemonic
game to be more inclusive of the interests of others.²⁹ I would go further: the
moral language game of human rights has a tendency to subvert merely
strategic reasoning. It does so by invoking constraints of symmetric regard
and impartial concern between human beings. These are never reducible to

countries were among the poorest in the world. On the other hand, Canada would continue its
support to countries with which it had ongoing trade agreements or in which it was carrying out
significant business activity, even though several of them were significantly less poor. Fawzia
Sheikh, “Canada cuts aid budget but middle-income trade partners unaffected,” Guardian
(May 2, 2012).
²⁸ Evans, The Politics of Human Rights, 31.
²⁹ Martti Koskenniemi, “International Law and Hegemony: A Reconfiguration,” Cambridge
Review of International Affairs 17 (2004), 197–218.
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Human Rights and Power 97

the search for strategic advantage: although they might at times coincide with
it, they may also be used to challenge its tendency to select norms that
downplay the needs of the weak, or to apply appropriate norms inconsistently.
The moral component of hegemonic devices has independent significance.
So, we probably should not abandon the human rights project. But the
worries about hegemonic manipulation are of course very serious. They give
rise to the following desiderata regarding Shaping.
(D4) Multilateral authorization: Responding to the problem of corrup-
tion of human rights discourse by unilateral international interventions, we
should pursue “an international regime combining a mechanism for ap-
proval of unilateral protective efforts with a capacity to apply incentives to
encourage fidelity to the efforts’ purposes.”³⁰
(D5) Prioritizing the worst off: In proposing and assessing the desirability
of international actions to promote human rights, we should primarily
focus on those whose human rights situation is the worst.³¹
(D6) Encouraging imagination of multiple articulations: Human rights
can be components in different wider conceptions of social justice. We
should be open to these different articulations, both to respond to discursive
manipulation and to foster wider support for the human rights project.
(D7) Public reasoning: In proposing and assessing invocations of human
rights in domestic and global politics, we should promote practices of public
reasoning in which we can impartially test their fairness and consistency.³²

4.2.2.3. Humiliation and Solidarity

Another power-related worry about human rights practice is that it encour-
ages a pattern of social relations in which some people’s agency is downplayed
while others’ is unduly exalted. Those undergoing human rights deprivations

³⁰ Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights, 207. Allen Buchanan and Robert Keohane, “The Pre-
ventive Use of Force: A Cosmopolitan Institutional Proposal,” Ethics and International Affairs
18 (2004), 1–22.
³¹ This is a pro tanto consideration, which might be outweighed. One example concerns
effectiveness: the situation in country A may be worse than in country B, but those in country
C (the ones undertaking human rights supportive action) may be significantly more able to affect
B than A. Another case concerns responsibility to compensate for harm: those in C may have to
prioritize action regarding B if they have been complicit in bringing about the human rights
deficit in B (but not in A, or less so).
³² D7 is wider than D4, including domestic and international public debate that shapes
opinion but not directly decision-making in specific institutions. Delving into the social epis-
temology of modern human rights practice, Allen Buchanan argues the practice seems to already
have important resources to counter bias, which could be developed further. Buchanan, “Human
Rights and the Legitimacy of the International Order,” Legal Theory 14 (2008), 39–70. E.g., non-
Western people have significantly influenced the shape of international human rights doctrine
since their entrance into various international human rights forums after decolonization.
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98 Human Dignity and Human Rights

are seen as helpless victims, and those stepping in to help are seen as active
saviors.³³ What is wrong with this pattern? Although critics are not fully
explicit on this question, it seems that there are two worries, one factual and
the other normative. The factual objection is that the description of processes
of human rights deprivation and amelioration by reference to victims and
saviors is inaccurate. Those undergoing human rights deprivations may have
been causally involved in their own deprivation. Perhaps they are partly
responsible for their current situation because of their not having taken
available steps to protect themselves (for example, by engaging in political
collective action more often to fight dictators, politicians’ corruption, etc.).
And perhaps they are, or could be, much more active in the process of
amelioration. The “saviors,” on the other hand, may not really be able to do
much unless they engage the active agency of those undergoing deprivations.
They cannot on their own reorganize the social life of the “victims.”
A normative consideration operating in this worry is the following:
(D8) Non-humiliation: When some agents help others to overcome situ-
ations of human rights deprivation, the former should acknowledge, and
engage, the initiative and active agency of the latter.
This is an important desideratum for the shaping of the human rights pro-
ject.³⁴ We should respect other people’s agency by seeing them as active
shapers of their own social life—at least so far as the fulfillment of their
human rights is concerned. This point can indeed be used to criticize some
forms of humanitarian intervention that see those whose human rights are
violated as mere victims to be saved by other, powerful agents. Sometimes the
“victims” bear some responsibility for their condition; and sometimes they
can, and should, be among the key political players in the struggle for
improving their condition. We disrespect people if we fail to recognize the
extent to which they are active agents.

³³ Mutua, Human Rights, ch. 1. See also Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue, 29. Žižek claims
that “[t]oday’s ‘new reign of ethics’ . . . [invoked by human rights advocates] relies on a violent
gesture of depoliticization, depriving the victimized other of any political subjectivation”
(“Against Human Rights,” 128).
³⁴ Its disregard of course does not warrant the claim that there are no human rights, and it has
not in fact been so widespread as to support Abandonment. Simmons responds thus to Mutua’s
worry that the human rights movement is framed by a narrative of “saviors” rescuing “victims”
from “savages”: “Treaty commitments are directly available to groups and individuals whom
I view as active agents as part of a political strategy of mobilizing to formulate and demand their
own liberation. Rather than viewing international law as reinforcing patriarchal and other power
structures, the evidence suggests that it works against these structures in sometimes surprising
ways” (Mobilizing for Human Rights, 7). When governments explicitly commit to human rights
international law, they raise the expectations of domestic and foreign political actors, who then
press for the fulfillment of those commitments with various means (litigation being just one
of them).
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Human Rights and Power 99

However, we should not exaggerate the concern about independent agency.
Another important point is that we should take reasonable steps to help other
human beings in need. It is a pervasive fact of human existence that people
need help from others to avoid the bad and achieve the good. This of course
also applies to the most urgent forms of the bad and the good, which human
rights track. Sometimes others simply cannot successfully defend their rights
on their own. Sometimes dictators will crush their dissent and systematically
torture and kill them. Sometimes their hunger can end but is not terminated in
the near future because the needed and reasonably available external help is
not provided.³⁵ As a matter of fact, human beings can achieve little in the way
of satisfaction of their most urgent interests without the active help of others.
An ideal of radical independence or self-sufficiency is infeasible. It seems also
unappealing because it misses the significance of cooperation and community
in social life. We thus have reason to accept:
(D9) Solidarity: We should help others achieve conditions in which their
human rights are fulfilled.
In fact, the value underlying this desideratum is among the key ones animating
the human rights project. Article 2 of the UDHR calls on all human persons to
act in a “spirit of brotherhood.” Solidaristic support to achieve the fulfillment
of human rights is owed both domestically and internationally. To fully
express and elaborate this value, the human rights practice needs to avoid a
narrow emphasis on independence. Such emphasis undermines the applica-
tion of D9: it fosters feelings of shame in those seeking help, and of guilt in
those helping. This is unfortunate: rights can, and should be seen, as a way of
marking our need for and commitment to support each other in the search for
a decent or dignified life.³⁶ Human rights practice should be shaped by a form
of respectful solidarity that combines D8 and D9.

4.2.2.4. Bourgeois Ideology and Deep Change

Although it was not focused on contemporary human rights but on the
“natural rights” claimed in the modern bourgeois revolutions, Karl Marx’s
critical remarks on rights (especially in his early text “On the Jewish

³⁵ Ironically, those who emphasize the worry about “victimization” risk embracing the
bourgeois ideology they claim to combat: they may fail to attend to the phenomena of social
dependency and solidarity that render the ideal of radical individual independence both infeas-
ible and undesirable.
³⁶ The human rights project can involve a recognition and valuation of mutual dependency.
The UDHR can indeed be seen, in Glendon’s apt phrase, as a “Declaration of Interdependence”
(A World Made New, ch. 10). On the relations between human dignity, empowerment, and
solidarity, see chapter 7 of this book.
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100 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Question”) have been extremely influential. Given this influence and the
insights they involve, I will discuss four of them:
(A) Modern bourgeois revolutions involve “political” but not full “human
emancipation.” They introduce a package comprising “the rights of the
citizen” (that is, political rights to assemble, vote, etc.) and the “rights of
man” (rights to free speech, personal security, private property, etc.) that
achieves the dissolution of feudal society. But this package involves a dualism
that is multiply problematic. The division between the political community or
the state, and the private sphere or civil society functions in such a way that
the former (and its abstract forms of equality, freedom, and brotherhood)
masks, permits, affirms, depoliticizes, and is a means to preserving the latter
(with its pervasive egoism and inequalities of social power).³⁷
(B) The specific “rights of man” invoked in the French and American
Revolutions are the claims of “egoistic man, of man separated from other
men and from the community.”³⁸
(C) Rights discourse neglects the differences among individuals, condon-
ing problematic inequalities. For example, in the first stage of a communist
society in which distribution is based on a right of each to receive according
to their productive contribution, those with greater native productive tal-
ents will be better off than others who exert the same amount of effort in
their productive activities. The best society will be one in which we move
beyond this inherent limitation. Thus, the final stage of communist society
would instantiate the slogan “From each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs.”³⁹ This society lies beyond the realm of rights.
A general claim underlying much in Marx’s (and many Marxists’) challenges
is this:
(D) The “rights of man” are presented as universal, but often they articulate
the specific interests of specific groups of people in specific societies (such as
the interest of the bourgeoisie in private property over productive assets).
Each of these points involves important and true insights but also mistakes
and exaggerations. I will briefly discuss them. I will also consider how they
might apply to contemporary human rights. This is not the context Marx had
in mind, of course. But some contemporary writers extend these points to

³⁷ Karl Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” in The Marx–Engels Reader, ed. R. Tucker, 2nd ed.
(New York: Norton, 1978), 26–52, at 34–43. An insightful characterization of (A) can be found
in Wendy Brown, States of Injury (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), ch. 5.
³⁸ “On the Jewish Question,” 42–3.
³⁹ “Critique of the Gotha Program,” in The Marx-Engels Reader, 525–41, at 530–1.
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Human Rights and Power 101

human rights, and it is in any case a worthy exercise to consider the plausi-
bility of such extension.⁴⁰
(A) involves two important insights. First, rights-talk emerges in specific
historical circumstances. To understand the former, we do well to attend to
the latter, which include certain power dynamics. This point is relevant for
understanding contemporary human rights talk, and is indeed a key motiv-
ation for this chapter. Marx is also correct to think that what he calls “political
emancipation” is not enough: without important changes in the economy, the
“freedom,” “equality,” and “brotherhood” announced in the political sphere
will be compromised.
There are, however, two problems with (A). First, it seems to ignore that
political rights can be exercised to reshape the egoistic economy Marx says
they are bound to presuppose. In fact they have been exercised in that way in
the development of welfare states. Welfare states stop short of socialism, of
course, but they go well beyond laissez-faire capitalism. Political power and
socioeconomic power interact in complex ways that do not always fit the
functionalist picture involved in (A).⁴¹ Second, it is true that the distinction
between the public and the private can be, and has been, used to obscure the
problematic power relations operating in the latter (such as the exploitation of
labor in factories, or the physical abuse of women in households). But the idea
that there should be areas of personal life that are relatively free from public
monitoring is in fact an achievement of modern liberalism that should be
retained. I think that Marx would have agreed with this given that his
socialism had significant libertarian components and was explicitly opposed
to forms of communitarianism (or what he called “primitive communism”)
that obliterate individuals’ self-differentiation and liberty. But for as long as
conflicts between personal and collective autonomy are likely (I think this
likelihood is inescapable, but Marx disagreed—more on this below), some
distinction between the public and the private, and some rights protecting the
latter from abuses by majorities capturing the former, will make good norma-
tive sense. These personal freedoms are not capitalist liberties to own means
of production and exploit workers, but entitlements (qualified by whatever
important constraints of fairness are appropriate) to some levels of non-
interference in our personal affairs and relationships.
(B) also involves important insights. It is true that some of the alleged rights
advocated in bourgeois revolutions protected egoistic, instrumentalist, or
exploitative forms of economic interaction, and this seems problematic from

⁴⁰ E.g., Costas Douzinas invokes versions of (B), (C) and (D) in “Adikia: On Communism and
Rights,” in C. Douzinas and S. Žižek, eds., The Idea of Communism (London: Verso, 2010),
81–100. Žižek invokes versions of (A) and (D) in “Against Human Rights.”
⁴¹ For exploration of the debates on this issue within the socialist tradition, see Erik Wright,
Envisioning Real Utopias (London: Verso, 2010).
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102 Human Dignity and Human Rights

the point of view of human emancipation. It is also true that rights-talk
sometimes presents some capitalist liberties as if they protected universalizable
interests. Marx is correct to worry about the tendency to make modern,
capitalist, “egoistic man” into the “natural” or “authentic” one.⁴² However,
Marx’s discussion of the “rights of man” of the French (and American)
revolution is too narrow, and his sweeping dismissal of them is unacceptable.
We simply cannot accept that liberal individual liberty rights are just shields
for bourgeois egoism. Liberty of conscience and freedom of the press (both
mentioned in the French Declaration) are extremely important rights that any
social system that recognizes the significance of people’s capacities to shape
their own life from within would have to include. Marx is also mistaken to
assume that “equality” is of no political significance. It is not true that it only
means the “equal right to liberty . . . [for every man as a] self-sufficient
monad.”⁴³ The recognition of formal equality and equal liberty are (even if
insufficient) enormous achievements. They were denied people in feudalism,
and they would become templates to be developed further in substantive ways
through the identification of various new specific liberties and through their
extension to larger sets of persons (such as slaves, workers, and women).⁴⁴ The
idea that all persons should have equal legal entitlements is an undeniable
triumph against the earlier assumption that some deserve more rights than
others, or are inherently more worthy of respect and concern. Second, Marx’s
criticisms definitely do not apply to standard contemporary lists of human
rights (such as the UDHR). These do not entail capitalist property rights. And
they include numerous socioeconomic rights (see UDHR, Articles 22–6,
which include social security, appropriate remuneration for workers, rest
and leisure, health care, educational opportunities, etc.). They also state
domestic and global duties to cooperate with the fulfillment of socioeconomic
(and other) rights. So even if Marx is correct to criticize the narrow emphasis
on independence and separateness in early liberal individualism, current
human rights discourse and practice is explicitly attuned to the need for,
and obligation to give, solidaristic support.
Turning to (C), Marx seems to me correct to criticize the so-called
“contribution principle” (captured in the slogan “To each according to their
contribution”) in that its application is consistent with inequalities of outcome
that arise from morally arbitrary differences in individuals’ natural endow-
ments. I also find the slogan “From each according to their abilities, to each

⁴² “On the Jewish Question,” 46. ⁴³ Ibid., 42.

⁴⁴ Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York: Norton, 2007), chs. 3–4. On
the need for socialists not to dismiss human rights, see Robin Blackburn, “Reclaiming Human
Rights,” New Left Review 69 (2011), 126–38. For a fruitful exploration of how human rights
discourse involves many (sometimes opposed) strands, which include the articulation of various
leftist social movements around the world, see Helio Gallardo, Derechos Humanos Como
Movimiento Social (Bogota: Ediciones Desde Abajo, 2006), 62–97.
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Human Rights and Power 103

according to their needs” appealing as it involves a more desirable view of
social cooperation that captures both the importance of reciprocal contribu-
tion and sensitivity to difference.⁴⁵ More generally, it is true that the applica-
tion (and even the formulation) of rights often fails to capture the relevant
differences among individuals. We can derive important desiderata from these
points. The emphasis on responsibility towards others was captured in D9.
We can add:
(D10) Sensitivity to diversity: In formulating, justifying, and implement-
ing human rights, we should be sensitive to important differences among
individuals.
Clearly, even if two individuals have the same rights, they may need different
specific policies to attend to their fulfillment given relevant differences
between them. This is already expressed in the human rights movement—
for example, through the generation of instruments identifying specific needs
and claims on the part of certain groups (such as the Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Con-
vention on the Rights of the Child).
Marx’s dismissal of the idea of rights is however too sweeping. As we saw,
differences can and should be incorporated in rights discourse and practice.
Even if people have equal rights to a decent standard of living, they may need
different things to achieve it: some cannot walk and need wheelchairs or
ramps to access buildings, others need special medicines, some are very
young and need special nutrition, some are very old and need special care.
Rights-talk need not be abstract in ways that obscure important differences.
Even though relatively abstract, rights claims can be framed to protect indi-
viduals against likely threats and problems that arise in their social life. Their
formulation could address types of social circumstances to be avoided or
promoted. This can happen at different levels of generality.⁴⁶ On the other
hand, some amount of abstraction is unavoidable in lumping cases under
common headings (as any set of rules must). Some of the problems might be
solved by breaking types into important sub-types either in the formulation of
specific rights or at the level of the policies that implement them (this is what
D10 would demand). But the tension between standardization and singularity
is likely to remain. We can only seek to navigate it through lucid contextual
judgment. Of course, this would not be necessary in a society of superabun-
dance and dissolution of serious conflict of interests (which Marx might seem

⁴⁵ Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According To Their Abilities, To Each
According To Their Needs’,” Journal of Social Philosophy 46 (2015), 197–225.
⁴⁶ As argued in chapter 2, rights can be articulated at different levels of abstraction or
specificity. Differences among individuals can be articulated at any of these levels, depending
on their practical relevance.
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104 Human Dignity and Human Rights

to envisage for the higher phase of communism in “Critique of the Gotha
Program”). This society would be one in which rights-talk is no longer
necessary: everyone would as a matter of course get what they need. But
such a prospect seems wildly infeasible. In any case, for as long as it is not
achievable, we will encounter scarcity, conflict, and power differentials. We
will need normative guidelines for addressing such circumstances. And the
rights idiom (properly understood) is suited to that important task.
Finally, regarding human rights, it is important to notice that they mostly
are basic sufficientarian demands.⁴⁷ Thus, socioeconomic human rights fall
well short of socialist demands of equality. But there is no necessary conflict
here. Socialist rights can be seen as including human rights as a proper subset.
One can campaign for both. Still, the distinction is morally and politically
important. Human rights are far more morally urgent than their complement
in the socialist ideal. And one should be willing to achieve broader political
alliances with those who endorse human rights but not socialist rights if this is
necessary to immediately stop the evils of human rights violations (such as
torture, starvation, and political oppression). On the other hand, the Marxian
suspicion about just focusing on human rights is in order. If inequalities
outside the domain of human rights are too wide, then perhaps not even the
most basic human rights will be secure. For example, if inequalities of wealth
and economic power are very deep, they may corrupt the political system,
making it unlikely to impose the regulations needed to keep people out of
severe poverty. Many contemporary capitalist societies exhibit this problem.
Thus, broader, even if not distinctly socialist, economic reforms may be
necessary to secure human rights themselves.
I will not comment on (D) because I have already covered the relevant
issues when introducing desiderata D4–D7. D4–D7 can also be seen as
responses to the threat of ideological manipulation. Their fulfillment would
help disrupt the presentation of the contingent as necessary, the particular as
universal, and the temporary as invariant. Marx’s concern is clearly worth
taking on board. I will return to this issue in section 4.3.
Another important issue inspired by critical considerations of the kind
Marx introduced is the issue of “structural change.” Many power-related
discussions about human rights worry that human rights discourse is super-
ficial because it does not address the causes of human rights deprivations. To
do so, we should focus on the economic and political structures that frame
domestic and international relations. Mutua, for example, says that we should

⁴⁷ I say “mostly” because, like Allen Buchanan, I believe that there is an important status-
egalitarian dimension of human rights which is expressed in legal entitlements against discrim-
ination in various social and political activities. See Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights,
28–31. David Miller argues against this egalitarian component in “Human Rights and Status
Egalitarianism,” Ethics & International Affairs 30 (2016), 461–9. I return to the issue of the
relative expansiveness of human rights in Part III of this book.
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Human Rights and Power 105

critically discuss capitalism, imperialism, and the market economy besides
merely regulating their worst outcomes.⁴⁸ Others worry that the human rights
movement is narrowly focused on developing legal frameworks for holding
individuals responsible, without addressing the circumstances that enable or
encourage them to undermine human rights. The underlying desideratum
seems to be this:
(D11) Deep change: In pursuing the fulfillment of human rights, we
should seek to change economic and political structures and other deep
factors that constitute human rights violations or make human rights
deprivations likely.
This desideratum is appealing. In fact, even many of those who focus on
international human rights law accept it.⁴⁹ But this does not show that legal
instruments are not important. They have enabled citizens to effectively force
their government to act to protect their rights (as is the case, for example, with
Colombian women fighting for their reproductive rights by pressing their
government to honor its ratification of CEDAW⁵⁰). Furthermore, some
human rights directly capture deep structural dimensions, as is the case with
the strong political rights envisioned in UDHR (e.g., Art. 21) and ICCPR (e.g.,
Art. 25). The practice can, and should, go further by addressing features of the
international order. Thus, Thomas Pogge has recently discussed the need to
change features of that order that enable and incentivize the formation of
authoritarian governments that violate their citizens’ rights (such as the
international privilege to sell the natural resources they seize, and to purchase
weapons they use to suppress dissent).⁵¹ Others have emphasized the need to
change trade regimes and the governance structures of international institu-
tions such as the WTO in order to facilitate fair trade, which could help
millions to escape severe poverty.⁵² These efforts reflect (D11), and are in
tune with the important, framing Article 28 of the UDHR, according to which
“Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights

⁴⁸ Mutua, “Human Rights and Powerlessness: Pathologies of Choice and Substance,” Buffalo
Law Review 56 (2008), 1027–34, at 1027. See also Kennedy, The Dark Sides of Virtue, 11. It is true
that socioeconomic rights have been downplayed by Western governments and many inter-
national NGOs. But this has started to change. The UN Millennium Goals included targets
regarding poverty eradication, and NGOs such as Oxfam and (recently) Amnesty International
have been focusing on economic deprivation. Still, more focus on “economic tyranny” and
“economic powerlessness” is necessary if “asymmetries of power” are to be seriously addressed
(Mutua, 1029, 1033).
⁴⁹ Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights, 366. ⁵⁰ Ibid., 245–53.
⁵¹ Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Polity, 2008), chs. 4 and 6.
⁵² Joseph Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (New York: Norton, 2006), ch. 3. For a
philosophical account of global justice centered on the responsibilities of powerful agents
shaping international relations, see Richard Miller, Globalizing Justice: The Ethics of Poverty
and Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
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106 Human Dignity and Human Rights

and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” More efforts
of this kind are obligatory.

4.2.2.5. Political Action in Non-ideal Circumstances

A final desideratum I want to identify is this:
(D12) Non-ideal ethical reasoning: In pursuing the fulfillment of human
rights we may encounter situations in which sufficiently many others act in
ways that thwart that fulfillment, or do not act in ways that support it.
In such non-ideal circumstances, we may follow special guidelines for
action that would not apply in different, ideal circumstances.
The need for distinguishing between ideal and non-ideal normative reasoning,
and the significance of the latter for politics, are important issues that are
becoming salient in debates in political philosophy.⁵³ I have defended else-
where the need to engage in non-ideal theorizing when it comes to the pursuit
of global justice and human rights.⁵⁴ And, in chapter 3, I have emphasized the
need for acknowledging what I call dynamic duties. These duties are focused
on expanding agents’ capacities for political action so that more extensive
implementations of human rights become more realistic. In the present
context of discussion, this requires a hard look at power relations: the power
of those blocking human rights pursuits must be limited, the power of those
seeking their fulfillment must be expanded, and choices involved in such
processes will include tradeoffs that would not be necessary in ideal circum-
stances in which the implementation of human rights is more feasible and
more systematically embraced by influential actors. I thus agree with Kennedy
that we need to adopt a pragmatic approach that is sensitive to both desirable
and undesirable consequences, including costs, risks, and uncertainty—the
“darks sides” of the human rights practice—in order to better realize its
goals.⁵⁵ This requires from political actors an ethical sense of responsibility:
they have to weigh the moral significance of alternative forms of action (and
inaction), and choose those that are, in their best judgment and overall, no
worse than the alternatives.

⁵³ Laura Valentini, “Ideal vs. Non-Ideal Theory: A Conceptual Map,” Philosophical Compass
7 (2012), 654–64.
⁵⁴ Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality: A Philosophical Exploration
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), chs. 4 and 7.
⁵⁵ The Dark Sides of Virtue, 3–8, 327–57.
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Human Rights and Power 107

4.3. BUILDING EMPOWERMENT I NTO

THE H UMAN RIGHTS PROJECT

4.3.1. Power as an Obstacle and as a Resource

for Human Rights

In section 4.2.1 I emphasized the distinction between descriptive and norma-

tive claims about human rights and power. In section 4.2.2 I identified some
desiderata for shaping the human rights project to attend to important issues
regarding power. Such desiderata combine descriptive and normative consid-
erations without conflating them. Their full exploration would of course
require the identification of specific agents, institutions, and modes of action.
But such an exploration is beyond the scope of this chapter. In what follows
I will instead focus on a more general and framing issue about how to design a
strategy that responds to the desiderata regarding power and human rights.
The strategy I propose suggests that we build empowerment into our view of
human rights. The first step in developing this view is that we notice that the
moral valence of power for human rights is not always negative.
A way to get to this point is by considering the insightful account of the
relation between power and human rights provided by Stammers.⁵⁶ At the
level of description, Stammers claims that rights-talk has been used in history
both to “challenge” and to “sustain” certain relations of asymmetric power.
Thus, in some forms of liberalism, some “innate” rights to liberty were invoked
to challenge state power, but they were also used to sustain capitalists’ economic
power in the private sphere. In some forms of socialism, the socioeconomic
rights of workers and others were invoked to challenge the economic power of
capitalists, but they were also used to sustain state power in societies that denied
civil and political rights to their citizens. Finally, the right to the self-
determination of peoples was invoked to challenge imperialism and colonialism,
but was used by some elites within Third World countries to sustain their
privileges and control of state power. Similar claims might hold for forms of
power concerning gender, sexual orientation, and race. At the normative level,
Stammers suggests that we see human rights as justified challenges to certain
existing forms of power. We can see them as responding to “standard threats of
power” (a notion he coins by modifying Henry Shue’s notion of “standard
threats”). Human rights can thus be seen as a “set of protection rights.”
I find Stammers’ descriptive and normative accounts illuminating and
sound as far as they go. But they are insufficient and potentially misleading.
First, the normative proposal is too narrow. Power is not only something
human rights relate to by identifying forms of protection as an obstacle or

⁵⁶ Neil Stammers, “Human Rights and Power,” Political Studies 51 (1993), 70–82.
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108 Human Dignity and Human Rights

threat. Power can also be enabling for human rights—that is, a resource. To
capture both possibilities we should focus on the significance of power for
people’s ability to access objects that satisfy important or urgent interests.
Protection rights are rights that people have against others using power in ways
that undermine access to those objects. Enablement rights are rights to have
power to access those objects. Noticing this distinction (and the plausibility of
both elements in it) suggests another problem with Stammers’ normative
proposal. Since what grounds human rights is not just the presence of power
threats, but also the importance of the interests that are threatened (or whose
fulfillment is not enabled), the content of human rights cannot simply be
identified by looking at power relations. We also need to look more broadly at
forms of social action that would facilitate access to the objects of urgent
human interests. (There is a counterpart at the descriptive level: we need to
explore enabling besides disabling forms of power relations.) Preventing
undesirable power disparities, or blocking their undesirable consequences,
should not be the only animating concerns. Human rights are about securing
a decent or basically dignified life for all. This includes, but goes beyond,
avoiding or protecting people from power threats. Our understanding of
human rights should be power-sensitive but not narrowly power-centered.

4.3.2. An Expressive-Elaboration Model

In a way, normative talk about moral human rights and descriptive talk about
power are like oil and water: they always come apart. Might doesn’t make right
(as Rousseau famously said⁵⁷), and rights don’t make might (as the history of
rights violations amply show). But descriptions of power in human rights
practice are relevant for a full picture of normative reasoning about human
rights. We can incorporate power analysis within the normative framework to
identify the feasibility and contents of various human rights. In this way, we
integrate, and complement, the insight from the last two chapters regarding
the importance of paying attention to feasibility considerations and the spe-
cificity of political practice.
We can develop an expressive-elaboration model of empowerment within
the human rights project. We can, first, elaborate the content of specific rights
as requiring that the right-holders have power to access certain goods. To
properly respond to an agent’s right to a certain object O is to take reasonable
and feasible steps to respect, protect, and promote the agent’s capability to get
O if they choose to do so. Second, when we engage in this elaboration we can
express our commitment to agents’ empowerment by recognizing their right

⁵⁷ “[F]orce does not make right.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, in The Social
Contract and Other Later Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997), 44.
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Human Rights and Power 109

to participate in it as equal partners. We can see the meta-level practices of
discovery, justification, and implementation of various ground-level human
rights as themselves areas of empowerment that we should take reasonable
and feasible steps to respect, protect, and promote. Both of these points would
incorporate the dimension of power as a resource mentioned in section 4.3.1.
Let me note two important potential consequences of pursuing the approach
recommended here. First, this approach has consequences for what human
rights we should accept. The second point, for example, demands that we see
strong political rights (including democratic rights) as part of the human rights
package. Political rights are important in themselves because they involve the
recognition of agents’ capacity for political judgment and self-determination.
They are also instrumentally significant because they enhance agents’ power to
identify, implement, and defend their other rights. (Notice that this includes
both the protection and enablement considerations mentioned in section 4.3.1.)
This is an important result given the skepticism that some philosophers have
recently voiced as to whether there is a human right to democracy.⁵⁸
Second, this approach would help us cater for the desiderata identified in
this chapter. The kind of empowerment envisaged in the first (ground-level)
point would cater for D2, D5, D8, D10, and D11. If we construe human rights
as demanding capabilities to achieve their objects, then we foster right-holders’
ability to determine whether they get the objects of their rights (D2), we can
focus on bolstering the capabilities of the worse-off to do so (D5), we activate
the initiative of rights-holders to shape their own condition (D8), we enable
ourselves to focus on what they need to have the power to get the objects of
their rights given their diverse circumstances (which affect their power) (D10),
and we are moved to explore deep changes that give them abilities besides
formal opportunities to achieve a decent or basically dignified life (D11). If we
also incorporate the second (meta-level) point, then we will also be well
positioned to cater for D1, D2, D3, D4, D6, D7, D8, and D10. If we construe
the human rights project as fostering robust and cooperative practices of
political self-determination, then we can foster multiple arenas of formal
and informal, domestic and international political participation in which
agents can engage in public reasoning (D7) and decision-making, revise
their beliefs about what various agents do, can, and should do to fulfill rights
(D1 and D3), minimize unilateral coercive imposition (D2 and D4), engage
others as equal cooperators in the project of fulfilling human rights (D8), and

⁵⁸ See the detailed discussion in chapter 10 of this book. I should emphasize that political
empowerment involves many possible expressions, from democratic decision-making, to public
reasoning, to protest and rebellion. The full panoply must be considered, especially when facing
non-ideal circumstances as desideratum D12 demands. See Gilabert, From Global Poverty to
Global Equality, ch. 4. For an earlier discussion of the idea of an expression-elaboration model,
see Pablo Gilabert, “A Substantivist Construal of Discourse Ethics,” International Journal of
Philosophical Studies 13 (2005), 405–37.
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110 Human Dignity and Human Rights

envisage multiple possible ways of fulfilling human rights that are appropriate
for different individuals in different circumstances (D6 and D10).

4.3.3. Power and Solidarity

The remarks made in sections 4.3.1 and 4.3.2 emphasize the need to build
empowerment into the theory and practice of human rights. We should seek
to reduce asymmetries of power, and bolster the absolute power of all to access
the objects of their rights. Although these moves would help us cater for most
of the desiderata identified in section 4.2, they are not sufficient for as long as
significant levels of relative or absolute powerlessness (relevant for the fulfill-
ment of human rights) persist. In fact, their complete elimination may not be
feasible. But even if the elimination of relative and absolute powerlessness
were feasible in the long term, in the immediate future they will exist. We will
then have to think about proper ways of acting in the face of such circum-
stances of power. Our response should include the acknowledgment of
dynamic duties to reduce relative and absolute powerlessness over time, and
to immediately respond to human rights deficits in the present. But the agents
of those duties here and now will often be unequal in their power, and will not
always be able to thoroughly respond to existing human rights deficits. In
facing these circumstances, we will be thinking about how to cater for desid-
erata D12 and D9. This will take us beyond the demand for empowerment,
forcing us to articulate an ethics of power-wielding in non-ideal circum-
stances. The relatively powerful will have to wield their superior power
responsibly. And the relatively powerless will have to accept the solidaristic
help of others. So we will need to develop ethical standards for the use of
unequal power, and envisage ways to recalibrate our sense of the importance
of having power for living decent or basically dignified lives.
How can we construe the human rights project so that it gives pride of place
to the solidaristic empowerment recommended by the model just sketched? In
the next part of this book (Part II), I offer an interpretation of the central idea
of human dignity, and argue that it helps us to systematically develop the
polemical points I have been making in Part I: that we can, and should,
combine universal humanist standard with specific claims in ongoing political
practice, that such a practice encounters but also dynamically changes feasi-
bility parameters, and that a solidaristic expansion and use of people’s power is
key for their fulfillment of human rights. A morally ambitious and practically
attuned approach to human rights is one that takes these rights to support
every person’s valuable capacities. When people have the power to develop
and exercise these capacities, they are able to secure for themselves and for
others what is needed for a life that fits their human dignity. But what is
human dignity? Chapter 5 turns to this question.
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Part II
The Dignitarian Approach
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Understanding Human Dignity

in Human Rights

5.1. INTRODUCTION

Calling for a decisive response that welcomes more refugees and allows them
to work, the European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker recently
characterized the tackling of the crisis triggered by the war in Syria as
“a matter of humanity and human dignity.”¹ Human dignity is regularly
invoked by social movements, is enshrined by national constitutions such as
those of Germany and South Africa, and features centrally in the main
documents of international human rights law. It is certainly pervasive in
human rights discourse. But what is human dignity, and why is it important
for human rights? This book offers an answer to these questions. This chapter
starts to the develop this project, which defends the claim that human dignity
is the moral heart of human rights: it frames human rights discourse by requiring
it to articulate and specify the distinctive claims of the human person in social life.
The philosophical exploration offered here proceeds as follows. In section
5.2, I identify six valuable roles that human dignity plays in human rights
discourse. In section 5.3, I develop an analytic framework and a proposal for
how to understand human dignity that illuminates its six roles. The analysis
yields a conceptual network including status-dignity, condition-dignity, the
basis of dignity, the circumstances of dignity, basic and maximal dignitarian
norms, and dignitarian virtue. The proposal argues that human dignity is an
inherent, non-conventional, non-instrumental, egalitarian, and high-priority
normative status of human persons; that persons have this status in virtue of
certain general, valuable, and important capacities; and that human rights
norms articulate and specify the appropriate responses to the dignity of the
human person in various social contexts. Thus, human dignity helps under-
stand human rights’ nature, content, and justification. However, many

¹ “Migrant crisis: EU’s Juncker announces refugee quota plan” (September 9, 2015),
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34193568.
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114 Human Dignity and Human Rights

scholars have expressed puzzlement about the idea of human dignity, arguing
that it lacks a clear meaning, does not play any important role in the theory or
practice of human rights, and lends itself to harmful uses that in fact under-
mine them. This is why, in chapter 6, I deploy the resources of the account
proposed in this chapter to defeat these objections. After responding to those
challenges, I will proceed in the remaining chapters of this book to develop the
dignitariarian program, showing how it can fruitfully frame the articulation
and justification of specific rights.

5.2. USES AND ROLES OF HUMAN DIGNITY

I start by stating what I take to be key roles of the idea of human dignity in
human rights discourse. In section 5.3, I propose an interpretation of the idea
that illuminates how dignitarian claims can play these roles (thereby explain-
ing them more fully).
Human dignity features quite often in political discourse. As noted above,
the European Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker recently charac-
terized the tackling of the refugee crisis triggered by the war in Syria as
“a matter of humanity and human dignity.” In his speech at Trafalgar Square
(in February 2005), Nelson Mandela invoked dignity to call for the end of
poverty. He said that “overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an
act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to
dignity and a decent life.”² Appeals to human dignity are common in public
debates about abortion, assisted suicide, genetic experimentation, freedom of
expression, workers’ rights, democratic rights, and the rights of gay people.
The appeal also surfaces in legal debates concerning torture, discrimination,
privacy, forced labor, and religious freedom.³
The history of the idea of human dignity has been approached in different
(although not necessarily incompatible) ways. One view focuses on how the
Enlightenment brought about a shift in the previous construal of dignity as

² See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4232603.stm. Christopher McCrudden,

“In Pursuit of Human Dignity: An Introduction to Current Debates,” in C. McCrudden, ed.,
Understanding Human Dignity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013) 1–58, at 1. McCrudden’s
text provides a valuable survey of some contemporary debates on human dignity.
³ McCrudden, “In Pursuit of Human Dignity,” 48. For illuminating surveys of appeals to
human dignity in various legal frameworks, see Christopher McCrudden, “Human Dignity and
Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights,” European Journal of International Law 19 (2008),
655–724; Roger Brownsword, “Human Dignity from a Legal Perspective,” in M. Düwell,
J. Braaving, R. Brownsword, and D. Mieth, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 1–22; and Paolo Carozza, “Human Rights,
Human Dignity, and Human Experience,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity,
615–29.
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 115

“high status” by challenging its exclusive ascription to persons holding superior
positions in social hierarchies. The French Revolution, for example, abolished
aristocratic “dignities.” Modern law and politics have progressively generalized
what previously was seen as only appropriate for a few. The authority to make
claims on others, the readiness to look them in the eye rather than be servile,
and the entitlement to be treated in affirming rather than condescending ways
have increasingly tended to be seen as appropriate for women, property-less
workers, and the members of other disadvantaged groups.⁴
Another approach links the use of the idea of human dignity to the
historical development of the human rights project.⁵ Some historians start
the narrative in 1848, with the decree that abolished slavery in the French
empire. That decree said that “slavery is an assault on human dignity; that in
destroying man’s free will, it destroys the natural source of law and duty.”
Some subsequent deployments of the idea of human dignity challenged
contemporary forms of humiliation and exploitation by linking them to the
legacy of slavery.⁶ Others highlight 1919, the year of the creation of the
International Labor Organization and the adoption of the Weimar Constitu-
tion, both requiring dignified conditions for workers. Other landmarks are the
adoption of the Irish Constitution in 1937, which refers to human dignity in its
Preamble, and the adoption of the German Basic Law in 1949, whose first
article declares that “[t]he dignity of man is inviolable,” that “[t]o respect and
protect it is the duty of all state authority,” and that “[t]he German people
therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of
every community, of peace and of justice in the world.”⁷ More recently, the

⁴ Elizabeth Anderson, “Human Dignity as a Concept for the Economy,” in M. Düwell et al.,
The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity, 492–7. Anderson notes the salience of these points
within human rights discourse, and she emphasizes the “specifically symbolic, expressive aspects
of dignity” (p. 497). See further Jürgen Habermas, The Future of Human Nature (Cambridge:
Polity, 2003), 37; Habermas, “The Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of
Human Rights,” Metaphilosophy 41 (2010), 464–80; and the extensive historical discussions
in Michael Rosen, Dignity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), and Jeremy
Waldron, Dignity, Ranks, and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
⁵ McCrudden, “In Pursuit of Human Dignity.”
⁶ Rebecca Scott, “Dignite/Dignidade: Organizing against Threats to Dignity in Societies after
Slavery,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 61–77. Scott explores the invoca-
tion of human dignity and the retrospective references to chattel slavery in contemporary legal
and political challenges to racial discrimination in the US and to the intense exploitation of
workers in Brazil.
⁷ See Samuel Moyn, “The Secret History of Constitutional Dignity” and Christoph Goos,
“Wuerde des Menschen: Restoring Human Dignity in Post-Nazi Germany,” in McCrudden, ed.,
Understanding Human Dignity, 95–111 and 79–83. Moyn emphasizes the impact of certain
strands of political Catholicism as crucial to the emergence of the phrase “human dignity” within
constitutions and international law during the twentieth century.
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116 Human Dignity and Human Rights

South African Constitution (1997) invoked human dignity as a foundational
value,⁸ and after the Lisbon Treaty (2009) the European Union Charter of
Fundamental Rights enshrined human dignity in its title 1.⁹
Certainly 1948, with the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR), was a crucial moment.¹⁰ Human dignity undeniably features
systematically in contemporary human rights discourse, and this will be my
main focus. Here are some examples from central human rights documents.
The first sentence of the Preamble of the UDHR refers to the “inherent
dignity . . . of all the members of the human family.” The fifth sentence
expresses “faith . . . in the dignity and worth of the human person.” Article 1
asserts that “[a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”
and that they “are endowed with reason and conscience and should act
towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.” Preceding UDHR, the UN
Charter expressed a commitment to “reaffirm faith in fundamental human
rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of
men and women and of nations large and small.” Important documents
following UDHR invoke human dignity as a key notion. The Preambles of
both Covenants (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR)) assert that human rights “derive from the inherent dignity
of the human person.” Human rights documents also construe specific rights
in dignitarian terms. For example, UDHR presents “economic, social and
cultural rights as indispensable for [people’s] dignity and the free development
of [their] personality” (Art. 22).
Before proceeding, let me say a word about the human rights project
involved in human rights practice. At least since the end of World War II, it
comprises various forms of domestic and supranational action and institu-
tions geared to the fulfillment of a set of basic civil, political and socioeco-
nomic rights. The key international documents of the human rights
movement (UDHR, ICESCR, and ICCPR), offer a general statement of those
rights. The practice of pursuing human rights is emergent.¹¹ It rallies around a
project that is itself in the making. Human rights are a distinctive kind of
moral rights.¹² A fairly ecumenical definition of them is that they are rights

⁸ Edwin Cameron, “Dignity and Disgrace: Moral Citizenship and Constitutional Protection,”
in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 467–82.
⁹ Catherine Dupre, “Constructing the Meaning of Human Dignity: Four Questions,” in
McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 113–21.
¹⁰ Mary Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (New York: Random House, 2001); Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 1999).
¹¹ Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 42–4.
¹² For further commentary on the concept of human rights used here, see chapter 1, section 1.3.
I focus on moral human rights, which are a characteristic and powerful resource to orient and
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 117

that are held by all human individuals at least in the contemporary world, have
normative force independently of whether they are already recognized in
existing legal and political institutions, may however be (and normally are)
such that at least in part they should be implemented through legal and
political institutions and practices, have high priority, and give rise to global
in addition to merely local concern. I take these features as central to our
understanding of human rights. There are of course debates about how to
construe them. And it is common to qualify some of them (so that, for
example, some rights are held by adult individuals but not yet by children).
We will consider some of these issues as we proceed.
Reference to human dignity is pervasive in human rights discourse. But
what is it? Given the wealth of uses of “human dignity” it is natural to ask
whether the same concept is involved in all of them. Perhaps there are
different concepts apt for different uses in different contexts. The phrase
“human dignity” (and equivalents in various languages) might be uttered to
express different concepts.¹³ To make headway in determining what to think
about human dignity in the context of human rights we could ask: What is the
role, or point, of invoking the idea of human dignity in human rights dis-
course? The content of the idea depends on its function within the practice in
which it operates. So, to understand human dignity, we must have a view of
what the use of the concept is to accomplish within human rights practice. But
before answering this question, we should notice that it could be construed in
different ways. My goal in this chapter is not the descriptive one of elucidating
an already existing concept that is used everywhere. I also do not stipulate, in a
top-down fashion, a concept that should be used independently of any existing
assumptions or goals. I pursue an intermediate task that consists in offering
what I call a “deliberative interpretive proposal.” Such a proposal is offered as a
fallible contribution to ongoing debate, makes contact with some assumptions
and goals in practical contexts when these are ethically sound, and suggests an
articulation of the concept that may not be already fully in place. What I will

justify human rights practice. I do not assume that identifying a moral human right to x provides
by itself a sufficient condition for imposing a legal human right to x (various practical consider-
ations are also relevant to reach that conclusion), or that it provides a necessary condition for such
imposition (legal rights might be morally justified on other grounds). See Allen Buchanan, The
Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), ch. 2.
¹³ And each of the concepts might be expressed with phrases other than “human dignity.”
Languages and cultures that do not have a phrase such as “human dignity” may have the concept
of human dignity, or quite similar ones. This may have been the case in some Native American
societies (such as the Iroquois) before European colonization. See Lars Kirkhusmo Pharo, “The
Concept of Human Dignity in Moral Philosophies of Indigenous Peoples in the Americas,” in
Düwell et al., The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity, 147–54. Interestingly, some such
concepts may capture not only universal ascription of intrinsic worth to all human beings, but
also to the nature surrounding them (p. 152).
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118 Human Dignity and Human Rights

propose is shaped by an understanding of the valuable roles of human dignity
in human rights discourse.
Let me say a word about what a deliberative interpretive proposal is. I will do
so through a contrast with an elucidation and with a stipulation. An elucida-
tion of a concept within a practice is a description of how agents who
participate in the practice understand it. A stipulation of a concept is a
recommendation that participants in the practice use it, regardless of whether
they have done it already. A deliberative interpretive proposal falls somewhere
in between. Like a stipulation and unlike an elucidation, its aim is not
fundamentally descriptive. Its aim is deliberative in the sense that it seeks an
answer to a question of the form “How am I to conceive of human dignity in
human rights practice?” This question differs from the elucidatory question
“How did I conceive, or have I conceived, of human dignity in human rights
practice?” A deliberative proposal may recommend an understanding of
human dignity that differs significantly from previous or current understand-
ings, and it involves an ethical assessment of the practice. But although it is a
proposal, it is not a mere stipulation. Its justification may require some
continuity with the previous forms of the practice within whose continuation
it is to play a role. It involves an interpretation of the practice, a view of what it
has been and how it could be developed. To forestall misunderstandings, I do
not say that the interpretation of the practice assumes that it is valuable. The
result of the deliberative assessment may well be that the practice must be
abandoned altogether. But if the practice is worthy of continuation, then one’s
understanding of the key normative ideas in it should take into account the
valuable materials it itself provides. This is the case with the human rights
practice (as opposed to, say, the practice of slavery).¹⁴ When asking how this
practice should be shaped from now on, a deliberative interpretive proposal is
appropriate. A merely elucidatory answer would risk being unduly conserva-
tive, and a merely stipulative answer might turn out to be irrelevant to the
practice, or involve a change of subject we would regret.
What desiderata should we have in mind when developing a deliberative
interpretive proposal regarding the normative idea of human dignity in
human rights practice? In general, we should seek a deliberative reflective
equilibrium in which our understanding of human dignity fits well within the
set of claims we have reason to make about the content and justification of

¹⁴ Notice, however, that the normativity of the values on which the ethical assessment of the
practice relies does not depend on their having been operative, or accepted in the practice. My
account of deliberative interpretive proposals is in some ways similar to the “constructive
interpretation” approach to practices and normative concepts that Ronald Dworkin proposes
in Law’s Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986), ch. 2. However, I do not
simply adopt that approach because it is not fully clear to me how description and evaluation of a
practice operate within it. I think it is important to distinguish the questions “What is this
practice like?” and “What should this practice be like?” even if they are related.
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 119

human rights.¹⁵ I think that at least four desiderata should play a role in this
search. First, as we saw, we should seek some level of continuity with the
practice if it is valuable. In this chapter, I try to honor this desideratum by
surveying, and elaborating upon various uses of the idea of human dignity in
human rights practice (see also appendix 1). Second, we should make pro-
posals whose content has intrinsic ethical appeal. As I will go on to argue in the
reminder of this book, human dignity should be used to pick out significant
values in social life, and to help us articulate and defend morally appropriate
responses to them. The practice of human rights is worth pursuing largely
because, and to the extent that, it is framed in some such ethically desirable
way. Third, and obviously, our proposal should offer a concept that is not
intolerably indeterminate. Finally, our proposal should have justificatory
power. Our account of human dignity should help us formulate and defend
the human rights we have reason to accept. The account of human dignity in
human rights which I start to the develop in this chapter satisfies these
desiderata.
So much for the methodological preliminaries. Let us proceed with the
development of the promised account of human dignity. We can start by
returning to the question “What is the role, or point, of invoking the idea of
human dignity in human rights discourse?” Human dignity indeed plays
valuable roles in the human rights project. I will concentrate on six key roles.¹⁶
(R1) Universalist humanism. The first role of the idea of human dignity is that
it helps us identify what is characteristic of human rights as norms applying to
all human beings in virtue of their common humanity. As norms responding
to every human being’s dignity, human rights constitute a distinctive norma-
tive kind. They are humanist norms that state universal and inherent rights of
human individuals. Human dignity raises people above their class, ethnicity,
nationality, and other conventional or narrower statuses, making them basic
units of moral concern and respect for everyone everywhere. “Everyone is
entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration without
distinctions of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political
or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”
(UDHR, Art. 2).
(R2) Justification of rights. Second, human dignity is significant for the
justification of the various civil, political, and socioeconomic human rights.
Recall that the Preambles of ICCPR and ICESCR put forward the strong (and
philosophically intriguing) assertion that the rights they list “derive from the

¹⁵ On deliberative reflective equilibrium see T. M. Scanlon, “Rawls and Justification,” in

S. Freeman, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Rawls (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), 139–67.
¹⁶ Although I take the roles I proceed to identify as quite significant, I do not claim that the list
is exhaustive. I also note that the sixth role potentially extends beyond human rights.
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120 Human Dignity and Human Rights

inherent dignity of the human person.” This point resurfaces in the Preamble
of the Vienna Declaration and in the Helsinki Final Act, which says that “all”
human rights “derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.”
(R3) Normative strength. Third, human dignity underwrites the normative
force of human rights. Reference to it enables us to move from statements
about what is desirable to statements about what is obligatory, and from
statements about human interests to statements about human rights. This
bridging function is discharged by dignity because of its amphibious nature
as a notion that is both evaluative and prescriptive. It signals the value of
certain features of human beings (such as their “reason and conscience” and
their capacity to “act in a spirit of brotherhood” (UDHR, Art. 1)). It also marks
people’s deontic statuses as right-holders and duty-bearers. In addition, and
relatedly, reference to dignity enables us to present human rights as high-
priority norms.
(R4) Solidarity and combination of positive and negative duties. Remark-
ably, human rights practice has as correlative both negative and positive
duties. It requires that we do not hamper and that we further people’s
access to the objects of their rights. Reference to dignity helps understand
why this combination makes sense. The dignity of persons encodes reasons to
avoid destroying the valuable features that give them that status. But these
reasons are also reasons to protect and help unfold such valuable features.
Human rights discourse thus includes demands regarding empowerment and
solidarity. For example, empowering entitlements to self-determination are
affirmed through the rights to free choice of employment and to form and
join unions (UDHR, Art. 23) and through the right to participate actively in
the political decision-making process of one’s society (UDHR, Art. 21; Vienna
Declaration, Art. 25). Solidaristic duties to help the needy are affirmed through
the recognition of “the right to security in the event of unemployment,
sickness, widowhood, [and] old age” (UDHR, Art. 25) and through the
obligation of international assistance and cooperation to secure the fulfill-
ments of human rights in every country (ICESCR, Art. 2). It is important to
support the ability of each and every individual to effectively shape the terms
on which they live their lives. We have both negative duties to avoid
damaging this ability in others, and positive duties to protect and enable
its development. Either temporarily or permanently, everyone will need help
to develop and exercise their valuable human capacities, and depend on
others for it. Human rights can be seen as norms of dignified interdepend-
ence, or, as I will put it, solidaristic empowerment. I will articulate this ideal
in chapters 7 and 8.
(R5) Standing up. Fifth, dignitarian language can be fruitfully used to
characterize the way in which people react to social injustice. For example,
the leader of the “Neo-Zapatista” movement in Mexico, Marcos, characterized
(in 1996) the uprising to defend the rights of indigenous peoples as instances
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 121

of “insurrectional dignity” and “rebel dignity.”¹⁷ It is a common phenomenon
that people gain a sense of dignity when they act to defend their rights, and a
sense of indignity when they are servile and submit to unjust treatment.
(R6) The arc of humanist justice. Although my focus now is on human
rights, the idea of human dignity has been used to propose norms that might
go beyond them. For example, some claims of humanist justice state entitle-
ments to access the conditions of a flourishing life, and lie beyond the
common characterization of human rights as concerning access to a decent
life. Human dignity frames a normative perspective that potentially includes
more ambitious principles of social justice (such as those of liberal egalitar-
ianism and democratic socialism). I will return to this point in chapters 9–11
of this book.

5.3. A N ACCOUNT OF HUMAN DIGNITY

How should we understand human dignity? A natural way to proceed is to

develop an account of human dignity that explains how it can play the six roles
mentioned in section 5.2. In what follows, I propose an account of this kind.
I proceed by outlining a network of related notions. The idea of human dignity
and its roles in human rights discourse become clear and plausible once we see
how they emerge holistically within this network. Figure 5.1 identifies the key
components of the network.

Dignitarian norms (e.g., human rights)

Endowment-based Status-dignity Condition-dignity Basic/maximal

Achievement-based

Basis of dignity Dignitarian virtue Abstract/specific

Circumstances of dignity

Figure 5.1. The conceptual network of human dignity

¹⁷ The Spanish expressions are “la dignidad insurrecta” and “la dignidad rebelde.” See
http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/1996/01/01/cuarta-declaracion-de-la-selva-lacandona/
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122 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Understanding human dignity through a conceptual network allows us to
capture, in a coherent and fruitful way, the various valuable roles that the
phrase “dignity” is used to perform in human rights discourse. As will become
evident in the text, this network is not a mere heap or amalgamation of
disjointed notions, but a structured set. The various notions making it up
are tightly related. They are also unified by the project of shaping social life—
our actions and institutions—so that they satisfy distinctive claims which
individuals have, whoever and wherever they are, as human persons rather
than as members of this or that nation, class, racial group, or corporation. This
universalism, which puts humanity first, is captured by the notion of status-
dignity, which (together with the companion idea of the basis of dignity) is the
fundamental component of the network.¹⁸ I thus begin my exposition with it.

5.3.1. Dignitarian Norms and the Distinction between

Status-Dignity and Condition-Dignity

The first step in understanding human dignity is to distinguish between status-

dignity and condition-dignity. Human rights are dignitarian norms. As such,
they relate to dignity in two ways. The first, marked by status-dignity, con-
cerns the normative standing in accordance to which human beings are
entitled to certain obligatory treatment (which the norms state), and the
second, marked by condition-dignity, is the state of affairs that human beings
enjoy when they are given the treatment that is owed to them (that is, when
the norms are honored).
The distinction is necessary to accommodate two common uses of “human
dignity” without contradiction. It is sometimes said that because they have
human dignity, people may not be enslaved. It is also said that when they are
enslaved, people’s dignity is destroyed. Some critics use examples like this to
charge dignitarian talk with incoherence.¹⁹ But the problem dissolves once we
deploy the distinction just introduced. We can coherently say that persons
who are enslaved lack condition-dignity even though they still have status-
dignity. It is precisely because they have status-dignity that slaves ought to be
given the treatment that is wrongfully denied them.
What is status-dignity? It is a deontic normative status, a moral standing, of
human individuals such that every agent who can affect them ought to treat
them in certain respectful and concernful ways. There are certain (dignitarian)
norms, certain rights and duties, which must be honored if the dignity of

¹⁸ I thank Rainer Forst, Miriam Ronzoni, and Laura Valentini for discussions on this point.
¹⁹ Steven Pinker, “The Stupidity of Dignity,” The New Republic (May 28, 2008).
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 123

human individuals is to be properly responded to by agents that can affect
them through their actions and social institutions.²⁰

²⁰ As a normative status, dignity grounds certain kinds of treatment toward those who have it.
If A has dignity, then every agent B ought to treat A in certain respectful and helpful ways.
Moreover, in our context of discussion, if A has dignity, then A is entitled to certain kinds of
treatment by B. The details of my account of dignity as a normative status will become apparent
as the exposition of this chapter proceeds, but it is useful to have a summary statement of the
contrasts with other views. So, first, the view proposed here is not based on the notion of a
ranking status, which ties dignity to a position (with its alleged claims and privileges) held within
a comparative and hierarchical social structure. Waldron explores the latter in Dignity, Rank,
and Rights. (He suggests—although he does not develop—the possibility of a broader view of
status in “Is Dignity the Foundation of Human Rights?” in R. Cruft, M. Liao, and M. Renzo, eds.,
Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 117–37,
sects. IX–X.) Waldron says that the modern concept of dignity extends, in a general and
egalitarian fashion, a high ranking that was previously reserved to only some people at the top
of social hierarchies. My notion of normative status is more general, and more basic, than that of
social status. To justify or criticize forms of the latter (as they might appear in the law and other
social conventions) we can appeal to the former. A normative status holds independently of
whether it is recognized within existing practices, systems of law or bodies of moral doctrine.
Furthermore, dignity as a normative status need not be presented in contrast with dignity as
inherent worth or value. In fact, the status-dignity of human individuals is partly grounded in
facts about their value (i.e., the individuals’ valuable features), and the justified norms articulat-
ing the appropriate response to that dignity are informed by that value. It may be true that, as a
matter of historical genealogy, the term “dignity” comes from the idea of ranking status. But even
that idea must assume some connection with (beliefs about) worth or value: there must be
something about those to whom high positions are ascribed that provides the ascriber with
reason to treat them with respect and concern (and that, in part, must be their valuable features).
Now, once we acknowledge that there are quite general valuable features of human beings that
are independent of their social positions, we can link whatever hierarchical connotations remain
in the idea of human dignity to the view that the equal and universal normative status people
have in virtue of those features has greater normative weight than, and constrains, any specific
conventional statuses they may acquire through their social (legal or other) positions.
In my account, dignity as a normative status involves reasons for agents to have respect and
concern towards those who possess it. Like status-dignity, respect is understood here fairly
generally (and the same goes for concern). It should not be reduced to what Rosen calls “respect-
as-respectfulness” (i.e., respect that involves an expressive or symbolic component). I agree with
Rosen that when someone degrades, insults, or shows contempt for someone else a specific
dignitarian harm occurs. But I reject his view that it is essential to dignitarian harm that it is
symbolic or expressive. Thus, I am not forced to accept Rosen’s argument that since there are
violations of human rights that do not involve expressive harm (such as the swift murdering of
innocent civilians), we cannot take human dignity as important for grounding all human rights.
We can justify our judgments that some forms of non-expressive disrespect involve violation of
human rights by saying that such disrespect amounts to failure to comply with other, non-
expressive dignitarian norms about the proper treatment that human beings are owed. See
Rosen, “Dignity Past and Present,” in Waldron, Dignity, Rank and Rights, 79–98, at 95.
My account also differs from John Tasioulas’s in “Human Dignity and the Foundations of
Human Rights,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 291–312 (see pp. 305–6).
I do not present dignity as a “valuable status,” but as a deontic status. What I characterize as
“valuable,” instead, is the features making up the basis of dignity, which in turn I construe more
narrowly than Tasioulas, as ranging not simply over “the characteristic elements” of human
beings, but over a valuable subset of them. Furthermore, I take these valuable characteristics, not
the mere fact of being a human being, as the relevant ground for rights.
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124 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Status-dignity is a normative property of human individuals which has
certain core characteristics. First, it is inherent.²¹ Individuals have it as
human beings rather than as Americans, white, men, Christians, or
property-owners. They do not have it because they are parties to some special
relationship or as holding some conventional status. Second, it is non-
instrumental. The dignitarian treatment owed to human beings is due them
for their own sake rather than as a way of bringing about something else that
might benefit the duty-bearer, or some third party. Third, status-dignity is
egalitarian.²² Dignitarian duties are, in principle, owed to every human indi-
vidual equally. No one can be said to have more human dignity than anyone
else. Finally, the normative status marked by human dignity has high priority.
This means that the norms flowing from it normally outweigh competing
considerations. Human dignity marks a peak in the normative landscape. This
need not mean that dignitarian norms are absolute. They may operate as pro
tanto norms that can be defeated. But the burden of argument is on the
competing considerations, and is typically hard to shoulder. For example,
one cannot justify the killing of innocent civilians in an invasion of a country
aimed at easing access to its oil even if the aggregate level of welfare resulting
from it is higher than in the status quo. Furthermore, the relevant competition
often really comes from other dignitarian norms whose simultaneous fulfill-
ment in the circumstances is problematic (as when someone’s speech is
curtailed in an emergency to prevent violent acts it would trigger).
By contrast, condition-dignity is a state of affairs in which dignitarian
norms are fulfilled. It concerns a more contingent situation human beings
come to enjoy (and this includes certain treatment by others). The idea of
status-dignity is presupposed by the common utterances in human rights
discourse that take human rights to derive from human dignity (as in the
Preambles of the Covenants). Examples regarding condition-dignity are the
following. “[E]conomic, social, and cultural rights [are] indispensable for
[persons’] dignity and the free development of [their] personality” (UDHR,
Art. 22). Workers are entitled to remuneration ensuring “an existence worthy
of human dignity” (UDHR, Art. 23).²³ People can fail to enjoy the dignified
condition required by these norms. For example, workers often receive salaries
that are insufficient for affording nutritious food and safe housing while those
deciding how much they get paid live in luxury. But workers do not thereby

My view of dignity as an inherent, deontic moral status of human individuals is importantly

similar to Kant’s. I discuss the similarities, and some differences, in “Kantian Dignity and
Marxian Socialism,” Kantian Review 22 (2017), 553–7.
²¹ The Preamble of UDHR speaks of the “inherent dignity . . . of all members of the human
family” (see further section 5.3.2 below and chapter 6, section 6.5).
²² “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” (UDHR, Art. 1).
²³ See also statements concerning education rights (ICESCR, Art. 13) and treatment of
refugees (Vienna Declaration, Art. 23).
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 125

lose status-dignity. Human rights norms are prescriptive precisely because
status-dignity requires that condition-dignity be achieved. Since human
beings retain status-dignity in the face of undignified treatment, they still
have a claim to be treated differently. Workers can justifiably demand a higher
remuneration.
Now, what could it mean to say that human rights are “derived from”
human dignity (as is claimed in the Preambles of the two Covenants)? There is
a sense in which having dignity already involves having rights. As a normative
status, status-dignity involves being entitled to respect and concern. But here
I focus on how to identify the set of norms (such as human rights) that state
the relevant claims and duties of respect and concern that are to be associated
with status-dignity. How are these derived from human dignity?
To frame our discussion of this question, let me make two points. The first
concerns the meaning of “derivation.” In this context, I understand the
relation of derivation of y from x as involving the development or articulation
of x—that is, the rendering of x more determinate, through y. The relation is
not one of logical deduction (like that holding between a statement “q” and the
statements “if p then q” and “p”).²⁴ We cannot hope to logically deduce the
statements of the various human rights from the mere assertion that human
beings have status-dignity. The derivation of the former from the latter
can instead be seen as a matter of figuring out what the normative status of
human dignity amounts to in practice, by identifying various norms that make
certain requirements on agents in certain relevant circumstances.
The second preliminary point is that there are in fact two derivations at stake.
One, obviously, concerns the identification and defense of various civil, political,
and socioeconomic human rights norms such as those stated in human rights
documents (including rights to avoid torture, to political participation, to access
decent work, etc.). The other derivation is less obvious but is also crucial. It
concerns the vindication of the very idea that there is a category of rights that
protect all human beings as such.²⁵ These derivations roughly correspond to

²⁴ “Derivation” is polysemic. E.g., the Oxford English Dictionary includes both inferential and
developmental senses. See http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/50604?rskey=Ye4Stv&result=1&is
Advanced=false#eid (sects. 3 and 5).
²⁵ The drafters of UDHR seem to have understood this more basic role of human dignity.
Eleanor Roosevelt rejected a proposal that reference to human dignity in Article 1 be removed
(since it stated no right) by saying that “the Commission . . . decided to include it in order to
emphasize the inherent dignity of all of mankind” (UN General Assembly, 3rd Session,
3rd Committee, 98th Meeting, Draft International Declaration of Human Rights (A/C.3/
SR.98), October 9, 1948, p. 110). I interpret this as recognition of dignity’s function as a deontic
status that grounds the very idea that human rights are rights held by all human beings
independently of their race, nationality, etc. and whose pursuit is a matter of obligatory global
concern. For other interpretations, see Mary Glendon, A World Made New (New York: Random
House, 2001), 146, and Charles Beitz, “Human Dignity in the Theory of Human Rights: Nothing
but a Phrase?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 41 (2013), 259–90, at 266.
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126 Human Dignity and Human Rights

roles R2 and R1 of the idea of human dignity. To explain how they might work,
we need to introduce two further items to the conceptual network of human
dignity: the basis of dignity and the circumstances of dignity.

5.3.2. The Basis of Dignity

What is it about human beings that makes the application of human rights
norms appropriate? Why are they owed such strong forms of respect and
concern? To answer these questions, we need to identify certain features of
human beings that warrant the ascription of status-dignity to them. These
features constitute the basis of dignity.
What are these features? This is an important question in the substantive
theory of human rights. I cannot fully answer it here, but I will make three
points to frame the inquiry about them.²⁶ First, the features making up the
basis of dignity must be general, valuable, and important. Human rights are
rights that people have in virtue of relatively invariant features (such as their
“reason,” “conscience,” and capacity to act in a “spirit of brotherhood”²⁷),
which are not contingent upon other properties such as their “national or
social origin.”²⁸ Although not necessarily unchangeable, these features are
resistant to change, and are thus likely to be displayed by human beings in
various social and historical contexts. The relevant features must also be
valuable. We would not say that people have status-dignity because they can
subject others to psychological torment (of the kind displayed by interrogators
through torture). And they must be important in the sense that supporting
them contributes significantly to the quality of life of those who have them.
They are thus useful for identifying the content of their rights.
It could be objected that a dignitarian conception commits the “naturalist
fallacy.” It would do so if it attempted to deduce normative statements about
dignitarian rights and duties from descriptive statements about the features
making up the basis of dignity. But dignitarianism envisages no such deduc-
tion. As characterized in the previous paragraph, statements about the basis of
dignity are both descriptive and evaluative: they say that certain entities have
certain features and also that those features are valuable and important.
A dignitarian conception could affirm conditional statements of the form “if
an entity X has certain features F, then X has status-dignity and agents ought
to treat X in certain ways W articulated by dignitarian norms.” But these are

²⁶ I explore these points further in chapters 6–8.

²⁷ UDHR, Art. 1. I take it that what is crucial is that people have these features to a sufficient
extent (beyond which they may of course differ). See the notion of “range property” in John
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), sect. 22.
²⁸ UDHR, Art. 2.
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 127

not statements of logical implication. They do not say that the normative
consequent follows logically from the descriptive antecedent. They are, rather,
substantive normative claims.
The second framing point concerns the methodology for drawing up a list
of the relevant features. We do not need to start with an abstract exploration of
the valuable features of human beings as such and then, in a second step, move
to an exploration of how these features are engaged in the circumstances and
situations in which human rights (and other dignitarian norms) apply. The
process of discovery can be, and is likely to be, less tidy and linear. We can
move back and forth between abstract judgments about the general valuable
features of human beings and the specific judgments about people’s challenges
in achieving a decent or a flourishing life in their circumstances (see section
5.3.3 below). But what is a reasonable list of the valuable features of human
beings for the purposes of identifying the basis of dignity? What features are
such that they provide the ground of humanist dignitarian norms concerning
human rights (requiring access to a decent life) or dignitarian norms concern-
ing social justice (requiring access to a flourishing life—see section 5.3.5 for
this distinction)? The best way to proceed here, I think, is simply to propose a
list as a hypothesis, and see how it helps us state, defend, and implement
dignitarian norms. We can revise that list (adding or dropping elements, or
refining their characterization), as our search for reflective equilibrium about
what to think about human rights and social justice unfolds. One such list
would include the human capacities for sentience, knowledge, prudential and
moral reasoning and choice, aesthetic appreciation, self-awareness, creative
production, social cooperation, and sympathy. This list strikes me as a plaus-
ible initial hypothesis, which meets the conditions of adequacy mentioned
above (generality, value, and justificatory importance). It can of course be
assessed and refined as its fruitfulness for the justification of various human
rights is explored. I will engage in such an exploration in this book by
discussing various political and socioeconomic rights.
A third framing point is that we should recognize within the basis of dignity
a plurality of features. The list just mentioned is an example. This pluralism is
important for two reasons. First, and obviously, it makes sense to notice that
various features have intrinsic significance. For example, a monistic approach
based only on rational agency would miss the independent significance of
avoiding pain for people with severe cognitive disabilities. Second, as I proceed
to explore now, a plurality of features serves well the purpose of explaining
how the idea of human dignity can play roles R1–R3.²⁹

²⁹ James Griffin provides a monistic approach centered on normative agency in On Human

Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), ch. 2. For an effective pluralist response, see
Tasioulas, “Human Dignity and the Foundations of Human Rights.” For a Kantian version of the
monistic focus on rational agency, see Thomas Hill Jr., “Kantian Perspectives on the Rational
Basis of Human Dignity,” in Düwell et al., ed., Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity, 215–21.
Other pluralistic accounts are offered by James Nickel in Making Sense of Human Rights, ch. 4;
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128 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Take first R1. By referring to human dignity, we anchor the human rights
project in the strong and inspiring thought that each individual human being,
in virtue of possessing certain valuable features, has a normative standing
that imposes duties on every other human individual who can affect them.
The basis of dignity is the patrimony of humankind, not the privilege of the
members of some groups. It matters that people have political rights to
exercise their capacity for prudential and moral judgment in setting the
terms of their social life. This has general significance. We may not grant
political rights to our compatriots but support dictatorships in other countries
that crush the will of other human beings just because they are foreigners. The
recognition of the value of the human capacities making up the basis of dignity
enables us (and calls us to) articulate human rights as universal rights that
apply to “all members of the human family” (UDHR, Preamble). We cannot
associate ourselves out of universal humanist morality.
The treatment owed to a person A by another B, and the recognition of
rights to that treatment, is an appropriate response to A’s dignity. Now, when
A has dignity, A has some features F such that any agent B ought to respond to
A-who-has-F by treating A in certain respectful and helpful ways. The appro-
priate forms of respect and help, and their correlative rights, precisely depend
on the content of F. Different kinds of dignity depend on (involve different
normative responses to) different features. Thus, human dignity is broader
than the “dignity of office” of a magistrate; it is based on general facts about

John Tasioulas, “On the Foundations of Human Rights,” in Cruft, ed., Philosophical Foundations
of Human Rights, 45–70; Martha Nussbaum, Frontiers of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2006); Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2011); Amartya Sen, “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights,” Philosophy & Public Affairs
32 (2004), 315–56; and Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2009). Like Nickel, I offer a broadly deontological framework, but go further by explaining how
exactly dignity features in it. Although I build on Tasioulas’s important critique of monism,
I offer a different account of how dignity and interests operate in the justification of human
rights (see my discussion on R3). I share much of the capability approach as developed by
Nussbaum and Sen. I have discussed their views in Pablo Gilabert, “Comparative Assessments of
Justice, Political Feasibility, and Ideal Theory,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 15 (2012),
39–56, “The Capability Approach and the Debate between Humanist and Political Perspectives
on Human Rights: A Critical Survey,” Human Rights Review 14 (2013), 299–325, and “Human
Rights, Human Dignity, and Power,” in Cruft, ed., Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights,
196–213. In this book, I will develop my discussion of the capability approach further by
explaining more fully what dignity is and what specific roles it plays, while also sharpening the
justification of human rights to account for R3 and R6.
A narrow focus might be recommended as giving human rights greater coherence and unity.
But these desiderata are appropriately served by my account, which gathers the relevant
considerations within the group of valuable human capacities. Furthermore, we should not
confuse the desiderata of coherence and unity with the different and far less important one of
simplicity. It is better to believe a complex truth than a simple falsity. We need a pluralist account
of valuable human capacities to avoid missing the articulation of the human rights of individuals
who have some of these capacities but lack others. Thus, some may have sentience but lack
normative agency. They have important rights (e.g., regarding physical integrity, health care, etc.).
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 129

human beings rather than on some specific institutional statuses. Notice that
in this way reference to the basis of dignity helps account for R2. The case of
political rights is again useful. To justify those rights, we can show that their
implementation constitutes key forms of respect and concern for human
beings with capacities for prudential and moral judgment and thus for polit-
ical self-determination. In political regimes without equal rights to political
participation, some people are inappropriately regarded as second-class citi-
zens. They are forced to be passive law-takers who may not be also active law-
givers. Such a condescending treatment betrays an insufficient appreciation of
their valuable capacities.
Dignitarian norms involve duties to support (respect, protect, and promote)
the valuable features that constitute the basis of dignity of human individuals.
People have important interests regarding those features. For example, they
have interests in being able to maintain, develop, and exercise their valuable
capacities. This point helps us to further account for R2, as we often justify
rights by saying that their implementation is crucial for supporting certain
important interests.³⁰ Furthermore, since those interests are tied to the basis of
dignity, they have deontic significance. As I proceed to show, this point in turn
helps us account for R3.
It is not obvious that saying that a person has an important human interest
in an object O is enough to justify their human right to O. How can we move
from statements about human interests to statements about human rights?
The key is to show how interests can be justifiably paired with duties (since
rights are deontic statuses). There are at least two important moves that need
to be made, and vindicated. The first is to show that the agents called to
support the interests of the putative right-holders (either directly or through
certain institutions) are able to do so at reasonable cost. That is, we must take
up the perspective of the duty-bearers besides that of the right-holders, and
find that the alleged duties correlating with the putative rights are feasible to
fulfill, and that to fulfill them agents would not have to shoulder unreasonable
burdens. To be appropriate, norms must respond to the status-dignity of
everyone. For example, norms of aid should factor in the needs of aid’s
recipients, but also the importance for agents to have room for their own
personal projects. Both considerations stem from exploring what condition-
dignity would look like for every individual. I have explored elsewhere a
schema and a framework for accounting for this justificatory step, and will
return to aspects of it in chapter 8.³¹

³⁰ See Joseph Raz, The Morality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), ch. 7;
Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights, ch. 6.
³¹ Pablo Gilabert, “The Capability Approach and the Debate between Humanist and Political
Perspectives on Human Rights. A Critical Survey,” Human Rights Review 14.4 (2013): 299–325.
See chapter 8, section 8.4, where the following schema is proposed: A (a right-holder) has a right
to O (an object) against B (a duty-bearer) just in case there are feasible and reasonable demands
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130 Human Dignity and Human Rights

I want to show now that there is a second, important move, which is
logically prior. The first move identified some necessary conditions for show-
ing that a putative right correlated with an interest actually exists. But why
even entertain such a putative right? Why does a statement about a human
interest even prompt us to wonder whether a right to support for its satisfac-
tion exists? We seem to presuppose that there is some bridge principle
licensing the conversion of some interests into pro tanto rights (i.e., entitle-
ments to feasible and reasonable support in accessing the objects of those
interests). This bridge principle links evaluative claims about what contributes
to the decent or flourishing life of people (i.e., about their interests) to deontic
claims about what agents ought to do to support them (i.e., certain rights and
duties). Now, I suggest that human dignity is the source of a bridge principle of
the kind we need. The bridge principle is this: When human beings have
dignity, they have the deontic status of being owed (reasonable and feasible)
support by every agent who can affect the fulfillment of their interests
in retaining, developing, and exercising the human capacities that give rise
to that dignity. The features in the basis of dignity simultaneously ground
status-dignity, certain interests, and the importance of those interests. We can
now understand why the rights specifying status-dignity focus on supporting
those interests.
Thus, human dignity bridges the gap between human interests and human
rights. This is an important result because interest-based theories of human
rights do not do enough to explain the link between interests and rights.
However, it might be objected that this account is circular because having
status-dignity just is having certain rights; and that no information relevant
for identifying the various rights that people have can be extracted from the
claim that they have status-dignity.³² These objections fail. There is no

on B that B support, in some significant ways to be specified, A’s access to O. The specification of
what B owes to A regarding O tracks the moral importance of A’s interest in O, the feasible ways
for B to support A’s access to O, and the subset of such feasible forms of support that do not
involve morally unacceptable burdens on B or others (given the importance of their own
interests) and on A (given the importance of other interests of A besides that concerning access
to O). Further normative considerations (e.g., regarding responsibility and fairness), and feasi-
bility considerations (e.g., concerning progressive fulfillment over time) may be relevant, and
considerations specific to human rights (e.g., their global scope and high priority) should be
added. Dignity underpins many of these reasons, but I do not claim that every basic reason is
dignitarian.
³² For another discussion of these objections, see Tasioulas, “Human Dignity and the Foun-
dation of Human Rights,” 300. I provide a different, broadly deontological account of human
rights and dignity. Discussing similar worries, Beitz (“Human Dignity in the Theory of Human
Rights: Nothing But a Phrase?” 277) suggests that we justify human rights by appeal to human
interests rather than to human dignity. But this suggestion misses the bridging issue I address.
Furthermore, the dichotomy interests/dignity dissolves once we characterize the relevant inter-
ests as relating to the features making up the basis of dignity. By paying attention to the
significance of the basis of dignity, we see that R1, R2, and R3 have the same source. The features
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 131

circularity because status-dignity involves only a very general, fundamental
right-claim to respect and concern. As a category, human rights lie down-
stream from status-dignity: they specify the kind of appropriate response to
the individuals with dignity that instantiate the aspects identified in the
concept of human rights mentioned in chapter 1, section 1.3: they involve
requirements regarding rights that are held by all human persons at least in the
contemporary world, have normative force independently of whether they are
already recognized in existing legal and political institutions and practices,
may however be (and normally are) such that at least in part they should be
implemented through legal and political institutions and practices, have
extremely high priority, and give rise to global in addition to merely local
concern. Not every type of response to human dignity belongs in this category:
some might not track rights, some might track rights that do not have the high
priority of human rights, and so on.
In turn, the various specific human rights lie further downstream, and they
specify the appropriate responses to status-dignity in various circumstances.
Crucially, we can get substantive information relevant for articulating those
rights by considering the basis of dignity. The features in it include valuable
human capacities, and these capacities generate important human interests to
retain, develop, and exercise them in various circumstances. As I proceed to
explain (in section 5.3.3), these circumstances (in which rights hold) are
precisely those in which the valuable human capacities can be significantly
affected in social life.
Thus, I do not beg the question against the derivations mentioned in the last
paragraph of section 5.3.1. One derivation consists in showing that there is
indeed a category of urgent and universal rights to support interests of human
individuals linked to their valuable capacities as they face various problems
regarding their satisfaction. In turn, the other derivation proceeds by identi-
fying such rights in detail, in view of the prospects for social action in various
relevant circumstances.

5.3.3. The Circumstances of Dignity

So far we have discussed status-dignity, condition-dignity, and the basis of

dignity, and explored their significance for human rights. Human individuals
have human rights because they have status-dignity. They have status-dignity
in virtue of some of their valuable features (the basis of dignity). Human rights
are such that their fulfillment makes it the case that human individuals enjoy a

that (1) give rise to status-dignity also (2) provide grounds for figuring out what are appropriate
responses to it and (3) make such responses pro tanto obligatory. These links are discussed in
more detail in chapter 8, section 8.3.
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132 Human Dignity and Human Rights

dignified life (condition-dignity). To further understand human dignity, we
should add to our conceptual network the idea of the circumstances of dignity.
The circumstances of dignity are the circumstances in which dignitarian
norms are practically relevant. This means that the fulfillment of dignitarian
norms is both necessary—in the sense of morally “called-for”—and feasible. In
these circumstances, there are threats and obstacles to the achievement of
condition-dignity, and they can be overcome. These threats and obstacles may
have various sources. They may arise because of the presence of some dis-
valuable features of human beings, such as their greed or cruelty. Or they may
result because of some deficits in people’s exercise of some of their valuable
human capacities, such as when they display insufficient sympathy. Or the key
factor may be unfavorable external conditions, such as scarcity of material
resources. The problems may be resolvable thanks to human beings’ potential
and the changeability of their environment. For example, people can use their
valuable capacities for moral and prudential reasoning and for social cooper-
ation to reach fair solutions to their conflicts, and their capacity for creative
work to reduce material scarcity through technological innovation.
The circumstances of dignity help us to further account for R2. The idea of
human dignity organizes and orients the search for the grounds and content of
human rights. It directs us to identify the valuable features of human beings
grounding their universal normative status and to articulate rights and duties
supporting them. Now, these rights and duties state how we should properly
respond to people’s valuable features in certain circumstances. Which ones?
Those in which (a) there are threats or difficulties regarding the maintenance,
development, or exercise of the valuable capacities (or other valuable features)
which (b) can be dissolved or significantly reduced at reasonable cost. The
circumstances of dignity are relevant (together with the basis of dignity) to
move from status-dignity to the articulation of various human rights. They
help us state salient problems for human rights discourse, and to figure out
what are reasonable and feasible responses to them which agents can be
justifiably required to perform. For example, a right to political participation
is feasible and reasonable given individuals’ capacities for practical judgment
and self-determination, and their need to exercise them in the face of the
common tendency of many people to be self-serving and biased when wielding
asymmetrical decision-making power.
An account of human rights identifies forms of condition-dignity to which
people are entitled in their social life. Now, as discussed in chapter 2 of this
book, we can identify rights (and correlative duties) at different levels of
abstraction. It is useful to distinguish between abstract and specific rights.³³

³³ See also James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007),
62–3. As I explained in chapter 2, this distinction helps arbitrate the debate between so-called
“humanist,” “naturalist,” or “orthodox,” and “political” or “practical” approaches to human
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 133

Specific human rights in the contemporary world are urgent claims that
people have against their own government and fellow citizens and against
international organizations, foreign governments, and foreign citizens.
Abstract rights are general claims based in extremely important interests
shared by all (or most) human beings, and whose protection involves respon-
sibilities for anyone who can affect their fulfillment.³⁴ The distinction between
the (more) abstract and the (more) specific actually applies throughout the
conceptual network of human dignity, including the circumstances of dignity.
As stated above, the circumstances of dignity identify the most general
conditions for the application of dignitarian norms. But we can also recognize
what we may call situations of dignity: narrower configurations of the circum-
stances of dignity which lead us to formulate specific rights and duties. For
example, given quite general human capacities, interests, and vulnerabilities
we may claim that there is an abstract human right to health care in the form
of support by others in dealing with health problems. In every society people
will face health problems, and in every society there will be some support that
human individuals can receive to cope with them. At the very least, there is
always the possibility of palliative care. But what, exactly, particular people
owe to each other varies widely depending on specific contexts. Some illnesses
exist in some historical contexts but not in others (think about HIV/AIDS).
Medical technology changes over time (think about modern vaccines). The
scope of effective action also varies historically (for example, today we can
harm—through pollution—or help improve—through scientific cooperation—
the health of human beings in distant continents in ways that were not feasible
two centuries ago).
How can abstract rights and duties be identified and justified? In my view,
the answer to this question (which helps account further for R1 and R2) lies in
paying attention to status-dignity, the basis of dignity, and the circumstances
of dignity. Some quite general norms are justified because there are relatively

rights. The former focuses on abstract rights and the latter on specific rights. Both kinds of rights
are relevant, and related. See further chapter 6, section 6.7.
³⁴ More precisely, there is a spectrum going from more to less abstract rights. It spans, e.g.,
fairly abstract rights that hold in any (or most) social context(s); the rights in UDHR; the rights
in international covenants, conventions, and treaties; the rights in national constitutions; the
specific rights as construed by governments’ laws and policies; and individuals’ claims in various
situations (as addressed, e.g., in courts’ rulings or in interpersonal reactions). We get to specific
norms by identifying various circumstances and situations in which the capacities making up the
basis of dignity are significantly engaged and by figuring out what are desirable and feasible ways
to support the capacities in them. This articulation is not a formal deduction of specific from
abstract norms. It involves a substantive judgment about the appropriateness of the specifica-
tions in certain contexts. Importantly, the same abstract norms may have different appropriate
specifications in different contexts. E.g., norms requiring access to food, shelter, and education
may be implemented through more or less intervention of governmental institutions in the
economy. The drafters of UDHR decided to construe these norms quite abstractly to allow
different societies to specify them differently given their own predicaments.
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134 Human Dignity and Human Rights

invariant valuable features of human beings in virtue of which respect and
concern is owed to them, and because there are some difficulties affecting
the interests linked to those features that are recurrent and addressable
through action. It is true that we never encounter abstract human beings.
We face instead concrete individuals immersed in specific situations. How-
ever, we can distill what is significantly common to them. The process is one
of a cognitive back-and-forth between propositions about the specific and
the general. We formulate hypotheses about the latter as we consider the
former in some situation, and revise them as we address new situations. In this
way, we search for reflective equilibrium in our thinking about abstract and
specific rights.
But why are abstract humanist norms important for human rights dis-
course? What is the point of identifying them if by themselves they do not tell
us what exactly is to be done in specific situations? Why not focus instead on
specific norms for specific situations? We do have reason to identify abstract
humanist norms. First, there is theoretical satisfaction in finding invariant
patterns of fact and value in human social life. Second, those patterns inform
our responses to specific situations. By reference to more abstract norms we
can compare the relative appeal of various specific norms proposed for
regulating a certain situation. We can determine that some specific norms
are better because they do more to serve the ideas captured by the abstract
norms. If human beings have the valuable capacity for self-determination
regarding whether and how they work, then specific norms banning slavery
are superior to others merely regulating the treatment of slaves by slave-
owners. There is also a role for the more abstract norms when we consider
our relation to the past and the future. Retrospectively, we can use the abstract
norms to judge whether our changes in specific normative practices have
been a form of progress, decline, or mere drift. These variations will be
characterized in terms of the extent of realization of the abstract norms in
various situations. In this way, we can explain why the elimination of slavery
involved ethical progress. Prospectively, the abstract norms orient us by
setting a horizon for our moral and political imagination. We ask ourselves:
Are there desirable and feasible specific social configurations we could bring
about that would serve the abstract norms better than the social configur-
ations we currently have? Given that self-determination in work is import-
ant, shouldn’t we go beyond the elimination of slave labor by combatting the
intense domination that waged laborers face in sweatshops? Third, and
finally, the abstract humanist norms help us develop a truly universalistic
attitude in our thought and practice. This is obviously important as we
proceed with the current process of globalization. Humanist norms can
become an ethical compass and lingua franca to develop common standards
(regarding, say, trade and immigration) with people who are in many ways
quite different from us.
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 135

I conclude the discussion of the circumstances of dignity by noting their
importance in accounting for R4. Recall that human rights advocacy import-
antly calls for empowerment and solidarity. For example, regarding empower-
ment, it grants people strong political rights to shape the state institutions that
structure their life-prospects (see UDHR, Arts. 20–1), and it requires that if
people work, they do so only on jobs they choose, and with the ability to form
and join unions to defend themselves against abuses by their employers
(UDHR, Art. 23). Regarding solidarity, there is a plethora of invocations of
positive rights to support in accessing various economic, social, and cultural
goods (UDHR, Arts. 25–8). These forms of empowerment and solidarity can
be seen as flowing from a view of human dignity that captures, amongst
people’s valuable features, their capacities for self-determination through
prudential and moral judgment and choice, cooperation, sympathy, and
compassionate aid. We can interpret the reference to people’s capacity for
reason, conscience, and the ability to act in a spirit of brotherhood (UDHR,
Art. 1) as including these capacities. Recognizing and supporting these cap-
acities is certainly relevant if we include in our account of the circumstances of
dignity the pervasive fact that human beings are in various ways deeply
vulnerable. Political rights enable people to express their political judgment
and hold to account governments and other national and international insti-
tutions which otherwise might fail to take their interests seriously. Unioniza-
tion rights allow workers to act collectively to challenge humiliating
conditions of long hours of work, unsafe working environments, and griev-
ously low salaries which corporations with enormous bargaining power are
prone to impose on them.³⁵ Health care rights support people when they fall
ill. And so on.³⁶

³⁵ In 2013, in Dakar, Bangladesh, a building with garment factories collapsed, killing over
1,100 workers. Management knew that the building was unsafe, but cajoled workers to enter it
through various threats. Significantly, garment workers’ ability to unionize was restricted at the
time. See Catherine Lu, “Worker Rights, Structured Vulnerabilities and Global Labor Justice”
(ms.). Two years after these events, workers’ rights were reported to be routinely violated. An
investigation says that “[w]orkers report violations including physical assault, verbal abuse—
sometimes of a sexual nature—forced overtime, denial of paid maternity leave, and failure to pay
wages and bonuses on time or in full. Despite recent labor law reforms, many workers who try to
form unions to address such abuses face threats, intimidation, dismissal, and sometimes physical
assault at the hands of factory management or hired third parties.” Mitu Datta, a garment factory
worker in Chittagong describes an attack on his wife and him outside the factory as follows:
“Four people were holding me and beating me on the legs with bars and two people were beating
her with iron bars. She was beaten on her head and on her back. Her arms were severely injured
and bleeding. Bones of one of her fingers were broken. She had to get 14 stitches on her head.
When they were beating up Mira, they were saying ‘You want to do unions activities? Then we
will shower you with blood.’.” Human Rights Watch, “Bangladesh: 2 Years After Rana Plaza,
Workers Denied Rights” (April 22, 2015). See https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/22/bangla
desh-2-years-after-rana-plaza-workers-denied-rights.
³⁶ There is a strong debate about the significance of democracy for human rights, and labor
rights are receiving increasing philosophical attention. In chapters 9 and 10 I will survey the
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136 Human Dignity and Human Rights

By affirming both empowerment and solidarity, this approach counters
a common characterization of dignity as a form of independence that in-
creases as a function of self-sufficiency or self-reliance. This view is seriously
problematic. First, it defies feasibility. Human individuals are social beings
who can hardly reach significant levels of autonomy and well-being without
substantial help from others. This is obvious during periods of time in
which they are extremely vulnerable (such as during childhood, old age,
illness, and unemployment). But in fact dependence exists throughout life,
and most human projects cannot succeed without social cooperation, and,
sometimes, unreciprocated help. Human rights practice recognizes these
circumstances by enshrining various positive rights.
Second, the view of dignity as independence fosters a mean-spirited moral
culture that makes those who are helped feel shame and those who help feel
guilt. This culture represses instead of encouraging valuable sentiments and
acts of solidarity. It also fosters lack of proper appreciation of crucial activities
of help to the vulnerable, such as the care work of child-rearers, social workers,
and nurses. Empowerment understood as self-determination (which is not
the same as independence as self-sufficiency) is important for dignity, and
should indeed be furthered. People should be able to feature as protagonists in
the political processes securing their rights. But solidarity is crucial too. Both
engage important human capacities (which give rise to status-dignity) to
actively pursue, and help others to achieve, a decent or flourishing life. Instead
of embracing a fantastic and undesirable dichotomy between dependence and
independence, what the ethics and politics of human rights needs is to
entertain norms of social interdependence that are fair and compassionate
(rather than exploitative and egoistic) and to grant people (when possible) the
power to shape their justification and implementation through deliberative
and democratic participation.³⁷

relevant debates and provide an account of democratic and labor rights, arguing that a compel-
ling defense of them can be given on dignitarian terms. This is also true of health care rights
(which are more often discussed in relation to dignity—e.g., in debates on addictions, disability,
and euthanasia).
³⁷ Sometimes help cannot be paired with enabling autonomy or strict reciprocity on the part
of those helped. See Eva Kittay’s discussion on the “residual dependency” of people with severe
disabilities in “Centering Justice on Dependency and Recovering Freedom,” Hypatia 30 (2015),
285–91. Even if solidarity fosters the independence of disabled people (e.g., their capacity to join
the workforce when they cannot walk by supplying ramps to access buildings with wheelchairs),
additional support will be needed to help those unable to partake in many activities. I agree with
Kittay that if we recognize the pervasiveness of human dependency, we can also see it as a
“source of value: a source of connection; an occasion for developing our capacities of thought,
empathy, sensitivity, trust, ingenuity, and creativity; in short, as providing for us the conditions
of our distinctive human freedom and dignity” (290). For instructive critique of ideological uses
of the dichotomy dependence/independence, see Nancy Fraser and Linda Gordon, “ ‘Depend-
ency’ Demystified: Inscriptions of Power in a Keyword of the Welfare State,” Social Politics
1 (1994), 4–31.
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 137

Responding appropriately to the inherent dignity of human beings requires
respecting their active agency—their capacity to control their own lives. It also
requires giving them various forms of help, which they need because of their
inescapable vulnerability and sociality. Dignitarian ethics and politics aim at
fostering fair interdependence—an outlook that contrasts with independence,
mutual indifference, and hierarchical exploitation and domination.

5.3.4. Dignitarian Virtue and Dynamic Dignity

We should expand the conceptual network of dignity to make room for the
important ethical idea of virtue. We can indeed identify dignitarian virtues as
dispositions to think, feel, and act in tune with dignitarian norms. To account
for dignitarian virtue, we can therefore distinguish between status-dignity that
is endowment-based and status-dignity that is achievement-based. The first is
the status-dignity we have considered so far. According to it, individuals have
status-dignity because of certain valuable features such as their capacity for
prudential and moral reasoning, sentience, social cooperation, sympathy, etc.
These are features with which people are endowed independently of their
choices. Being typical of human individuals, these features make human
dignity a universal and equally held normative status. Because of the moral
significance of those features, the norms based on status-dignity have great
normative force. They normally override conflicting considerations. For ex-
ample, people have rights to political participation because they have some of
these valuable capacities. Even if by violating their political rights a govern-
ment could give people happier lives, it would normally be wrong to do so. It
would be an affront to their status as self-determining agents.
In the different, achievement-based sense, individuals have (or lack) status-
dignity because of certain features of them that have arisen as a result of their
choices or that are, more broadly, such that the individuals can reasonably be
held responsible for them. For example, some politicians may be said to “lack
dignity” when they act in certain odious ways, such as when they foster the
interests of corporations funding their electoral campaigns or promising them
lucrative jobs for when they leave office, at the expense of the needs of the
citizens they were chosen to represent.
Certain responses seem appropriate toward people regarding their status-
dignity in the achievement-based sense that do not affect entitlements they have
in accordance with their status-dignity in the endowment-based sense. Corrupt
politicians may be scorned or removed from office, but they retain their human
rights because their endowment-based dignity remains constant.³⁸

³⁸ It could be argued that some but not all rights can be forfeited (e.g., a criminal may
temporarily lose some liberty rights but may not be tortured). James Nickel, “Personal Deserts
and Human Rights,” in Cruft, ed., Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, 153–65.
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138 Human Dignity and Human Rights

The two forms of status-dignity involve different dignitarian norms (with
corresponding forms of condition-dignity). For the most part, theories of
human rights focus on dignitarian norms that spring from status-dignity in
the endowment-based sense. Why is it important for human rights theory to
consider achievement-based dignity? Because it helps us understand dignitar-
ian virtue.³⁹ Dignity in the achievement-based sense applies to agents who live
in ways that honor human rights (and other dignitarian norms). Specific
forms of respect (including self-respect⁴⁰) are due when agents take human
rights seriously. This is a very important phenomenon in the political pursuit
of human rights, which helps us understand R5. We sometimes say that people
“gain dignity” when they stand up to defend their rights. Recall the example of
the “rebel dignity” of Mexican Neo-Zapatistas, who challenged the humiliat-
ing conditions of social and political disenfranchisement imposed on indigen-
ous communities.
The politics of human rights is in this way shown to have an important
intrinsic significance, as it provides a key expressive medium in which people
develop, display, and recognize their moral capacities to respond to the worth
of every person (including themselves). A related idea is that of dynamic
dignity. We may sometimes develop our own capacities, and help others
develop theirs, in such a way that we become (more) able to honor dignitarian
norms. I call the dignity associated with these virtuous choices “dynamic
dignity” because they fulfill dynamic duties whose focus is not simply on
what is to be done in certain situations but to change them to expand the
feasibility of desirable outcomes.
Reference to dynamic dignity also helps to further account for R4. Recall the
salience, in human rights discourse, of the demand for political empowerment.
People should have power to control the political process and other mechan-
isms that dynamically affect the fulfillment of their human rights.⁴¹ Without
such power, their access to the objects of their civil and social rights is
significantly less secure. Denial of political power also directly dents
condition-dignity (as political rights partly consist in demands that citizens
be treated as equals). Dynamic dignity also helps underscore the importance of

³⁹ Importantly, the two forms of dignity are linked: appraisals of achievement-based dignity
assess the extent to which agents respond appropriately to norms derived from endowment-
based status-dignity. Using the distinctions proposed here, we can capture the nuances of human
dignity without confusion or contradiction.
⁴⁰ See the striking discussion of the vice of “servility” by Immanuel Kant in The Metaphysics of
Morals (Practical Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Ak 6:434–7). Kant
argues that when we are meek and servile in our relationships with others, we fail to take our
equal worth seriously. By downgrading ourselves we fail to show proper “esteem” for our own
worth or dignity. We fail to respect our own dignity as human beings, which is equal to that of
any other human being. We let ourselves down.
⁴¹ Social and political participatory rights are emphasized in the Vienna Declaration
(Preamble and Art. 25) and in the UN Millennium Declaration (Art. 6).
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Understanding Human Dignity in Human Rights 139

(domestic and international) positive duties of solidarity to support the
struggle by other people to achieve their own condition-dignity, especially
when they face hard personal and social situations.⁴²

5.3.5. Basic and Maximal Dignity

A dignitarian conception of rights identifies the forms of condition-dignity

people are entitled to in their social life. In human rights, it identifies the
conditions that have the highest priority, the ones warranting the most urgent
domestic and global concern and action.⁴³ However, dignitarian norms can go
further. Human dignity, and social justice, include but go beyond human
rights. Human rights focus on basic dignity, requiring a form of condition-
dignity in which people have access to a decent life. Beyond that, social justice
can focus on maximal dignity, requiring a form of condition-dignity in which
people have access to a flourishing life. Some (including global) versions of
liberal egalitarianism and socialism make maximal demands of this kind.⁴⁴
We can now account for R6. Human dignity helps us develop a unified view
of the arc of humanist justice. Humanist justice takes each human individual
as a basic unit of concern and respect. Once we accept the humanist dignitar-
ianism of human rights, and the obligation to support people in their pursuit

⁴² On the importance of positive duties of concern besides negative duties of respect within
institutions that support human dignity (e.g., in health care), see Denise Reaume, “Dignity,
Choice, and Circumstances,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 539–58.
⁴³ There is a strong debate about how minimal or expansive human rights norms should be
taken to be. Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights; Eva Brems, “Human Rights: Minimum and
Maximum Perspectives,” Human Rights Law Review 9 (2009), 349–72; Allen Buchanan, The
Heart of Human Rights; Joshua Cohen, “Minimalism about Human Rights: The Most We Can
Hope For?” Journal of Political Philosophy 12 (2004), 190–213; Maurice Cranston, “Human
Rights, Real and Supposed,” in P. Hayden, ed., The Philosophy of Human Rights (St. Paul:
Paragon House, 2001), 163–73; Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012); Gould, Interactive Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2014); Griffin, On Human Rights; Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and
Idolatry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001); James Nickel, Making Sense of
Human Rights; John Rawls, The Law of Peoples; Carl Wellman, The Proliferation of Rights
(Boulder, CO: Westview, 2009); Wellman, The Moral Dimension of Human Rights (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011). Some of these authors (such as Cohen, Cranston, Ignatieff, and
Rawls) tend to be hostile to expansive construals of human rights, while others (such as Beitz and
Brems) are more receptive to them. Their views are of course based on different arguments and
rationales, and this leads them to account for the content of human rights in different ways. And
because of this, even among those who tend to be comparatively expansivist or minimalist there
are important differences as to the extent of their expansivism or minimalism. (E.g., Cohen
argues that his account of human rights in terms of the strictures of global public reason make
for a minimalist view that differs from a more extreme, “ultra-minimalist” view that only focuses
on the preconditions of being alive—defended by Ignatieff ). I believe that my approach captures
the strong intuitions in these positions while developing an account of humanist justice that
includes an appropriate distinction between basic and maximal requirements.
⁴⁴ Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality: A Philosophical Exploration.
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140 Human Dignity and Human Rights

of basic levels of development and exercise of their valuable capacities, it is
natural to wonder whether we should also support people (in reasonably
feasible ways) in their pursuit of higher levels of development and exercise
of those capacities. The value of human capacities, and the concomitant status
of the individuals who have them, is more fully reflected in principles that call
for supporting human flourishing. A decent life is not enough.
To illustrate, take labor rights. We should prevent the most egregious
violations of workers’ rights. We should secure safe working conditions,
adequate remuneration, provisions for rest and leisure time, and workers’
entitlement to defend themselves through unions and other forms of political
activity (UDHR, Arts. 23–4, ICESCR, Arts. 6–9). But to fully respond to
workers’ capacities for social cooperation, creative work, and prudential and
moral reasoning, we should take seriously socialist arguments that see it as a
matter of workers’ dignity that they have access to work that is not alienating,
exploitative, or dominating. In fact, socialist and workers’ movements have
been central contributors to the contemporary discourse of human dignity
and human rights. In a world where avoidable inequality is intense and
growing, we should expect dignitarian politics to articulate and pursue their
agenda further. I will explore basic and maximal dignitarian rights in future
chapters. But before proceeding with the development of the specific contents
of the dignitarian program, I must address some fundamental objections to its
cogency. This is the task of chapter 6.
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Defending the Significance

of Human Dignity

In chapter 5, I identified the main dimensions of human dignity and some

important roles of it in human rights discourse. Of course, many substantive
questions have not been answered. But the account proposed presents the
initial contours of a research program that can frame future inquiry about
these questions. Further development of our understanding of human dignity
should proceed by offering a more detailed conception that characterizes the
components of the conceptual network of dignity and shows how to fulfill the
six roles concerning universalist humanism, justification of rights, normative
strength, recognition of positive duties, standing up, and the arc of humanist
justice. I will continue developing this research program in the upcoming
chapters. However, this optimistic outlook is threatened by a skeptical attitude
according to which we should not even try to tackle these questions but
should, instead, simply drop reference to human dignity from human rights
discourse. This chapter confronts such disabling skepticism. It addresses the
most important charges levelled against the deployment of the idea of human
dignity in human rights discourse. They say that the idea is empty, indeter-
minate, incoherent, politically pernicious, exclusionary, sterile, or redundant.
I argue that each of these charges fails. As a result, we can resist the disabling
skepticism associated with them. We can learn from these objections to
improve our views of human dignity, but we should remain confident about
its significance in human rights discourse.

6 . 1 . I N D E T ER M I N A C Y OF MEANING AND RO LE

The first objection is that “human dignity” has no clear meaning. Despite its
rhetorical power and wide resonance, it is vacuous or hopelessly vague.
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142 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Furthermore, although it is often invoked to present certain human rights as
justified, it is not at all clear how it helps justify them.¹
In response, notice first that every core normative idea is somewhat inde-
terminate. Consider freedom, equality, and solidarity. They can be construed
in many ways. Freedom can be negative or positive, individual or collective.
Equality can require the same opportunities, end-states, or capabilities. And so
on. The indeterminacy of dignity, as that of the other important ideas, is best
seen as an invitation to substantive debate about how to tighten its content in
relevant contexts. By engaging in that debate, political agents signal to each
other that they recognize a worthy normative territory of discussion and
action. They might lose track of that if they dropped reference to the common,
but relatively indeterminate ideas.
Second, although it is relatively indeterminate, human dignity is certainly
not meaningless. As discussed in chapter 5 when considering its role R1,
human dignity marks a distinctive kind of normative practice that focuses
on what people owe to each other as human beings rather than as members of
some class, race, or nation. I have explored other important roles as well.
A meaningless idea could not be so useful.
Finally, greater determinacy can be gained as we move from status-dignity to
dignitarian norms, and within the latter, from more abstract to more specific
requirements. The earlier components in the chains of increased determinacy
affect those coming after them. We should not worry if no deductive inference
occurs. The relation between the chain components is one not of deduction, but
of increased articulation. This is typical in moral and legal reasoning.

6.2. INCOHERENCE

“Human dignity” is sometimes used in incoherent ways. For example, it is

said both that people have a right against being enslaved because of their human
dignity and that when they are enslaved people are deprived of their
human dignity.² So, it seems, a person who is a slave both has and does
not have dignity.
Incoherence is surely a fatal flaw, but as noted in section 5.3.1 of chapter 5, the
alleged incoherence is simply dissolved if we use the distinction that I proposed
between status-dignity and condition-dignity. We can say without contradiction
that a person who is a slave lacks condition-dignity but still has status-dignity.

¹ Brian Orend, Human Rights (Peterborough: Broadview, 2002), 87–9. Michael Rosen, “Dignity:
The Case Against,” in C. McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 143–54, at 143–7.
² Steven Pinker, “The Stupidity of Dignity,” The New Republic (May 28, 2008).
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 143

Furthermore, we can clarify, and illuminate the significance of, the connection
between the two clauses in the superficially incoherent utterances. Status-dignity
is the normative ground of condition-dignity. Because of their status-dignity,
people who do not enjoy condition-dignity should be supported (in reason-
ably feasible ways) by agents who can affect them. It is precisely because
status-dignity remains that condition-dignity is always worth fighting for.
People do not drop out of the dignitarian universe when they are disrespected
or neglected. Something similar happens with the distinction between
endowment-based dignity and achievement-based dignity. When someone
fails to respect their own status-dignity, they lack achievement-based dignity.
But since they do not lose their status-dignity, they can and always must seize
themselves and become virtuous. These distinctions make it possible to render
consistent common judgments about dignity that would otherwise be contra-
dictory. They help us understand why, as a condition or as an achievement,
dignity is a quite fragile and contingent matter, but also why, as a status, it is a
resilient and always valid source of hope, inspiration, and obligatory action.
We must always recognize the status-dignity of human beings, and respond to
it by supporting the existence and development of the features of human
beings that give rise to it.³

6.3. PERNICIOUS USES AND “ IRRESOLVABLE

DISPU TES ”

“Human dignity” lends itself to dangerous uses. One danger is that since
human dignity is often taken to play a foundational and overriding role in
the justification of ethical and political views, its indeterminacy makes it a very

³ A disturbing thought is that a person may lose their status-dignity when the features of them
that constitute the basis of dignity are destroyed. In response, notice that the worry may involve
two different possibilities. In the first, only part of the basis of dignity is destroyed. But since other
parts remain, the person still has status-dignity, and various rights are still operative (specifically,
the ones protecting the person in the maintenance and unfolding of the remaining features). In the
second possibility, all the features have been destroyed. In that limit case, there is no carrier of
dignity anymore, in the sense that there is no person with any of the relevant features. Of course,
the acts leading to that obliteration certainly are deep and horrible violations of dignity. I should
acknowledge that what I say in this note assumes a naturalistic view of the features making up the
basis of human dignity. If some of those features were metaphysically impervious to destruction in
the natural world (if, e.g., the basis of status-dignity were at least in part an immaterial soul, or a
Kantian noumenal being), then the violations could not reach that far.
As Rowan Cruft suggested to me, even in the face of the destruction of the basis of dignity of
people, we could still respond to their status-dignity by commemorating them. This would not
restore status-dignity when its bearer is gone, but would still seem a fitting response to its importance
(and a salutary announcement that similar acts of destruction are not to be tolerated).
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144 Human Dignity and Human Rights

attractive subject for manipulation. It can be used as a Trojan horse to smuggle
into moral and political practice specific views that are not generally shared.⁴
Notice that the worry about manipulation is in tension with the worry about
indeterminacy. There must be something to the idea of human dignity for it to
be useful in manipulation. If it were an empty idea, nothing would be
accomplished by using it to advance a moral and political agenda. It can be
useful for persuading an audience only because it already contains some
thoughts the audience accepts and finds important. Secondly, every important
normative idea can be manipulated. We rightly do not take this to be a
sufficient reason to stop using them. The appropriate response to manipula-
tion is to expose it and call for an honest discussion about which amongst the
various possible articulations of the relevant idea is substantively correct.
If an idea other than human dignity were used to frame human rights
discourse, manipulability would not be escaped. The prospects for this escape
are obviously not good if we look at the use of other key ideas in political
theory and practice like freedom, equality, or solidarity. Furthermore, the
alternative idea would have to serve the valuable roles that dignity does already
serve. This may or may not happen. Since (as we have shown) dignity plays six
important roles, the burden of the argument is on the skeptic to show that we
should risk losing touch with them when we drop reference to dignity.
Additionally, the suggestion that we stop using the idea of human dignity
and opt for another may not succeed given that the former is already too
entrenched in human rights theory and practice. In any case, once we identify
its normative roles, it seems that the most appropriate strategy is to retain the
idea of human dignity, which already has great currency, and accompany its
use with an account of how the roles are fulfilled. Some manipulations will
thereby be shown to be misuses of the concept properly understood, whereas
others will be bona fide substantive proposals about the content and justifica-
tion of dignitarian norms, which should then be welcome as moves in a debate
where alternative articulations of those norms could also be voiced in re-
sponse. We should indeed combat conceptual manipulation, but we should
also avoid the tendency to call “manipulation” every use of a concept to phrase
substantive claims we disagree with. Instead of talking past each other or
ruling each other’s views out of court as conceptual gibberish, we should frame

⁴ Rosen (“Dignity: The Case Against,” 147–8) says that Catholics used dignity in the nine-
teenth century to challenge egalitarian views of rights. In contrast with the liberal, or Kantian,
views of dignity as equally held by all persons, they ascribed it unequally to individuals with
different roles in hierarchical societies. Catholic views changed in the twentieth century, aligning
with the emerging international human rights doctrine. David Hollenbach, “Human Dignity:
Experience and History, Practical Reason and Faith,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human
Dignity, 123–39. On the manipulation of “human dignity” and related ideas to impose exclu-
sionary agendas in Latin America, see Helio Gallardo, Derechos Humanos Como Movimiento
Social (Bogota: Ediciones Desde Abajo, 2006), 28–9, 78, 120–1.
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 145

our argumentative encounters so that we can assess the truth or falsity of
various theories we might entertain. This inclusive yet critical and reasonable
debate is what non-manipulation would really amount to. In fact, it is an
occasion for civic engagement and solidaristic empowerment of the kind that
(through roles R4 and R5) human dignity already calls for. It would involve a
respectful and dynamic dignitarian forum.
To illustrate, some worry that the extreme generality of invocations of
human dignity could be exploited to threaten certain important freedoms,
including some protected by key liberal rights. The scope for individuals’ free
choice may be undermined in the name of protecting dignity. Debates about
banning consensual acts such as assisted suicide, or “dwarf throwing,” are
examples.⁵ Dignitarian claims may even be used to undermine human rights,
as many such rights precisely affirm individual liberties.⁶ An analogous prob-
lem arises with respect to political liberty. Human dignity as a fundamental
idea is invoked in some national constitutions (such as the German), and is
prominent in international human rights documents (such as the two Coven-
ants) that have been ratified and incorporated into the law of many countries.
This allows courts to challenge parliaments’ legislation when they see it as
violating human dignity. In this way, the democratic authority of the people is
constrained.⁷ These are real difficulties. But again, the best way to address
them is by engaging rather than ignoring the relevant substantive arguments.
The skeptic may respond that the disputes surrounding human dignity are
worthless because they are irresolvable. If the disputes about the meaning of
“human dignity” are irresolvable, then it may be “wise” to drop the term and
“coin new” ones.⁸ Alternatively, the disputes may be substantive rather than
conceptual, concerning what dignitarian norms are true. A worry then is that
the use of human dignity may push human rights discourse to search for deep
moral, religious, or metaphysical foundations. This search is better avoided
because no agreement on deep foundations is possible. We should follow the
example of the drafters of UDHR and focus on identifying the rights we quite
readily agree on without asking ourselves why we do so.
How do we know that a dispute is irresolvable? Irresolvability theses are
very hard to justify. We should try to resolve our disputes and see. We can also

⁵ Roger Brownsword, “Human Dignity from a Legal Perspective,” in Marcus Düwell, Jen
Braaving, Roger Brownsword, and Dietmar Mieth, eds., Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 1–22, at 9–13, 17–18; Michael Rosen, Dignity
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), ch. 2. There is a conflict between “liberal”
and “conservative” interpretations of legal documents invoking human dignity. While the
former support individuals’ freedoms, the latter limit them.
⁶ Marcus Düwell, “Human Dignity: Concepts, Discussions, Philosophical Perspectives,” in
Düwell et al., eds., Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity, 23–49, at 25, 29.
⁷ Rosen, “Dignity: The Case Against,” 152–3.
⁸ Samuel Moyn, “The Secret History of Constitutional Dignity,” in McCrudden, ed., Under-
standing Human Dignity, 95–111, at 111.
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146 Human Dignity and Human Rights

district debate to insulate areas of agreement from areas of disagreement (for
example, we can mark our agreement about certain intermediate premises
even as we acknowledge and pursue discussion about deeper premises). In any
case, dispute would likely plague any substitutive idea that manages to play
similar roles. And we do need an idea that plays the roles R1–R6 (discussed in
chapter 5) to structure the public discourse of human rights. So, going for
substitutes risks simply repeating the difficulties we were trying to avoid, or
solving some of them at the cost of failing to cater for some of the important
roles the idea of dignity was already fit for.
Finally, some disputes may very well be a symptom that human dignity
gives rise to various pro tanto reasons (and rights) that collide in certain
situations. When this is so, it is in fact a benefit rather than a defect of dignity
that it helps us make explicit those conflicting reasons. Instead of hiding the
conflict under the carpet, we should process it by searching for appropriate all-
things-considered judgments. If conflict of reasons is a deep and recurrent
feature of normative reasoning, then we should welcome the dignitarian talk
that compels us to deal with it. Ignoring the conflict would not only be
theoretically unsatisfactory. It would risk missing interests and claims of
people we will affect with our choices.
It is important to acknowledge that human rights practice is diverse and
conflictive and, thus, in process. This goes further than saying that it is
emergent.⁹ Even mature practices are in process in the relevant sense (as is
the case with liberalism, for example). Philosophers are participants in this
complex, contentious, and dynamic practice. By proposing a certain view of
dignity, they can help to shape it in desirable ways.

6 . 4 . E L I M I N A B IL I T Y AN D B U C K - P A S S IN G

Another possibility is that “human dignity” is simply redundant. Some critics

argue that when it has a precise meaning, “human dignity” does not in fact
amount to anything other than respect for persons or their autonomy. We can
then use those terms and eliminate “human dignity” without loss.¹⁰
The proposed substitution will not do. Human dignity is used to back
obligations that go beyond negative duties of respect. There is in fact a tension

⁹ On human rights practice as “emergent,” see Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 42–4.
¹⁰ Ruth Macklin, “Dignity is a Useless Concept,” British Medical Journal 327 (2003), 1419–20;
Pinker, “The Stupidity of Dignity.” Pinker apparently assumes that the duties responding to
dignity are negative when he articulates “the idea that, because all humans have the same
minimum capacity to suffer, prosper, reason, and choose, no human has the right to impinge
on the life, body, or freedom of another.”
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 147

between a narrow view of human dignity as only giving rise to negative duties
to respect other people’s free choices and a broader view on which human
dignity also gives rise to positive duties of solidarity to further other people’s
capacities to make choices and their access to opportunities to achieve well-
being.¹¹ Moreover, it is not obvious that respecting (and furthering) the
dignity of human beings is exhausted by respecting (and furthering) their
freedom of choice. Some human beings may be unable to make free choices,
but their access to a decent life in which unnecessary suffering is avoided could
still be significantly reduced or enhanced. In sum, we need to explain why
respect and concern are owed to people, and what kinds of respect and
concern are appropriate. Referring to dignity helps organize our thoughts
about these questions by identifying a normative status and valuable features
grounding it.¹² The substitution of dignity with narrower ideas renders this
task invisible, with evident theoretical and practical loss.
Why not drop “human dignity” and use “moral status” instead? This would
not be so problematic given that here human dignity is, after all, defined as a
moral status. But we do well to retain the phrase “human dignity” because it
immediately links up to several distinctive and important roles in human
rights discourse which would be less apparent if we just used “moral status.” It
is a certain moral status that we are after—the one that has these functional
characteristics. Furthermore, even if we managed to substitute “human dignity”
with some other phrase without extensional loss, we would still have practical
reasons to keep using a phrase that features so strongly in the real political life of
human rights struggle. People who take to the streets to defend their dignity
might find a philosophical approach that characterizes their activism instead as
a defense of their moral status quite remote from their experiences.
A related concern is that human dignity is a “buck-passing” concept.¹³ It
does not specify the grounds of human rights, but merely announces that
something else exists which does provide that ground. Thus, a human right to
political participation can be justified by referring to the interest people have
in defending themselves against various threats by governments, or to their
capacities for political self-determination and the importance that societies be
shaped in a way that allows for these capacities’ development and exercise. It is
these interests or capacities that justify the right. Saying that people have the
right because they have human dignity would not add anything substantive.

¹¹ For the broader view, see Hollenbach, “Human Dignity”; Reaume, “Dignity, Choice, and
Circumstances,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 539–58; and Pablo
Gilabert, “Kant and the Claims of the Poor,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81
(2010), 382–418.
¹² See the discussion of R1–R3 in section 5.3 of chapter 5 of this book.
¹³ This kind of worry is helpfully outlined by Govert Den Hartogh, “Is Human Dignity the
Ground of Human Rights?” in Düwell et al., eds., Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity,
200–7.
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148 Human Dignity and Human Rights

When human dignity is invoked to justify the right, this is only a roundabout
way to signal the presence of the interests or capacities (and thus passes the
justificatory buck to them).
In response to this challenge, we could accept that dignitarianism identifies
a high-level, right-making property of some acts and institutions (their being
such that they involve appropriate responses to status-dignity). As such it
subsumes, or gathers, lower-level right-making properties (which engage more
specific normative considerations of respect and concern).¹⁴ But having a
high-level concept of human dignity is far from idle. Indeed, it has crucial
positive and critical roles. As shown when discussing roles R1–R6, the concept
organizes the search for specific grounds of human rights, and indicates the
unity and nature of the distinctive normative enterprise that seeks their
identification and implementation. Importantly, in the account given here,
human dignity encodes distinctive and plural reasons linked to the valuable
human capacities making up the basis of dignity and the associated human
interests in developing, maintaining, and exercising them in various social
contexts. Thus, even when it passes the buck, human dignity tells us where to
pass it. We may not just pass it to any claim we want. For example, human
dignity does not track the claims of class, race, or nationality. Instead, human
dignity structures our thinking about what institutions and practices to accept
by demanding that we respond to the claims of the human person in social life.
This point unifies and guides the use of the components of the conceptual
network of dignity, and it underpins the specific roles of dignity in human
rights discourse. As their moral heart, human dignity organizes the flow of
normative considerations that keep human rights alive.¹⁵

6.5. EXCLUSION OF NON-HUMAN ANIMALS

AND “ NON-TYPICA L” HU MAN BEINGS

Human dignity is the dignity of human beings that is relevant (at least) in human
rights discourse. In developing an account of human dignity and human rights,

¹⁴ On higher- and lower-level right- or wrong-making properties, see Derek Parfit, On What
Matters, vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 369, 414–15, 476. Parfit applies this
point to contractualism.
¹⁵ Another way to put these points, suggested to me by James Nickel, is to introduce an “oak
barrel” account of the concept of human dignity. Some concepts are used as containers carrying
content that can fully be accounted for without using them. When that is the case, the concepts
are like stainless steel barrels which do not affect the taste of what they carry. But sometimes
barrel concepts operate as oak barrels which partly affect the content of what they carry. In the
metaphor, the flavor of a wine that is stored in an oak barrel will change, while it would remain
the same in a stainless steel barrel.
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 149

we should beware of unduly exclusionary implications regarding non-human
animals and “non-typical” human beings. In this section, I address this
important worry about exclusion. To confront exclusion of non-human ani-
mals, I will argue, we should note that human dignity is not equivalent with
dignity as such. The former is only a species of the latter. And to avoid
exclusion of “non-typical” human beings, we should construe human
dignity broadly so that the various valuable features that are sufficient for
the status-dignity of different human individuals are properly taken into
account. Let me explain.
Despite the currency of “human dignity” in human rights discourse, it
would be more appropriate to talk about “the dignity of human beings.” The
latter rubric makes it easier to say that some of the features that give rise to the
dignity of human beings are also possessed by some non-human entities (such
as sentience, which is present in non-human animals). Furthermore, it allows
us to say that there might be features that non-human entities possess but
human beings lack which give rise to status-dignity. We can say that non-
human entities have dignity because what ultimately explains dignity is not the
fact of being human, but the valuable features that form the basis of dignity.
The dignity of non-human entities could be grounded in valuable features that
are, and partly in features that are not, shared with human beings.
By using the idea of the dignity of human beings rather than the idea of
human dignity, we do not invite the exclusionary thought that the basis of
dignity must only include features that human beings possess but other
entities do not, or the absurd inference that if we include features which
human beings share with other beings, then we would have to say that the
latter have human dignity. I do not, of course, expect that current usage will
change. The phrase “human dignity” is already entrenched in human rights
discourse. But we can introduce the caveat that when we use it, we express the
concept of dignity of human beings.
The view suggested here might be challenged by saying that it conflicts with
the common, and appealing, slogan that human rights are the rights people
have in virtue of their humanity. But we can avoid this conflict. I think that the
slogan should not be interpreted as implying the exclusion of non-human
beings from dignitarian respect and concern. The key contrast for human
rights discourse is not between human beings and non-human animals, but
between human individuals as human beings and as members of some
particular class, race, religion, nation, etc. Relatedly, the key contrast is not
between human and non-human dignity, but between the dignity of human
beings and specific social statuses linked to class, race, nationality, etc. This is
the point made in the important Article 2 of UDHR, which says that
“[e]veryone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in [ . . . UDHR]
without distinctions of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
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150 Human Dignity and Human Rights

status.” So, when we say that people have human rights in virtue of their
humanity it is the second contrasts, not the first, that are explanatorily
relevant.¹⁶ The point of the slogan is to challenge the arbitrary exclusion of
some people from enjoyment of rights that are acknowledged for others. For
example, it has historically been used to say that blacks, women, and property-
less workers should have the legal right to vote, that political rights should not
be confined to whites, males, or property-owners, but apply instead to every
human individual who has the capacities of political judgment, and the
interest in affecting the decision-making process ruling the main institutions
that structure their social life. Human rights have general scope. They are not
based on parochial markers like race, class, race, religion, etc.¹⁷
Second, we should develop a dignitarian perspective that is truly inclusive of
all human beings. To do so, we can proceed in three steps. First, we identify the
set of human beings in the broadest possible way (an example is to say that it
comprises all members of the species Homo sapiens). We ascribe status-
dignity to all of them. At this stage, the ascription of status-dignity is only a
promissory note. It expresses our intuition that all human beings count and
are entitled to our respect and concern. But this reaction needs to be developed
and defended. Thus, in a second step, we identify valuable features that
are relatively constant amongst most of those we call (adult) “human beings”
and articulate the norms of respect and concern that properly respond to
them.¹⁸ Most human rights norms are responses to these features of “typical”
(adult) people in various social contexts. This step provides an explanation of
the ascription of human dignity and an elaboration of dignitarian norms
associated with it.
But we need a third step in order to include “non-typical” human beings.
We should be able to respond appropriately to some members of the human

¹⁶ And what is ultimately significant for grounding status-dignity is not humanity but the
features making up the basis of dignity (which allows for the existence of kinds of dignity—and
corresponding rights—held by non-human entities in virtue of their valuable features).
¹⁷ See the related discussion on “dignitarian overflow” in section 6.7 below.
¹⁸ The features may have emerged in evolutionary processes and change in the future. Some
are present in non-human animals. And some are absent in certain human beings. If we use a
notion of human nature to identify the set of features of which the valuable ones making up the
basis of dignity constitute a proper subset, we can, with Allen Buchanan, reject the assumptions
that the relevant features must be unchangeable and literally universal amongst all those we call
“human.” On Buchanan’s proposed definition, “Human nature is a set of characteristics (1) that
most beings that are uncontroversially human have at this point in biological and cultural
evolution (and have had throughout what is uncontroversially thought to be human [as opposed
to prehuman] history); (2) that are relatively recalcitrant to being expunged or significantly altered
by education, training, and indoctrination; and (3) that play a significant role in explanations of
widespread human behavior and in explanations of differences between humans and other
animals” (“Moral Status and Human Enhancement,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 37 (2009),
346–81, at 353). I find clauses (1) and (2) of this definition congenial. However, (3) is problem-
atic: not all that is important in explaining what human beings are and do is part of what
distinguishes them from other animals.
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species who do not yet have some of the features mentioned in the second step
(such as children), or lost them (such as some elderly people), or never display
them (such as people with certain disabilities). We do this by noticing that
people in these latter categories still have some of the valuable features in the
basis of dignity (or a tendency to form them). Many human rights (such as the
rights to life and bodily integrity) straightforwardly apply to them. Further,
some rights apply to them but should be specified to clearly address the
distinctive ways in which they need support. Some adults might not be able
to get to a voting booth, but could be helped to exercise their right to vote by
letting them vote by mail. Although some rights might not apply straightfor-
wardly, supplementary mechanisms can be put in place to help those who
cannot now exercise the rights but can be enabled to do so in the future. Thus,
children do not have the right to vote or run for office, but they should be
educated in ways that help them develop the capacities that will eventually
enable them to function as autonomous political agents. Human rights prac-
tice already does this through special instruments (such as the Convention on
the Rights of the Child). Additional mechanisms can attend to people’s
important interests when they cannot exercise the rights even after support.
Some might not be able to form or express political choices at all, but the
political system could, and should, be made to reliably protect their rights to
subsistence, bodily integrity, and so on.¹⁹
The moral category of human beings with dignity should then be articulated
so that it leads to various norms. The main point is that it includes human
beings who display any of the valuable features that ground status-dignity.
This broad construal of human dignity enables us to recognize what is of value

¹⁹ In “Human Dignity and Political Entitlements,” Human Dignity and Bioethics (Washington
DC: President’s Council of Bioethics, 2008, 351–78), Martha Nussbaum also argues that there are
different kinds of dignity and that human dignity has a broad, disjunctive basis including various
basic human capacities. She also argues, appealingly, that we should make human rights discourse
inclusive of every human being. However, her claim that all have exactly the same specific political
entitlements is puzzling. She says that a person with severe cognitive disabilities who is unable to
vote still has a right to vote, which could be fulfilled by having a guardian vote on their behalf. But
to say that someone has a right to vote is very different from saying that they have a right that
someone else vote on their behalf. We should make the political system responsive to the interests
of everyone (including those who cannot vote), but the specific entitlements may be different.
I discuss other commonalities and differences with Nussbaum’s views in chapter 7, section 7.3, and
in “Human Rights, Human Dignity, and Power,” in R. Cruft, M. Liao, and M. Renzo, eds.,
Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 196–213;
and “The Capability Approach and the Debate between Humanist and Political Perspectives on
Human Rights. A Critical Survey,” Human Rights Review 14.4 (2013), 299–325. Another difficulty
for Nussbaum’s approach, and my own, is to account for the rights of people in a permanent state
of total unconsciousness. A possible answer, suggested to me by Allen Buchanan, is to acknowledge
that the dignitarian approach is limited to the identification of the rights of minimally normal
Homo sapiens. Additional moral considerations could be marshalled to account for moral and legal
requirements regarding the treatment of those below the minimum.
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152 Human Dignity and Human Rights

in each human individual, and thus to respond to them with the respect and
concern that are appropriate given their predicament in various situations.
We can thus distinguish between more general and more circumscribed
uses of “human dignity.” We engage in the former to identify human rights as
a type of rights different from others. We engage in the latter to identify
specific human rights and to ascribe them to particular people. In this latter
use, human dignity correlates with the presence of certain, but not always all,
valuable features in the basis of dignity. Now, as is common with categories,
there is with human dignity a danger of excluding or downplaying the
significance of some of the entities to which it should apply. We must proceed
carefully, attending not only to the majority of people but also to minorities.
The three-step procedure suggested here is meant to enable this careful
response.²⁰
It is worth noting, to conclude, that the three-step procedure should be
applied in an ongoing and cyclical fashion. This is epistemically fruitful, as
what becomes visible in an instance of the third step in a sequence might help
us repopulate what is significant in the second step of an iteration of the
exercise. Thus, our consideration of the claims of people with disabilities, the
elderly, and children may reveal the significance of vulnerability and caring
assistance. These phenomena will in fact have relevance for all people. It is part
of the human condition to go through situations of great vulnerability. We can
then make good sense of why human rights underscore solidarity and impose
positive duties to help our fellow human beings in need.

6.6. SINGULARITY, DIVERSITY, AND CHA NGE

The use of “human dignity” seems to presuppose that there is an essence of

human beings. But some argue there is no such thing, as human individuals
can be extremely different from each other. For most features of a human
individual, we are likely to find others who lack it. Furthermore, there are
enormous historical and cultural variations that affect the existence and
significance of many human beings’ capacities. Even more radically, the new

²⁰ Debates within feminism illuminate these points. The category “woman” may be used in
ways that implicitly include what is significant to heterosexual women but ignore what is
significant to lesbians (or women who are not white, or middle class, or Western). Addressing
this problem, feminists develop a heightened sensibility to how categorizations may both
generalize and exclude, and encourage continuous critical discussion to find ways to capture
what is marginalized. Jane Mansbridge and Susan Okin, “Feminism,” in R. Goodin, P. Pettit, and
T. Pogge, eds., Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), vol. 1,
332–59 at 346–7, 350. See also Sally Haslanger, Resisting Reality (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012).
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 153

possibilities created by biotechnology mean that some allegedly fixed limits of
people’s intellectual and physical capacities can be changed.²¹
In response, let me note first that there is no need to assume, and I have not
assumed, that human beings do not vary significantly across time and space,
or that they cannot voluntarily reshape their biology in the future. The features
tracked in our reflections can be seen as natural properties, and as such they
can be seen as contingent. It is in part precisely because they can be causally
affected that it is important to pose the normative questions as to which ones
are valuable and how they can be protected and furthered.
Furthermore, as clarified when discussing the three-step procedure pro-
posed in section 6.5, we must often supplement generalizations about what
human beings “typically” are with characterizations of human beings that are
different from the types invoked. What is crucial is to grasp and respond to
what is valuable in each individual person. We do this by identifying their
valuable features. The aim is not to achieve statistical or actuarial simplicity.
Of course, it is hard to articulate dignitarian norms, especially at the institu-
tional level, without simplifications and generalizations. But we should be
careful not to confuse these (perhaps unavoidable) simplifications and
generalizations with the terrain they seek to organize for practical purposes.
Normative views can be articulated in a way that allows for, and invites,
recognition of differences, and invites appropriate responses in different
contexts. For example, legal frameworks can be applied in different ways to
capture the specific differences that are relevant. This is common in human
rights theory and practice. Furthermore, extra-legal and extra-institutional
support for the dignity of individuals (in interpersonal interaction) is possible
and appropriate. Think about disparaging speech. Some forms of it that target
minorities in ways that systematically undermine their access to equal political
and economic opportunity could be legally restricted in some contexts (such
as in the labor market), while others could be the subject of softer informal
rules and mechanisms of social pressure.
The three-step approach suggested in section 6.5 was that we start with
some standardized human features, and then adjust the account to capture the
rights of non-standard people. Is there any difference between this approach
and one that starts by looking at each person separately and seeing what
ground rights for them—that is, by seeing what their dignity consists in? Is one
approach preferable to the other? I think that the two approaches would

²¹ The worry about essentialism is mentioned in McCrudden, “In Pursuit of Human Dignity:
An Introduction to Current Debates,” in McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human Dignity, 1–59,
at 18–19. On the “posthumanist” and “transhumanist” perspectives and the debate over
“enhancement” through biotechnology, see Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, eds., Human
Enhancement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Allen Buchanan, “Moral Status and
Human Enhancement”; Martin Weiss, “Posthuman Dignity,” in Düwell et al., eds., The Cam-
bridge Handbook of Human Dignity, 319–31.
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154 Human Dignity and Human Rights

converge, and operate in synergy. Just as we must revise general pictures to
capture the particularities of individual cases, we will have to identify relatively
general notions when accounting for those cases, since the relevant features
encountered in them are likely to reappear in others. In any case, some
convergence and synergy is desirable in the case of human rights discourse,
which seeks to shape ongoing practices that support every and each individual.²²
Third, diversity and the capacity for self-change are (within moral limits) in
fact valuable. A ground of status-dignity in human beings is, arguably, their
remarkable capacity to fashion and pursue views of their own selves that are
singular, original, and meaningful. Dignitarian norms protecting liberty of
conscience, expression, and association precisely support this capacity.
Jeremy Waldron argued that the idea of human dignity in human rights
discourse springs from, but changes, the pre-modern view of dignity as
attached to some people in virtue of their higher rank in comparison with
others within a hierarchical social structure. The modern notion gives the
same equal and high rank to everybody. This view was probed satirically by
Michael Rosen, who, quoting The Gondoliers, wrote that “when everybody’s
somebody, nobody’s anybody.” There is really no link with rank anymore if
everybody is in the same ranking position.²³
This challenge can be responded to in two ways, which help us develop
further the points explored in this section. The first response is to note some
consequences of my proposal that we construe the notion of “status” in status-
dignity as involving a non-conventional normative status (see section 5.3.1 of
chapter 5). It differs from the notion of a ranking status, which ties dignity to a
conventional position held within a comparative and hierarchical structure.
The latter is the view explored by Waldron. My interpretation need not be
saddled with its difficulties (if they indeed exist). Secondly, we could think
about the equality and universality of status-dignity (understood as normative
status) as linking to differentiation rather than hierarchy. In a social world in
which the equal status-dignity of all is given its appropriate response, where
condition-dignity is enjoyed by all, each is “somebody” in two senses. First,
each has a unique normative personality: each counts as a distinct bearer of
rights. In addition, and relatedly, each has claims to access opportunities to
develop and exercise (at least to some feasible and reasonable extent) the
capacities in virtue of which they have status-dignity. By seizing these oppor-
tunities, everybody becomes somebody in the sense that they fashion them-
selves as singular agents with their own paths in life. Dignity thus links with
the widespread emergence of individuals’ singularity. The differentiation of
individual life trajectories that results (their multifarious lifestyles which color
the fabric of social life) need not be hierarchical to display the value and the

²² I thank Rowan Cruft for discussion on this point.

²³ Michael Rosen, “Dignity Past and Present,” in Waldron, ed., Dignity, Rank, and Rights,
79–98, at 80.
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 155

identity of their pursuers. To be a valuable dignified somebody who is different
from others you do not need to be above them.

6.7. ABSTRACT AND SPECIFIC RIGHTS A ND THE

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE H UMANIST PERSPECTIVE
BASED ON H UMAN DIGNITY

As we saw in section 5.3.3 of chapter 5, it is epistemically fruitful to develop

our views about the valuable features that give raise to status-dignity by
engaging in a back-and-forth movement in the exploration of (more) abstract
and (more) specific norms. This in fact affects every component in the
conceptual network of a dignitarian view that I propose.
A critic might protest that even if some common aspects of human beings
could be identified, found valuable, and referred to in order to articulate an
idea of human dignity, the resulting notion would be too general to illuminate
specific rights and duties which only apply in certain contexts. Indeed, many
of the human rights affirmed in international documents are highly context-
sensitive. As a result, it is not clear what relevance abstract dignitarian norms
really have for the articulation of the specific claims that the actual politics of
human rights has to grapple with.
I argued in chapter 2 for a synthesis between humanist and political perspec-
tives on human rights, explaining that the abstract rights the first perspective
focuses on can, and should, be illuminated in tandem with the specific rights the
second perspective targets. We don’t need to choose between reference to
abstract and specific rights. The dignitarian approach in fact encourages us to
articulate both. And it is indeed crucial to be able to invoke relatively general,
abstract norms based on what most (or many) human beings share, instead of
focusing only on particular features of the life of people in certain societies. It is
important to figure out what we owe to human beings in accordance with their
inherent dignity. As explained in chapter 2 (section 2.7), the abstract norms
articulating these requirements at the most general level provide us with a moral
compass to evaluate progress and regress in social history, a basis for domestic
and international intercultural dialogue, and a critical source of ideas for
reflection on and change of our own specific social rules. A dignitarian view
of justice rightly insists that we must be sensitive to what human persons share
independently of their class, nationality, etc., and be able to respond to that
commonality with universal solidarity.²⁴

²⁴ When there is a conflict between some general norms inspired by dignitarian consider-
ations and some more specific rules that are already accepted conventionally in some context, we
often rightly see the former as outweighing, or even yielding the rejection, of the latter. The latter
may be odious (as in the case of disenfranchising of women in politics) or fairly irrelevant (as in
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156 Human Dignity and Human Rights

To see that humanist dignitarian considerations are significant for the
progressive articulation of political frameworks, consider an interesting pat-
tern of critical reflection, which I will call dignitarian overflow. It proceeds as
follows. Moral theories or practices normally assume a domain of application
for their norms. They develop and justify the norms by reflecting on certain
valuable features of entities within that domain. But sometimes those theories
or practices are forced under argumentative pressure to entertain the exten-
sion of the scope of the application of the norms when they are faced with the
challenge that entities outside the assumed domain also have the valuable
features. Thus, if we think that men should have the right to vote because they
can form rational judgments about political matters, why don’t we also grant
that right to women given that they also have that capacity?²⁵ If it is unfair that
some children in our society are born poorer than others, why not also worry
about some children being disadvantaged because of being born in poorer
countries when all children have similar potentials regarding the pursuit of
a flourishing life? In these cases, dignity overflows the assumed boundaries
of the applications of some norms. The overflow occurs because the basis
of dignitarian norms is present in entities outside the assumed domain of
application of these norms, forcing us to push the boundaries of our moral and
political theory and practice outward, to include the entities we have hereto-
fore excluded. The inherent dignity of human persons knows no frontiers.²⁶ It
compels us to identify general norms that are truly inclusive, and to articulate
specific norms that implement them in ways that effectively respond to the
relevant dignitarian features of every person in their social context.

6.8. MORAL, LEGAL, OR POLITICAL?

Human dignity is used in legal, political, and moral discourses. It might not
always be clear whether these discourses, and the uses of human dignity in
them, are related to each other, and if so in what ways. It might then be better

the case of etiquette), and should not stand in the way of the specific articulation and imple-
mentation of the demands flowing from the former. Although we need specific guidance for
specific contexts, we can choose to drop some specific rules we have hitherto accepted and
develop alternative guidance resulting from the specific interpretations or implementations of
the general dignitarian norms which, on reflection, we see as correct.
²⁵ The Marquis de Condorcet pressed this point during the early stages of the French
Revolution. He did not convince his fellow revolutionaries, but the argument eventually tri-
umphed later on in political history. See Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights (New York:
Norton, 2007), 169–72.
²⁶ And dignitarian overflow can extend beyond humanity. If we accept that we should spare
human beings unnecessary pain, why don’t we also think that sentient animals should be treated
similarly?
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 157

to drop a systematic account of human dignity and focus instead on what goes
on in each of these different discourses separately, taking them as sui generis.
For example, it might be all things considered correct not to prohibit legally
some forms of disrespectful behavior that may be said to involve violations of
moral dignity claims (as in the case of disrespectful speech, or ridiculing
comedy).²⁷ In any case, it is not a good idea to assume that the legal use of
dignity must be based in uses of it in moral philosophy.²⁸ And we should not
ignore the jurisprudence of dignity.
In response, I would like to make three points. First, the “amphibious”
nature of the idea of human dignity, its tendency to appear in legal, political,
and moral discourses, is in fact one of its main virtues. This multiple per-
formance forces us to think about the relation between these discourses rather
than take them as disjointed compartments.²⁹ It is in fact a substantive issue of
debate in human rights practice whether human rights should only be seen as
institutional entitlements, and if so whether they should be only tied to the
state—and, even then, to the modern nation-state and its international en-
tanglements. Some claim, meaningfully, that some human rights generate
interpersonal requirements that are not desirable (or even feasible) to imple-
ment as legal requirements. Certain norms about respectful speech may be a
case in point. Others (including some anarchists and socialists) would claim
that there could be realization (perhaps ideal realization) of human rights in a
stateless society. Finally, the nature and role of the nation-state is being thrown
into multiple difficulties in a context of growing economic, military, cultural,
and political globalization. We need a concept of human dignity that helps us
to directly engage rather than brush aside these substantive debates.
Second, I do not deny the great importance of legal discourse. If, in this
book, I devote more space to moral philosophy and political theory, it is
because I am more competent in these areas. My arguments should be seen
as humble and fallible hypothetical moves within a larger, interdisciplinary
debate which also includes legal scholars.

²⁷ See Michael Rosen, Dignity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 68–77.
²⁸ Waldron, Dignity, Rank, and Rights, Lecture 1. See also, more generally, Allen Buchanan’s
rejection of what he calls the “mirroring view,” according to which there must be a strict
correlation between legal and moral rights. Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2013).
²⁹ Jürgen Habermas has argued that human dignity is significant as a “hinge concept”
marking the connection between universalist and egalitarian moral norms, on the one hand,
and justified legal structures (domestic, international, global) on the other. See Habermas, “The
Concept of Human Dignity and the Realistic Utopia of Human Rights,” Metaphilosophy 41
(2010), 464–80 (at 469). I agree with Habermas that human dignity has this function. But we
should phrase the point more carefully, because not every dignitarian norm should be seen as a
candidate for legal norm, and some dignitarian norms may go beyond what are typically called
“human rights” (e.g., by requiring access to the conditions for a flourishing rather than a decent
human life).
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158 Human Dignity and Human Rights

On the other hand, I do think (and this is my third point) that the moral
dimension has a certain normative primacy. The reason-giving force of legal
(and political) discourse is, from the point of view of all-things-considered
normative reasoning, less fundamental than that of moral discourse. Asking
for moral justifications of legal (or political) frameworks seems called for in a
way that asking for legal (or political) justifications of moral outlooks does not.
This issue of normative primacy needs to be distinguished from the issue of
whether, in the epistemic process, we must start with moral considerations
and only at a later stage move to political and legal ones. Often this is not so,
but it is instead better to proceed by moving back and forth between the
different registers, seeking an appropriate reflective equilibrium as we develop
and revise our overall normative picture. It seems plausible to think that in
some cases legal (and political) uses may usefully be explored first, as they give
dignity a central role and provide important clues for building an account of
human dignity.³⁰ But, once we move on to consider the content and structure
of our overall normative reasons, the law strikes me as a normative system that
is too specific and superficial to bear the weight that human dignity involves.
We need to be able to explore questions about dignity beyond the law, and also
about whether the law itself is a good site for dignitarian norms, and if so why,
in what ways, and to what extent. This more general, and basic, moral
exploration of what we owe to each other (and ourselves) is the home for
these more fundamental questions.
As it turns out, the moral idea of human dignity may be especially signifi-
cant to explain why it is a good idea to develop a system of international legal
human rights that constraints states to act for the sake of individuals under
their rule.³¹ It marks human individuals as the fundamental beings which the
law and politics must serve to be worth our allegiance. And it also gives them
the authority to shape legal and political institutions as parts of the project of
(and process leading to) their protection and their own emancipation.
The points made are relevant for answering a common challenge to hu-
manist moral approaches to human rights according to which those ap-
proaches are disconnected from the real legal and political practice of
human rights. The worry is that humanist approaches might problematically
force “international human rights to conform to a received philosophical
conception rather than interpret them, as they present themselves, as a distinct
normative system constructed to play a certain special role in global political
life.”³² The objection seems to rely on the view that an account of human
rights should be such that it (in Rawls’s words) “proceeds from the

³⁰ I think that this is the kind of view that Waldron adopts when he says that we should start
with legal rather than with moral philosophy. See Dignity, Rank, and Rights, 134–5.
³¹ On this constraint, see Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights, 86–93.
³² Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights, 68.
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Defending the Significance of Human Dignity 159

international political world as we see it.”³³ But what does this mean? What is
it to proceed from x (a certain political environment) as we see it? Three
possibilities are the following.
(a) We take x as fixed; any reforms we propose will amount to improving x,
not to going beyond it. (The conservative or conventionalist reading.)
(b) We take x seriously, identifying reforms with an eye to what political
agents able to affect x can feasibly achieve. (The sober realist reading.)
(c) When entertaining reforms regarding x, we start by taking up the
standpoint of those involved in x, asking what kinds of reforms they
could reasonably accept or reject. (The immanent discursive or con-
tractualist reading.)
I think that (b) and (c), combined,³⁴ are quite plausible, whereas (a) should
simply be rejected as a general constraint because it risks flouting the consti-
tutive feature of human rights as critical standards. This should be obvious if
you consider, for example, that x is a social world involving slavery. We should
aim at eliminating the practices of slavery, not merely at making them less
humiliating or brutal. More generally, when it comes to human rights, we
should not lose sight of contemporary political practice, but we should not
take any feature of its current configuration as parametrically fixed without
asking whether it is part of the best feasible way of responding to people’s
dignity. To determine this, we deploy the insights of both the humanist and
the legal and political perspectives, seeking accounts of abstract and specific
rights that no agent affected could reasonably reject.
We should avoid uncritical deference to the status quo. Legal and political
perspectives, if they involve (a), are seriously problematic and should be
rejected. However, on a charitable interpretation, I think that a key insight
of those perspectives is this.
(d) As we think about whether and how to reform x, we should pay
attention to participants’ views of the meaning of the practices that
partly constitute x, and formulate proposals that relate to them. (The
hermeneutic reading.)
The insight here is that normative reflection on human rights does not
proceed in a vacuum, but draws on conceptual resources internal to existing
practices. Even when it calls for their radical revision, it might be unintelligible
without reference to that from which it emerges and to which it directs its

³³ Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 83. Here I draw on, and revise, my discussion in “The Capability
Approach and the Debate between Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights.
A Critical Survey,” 320, and From Global Poverty to Global Equality, 282–3.
³⁴ Arguably (c) already contains (b) if feasibility considerations are part of contractualist
assessment. See further section 8.4 of chapter 8.
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160 Human Dignity and Human Rights

criticisms. This is a sensible point. The idea of a deliberative interpretive
proposal that I presented in chapter 5 is partly meant to incorporate it, by
suggesting that we start with a discussion of practical contexts in which human
dignity is invoked in human rights discourse. However, I also presented that
idea as involving an independent ethical assessment of the practical resources
it addresses. We should indeed start from our own practical context (where
else can we start?), but we should not take what is positively affirmed in it as
being normatively self-authenticating. The idea of human dignity, which is
normatively independent of any legal and political incarnation, is more basic,
and helps us gain a deeper moral stance to engage in our practical contexts
with a critical attitude. This attitude is appropriate if we are to articulate what
enacting respect and concern for the dignity of every human being really calls
for.³⁵ Such enactment is far from being disconnected from the concrete life of
agents. Quite the contrary, the dignitarian approach puts agents front and
center, adopts their deliberative stance, and asks: What do we have reason to
accept as human rights requirements? How do we respond with solidarity
to every person’s status-dignity, by empowering them to access the object of
their rights?
To conclude, we do best by construing human dignity as primarily a moral
normative status of the human person in social life, which should be elabor-
ated through specific norms in various interpersonal, political, and legal
terrains. In chapters 7 and 8, I explore how a dignitarian program that
captures this complexity and dynamism can be developed. I start with the
ideal of solidaristic empowerment hinted at in the previous paragraph.

³⁵ A worry about moral discourse is that it may make the prospects for agreement about human
rights less likely. This would be so because people may be less likely to agree on deep moral
foundations than on human rights. But recall, first, that moral justification can proceed at different
levels of depth. People engaged in moral argumentation may agree on intermediate moral premises
to justify the human rights they accept, even if they disagree on even deeper moral premises that
might be invoked to justify the intermediate ones. Thus, moral argument could be shared to some
extent even if disagreement remains. Second, it seems to me naïve to expect that discussion about
human rights at the legal level can be fully insulated from disagreement about morality. Moral
views will likely affect views about the content and application of legal rights. For example, Catholic
views of human dignity may reject the voluntarism operative in some moral approaches based on
the ideal of autonomy (construed as self-ownership). Thus, the former may take suicide, and
euthanasia, as an affront to dignity, while the latter may take the opposite view. For powerful
discussion of these issues, see Rosen, “Dignity Past and Present,” 88–94.
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment

7.1. DEVELOPING THE DIGNITARIAN APPROACH

The idea of human dignity is pervasive in human rights discourse, and yet
some scholars have challenged it by saying that it is empty, useless, or even
harmful. In response, I have offered in chapters 5 and 6 an account of human
dignity that clarifies and vindicates its importance. This account presents
dignity as a distinctive normative status of the human person in social life,
and shows that it plays crucial roles in shaping the articulation, justification,
and application of the universalistic humanism characteristic of human rights.
In this chapter and chapter 8, I will turn to a detailed discussion of how the
dignitarian approach can be developed further. I will do so in a way that
incorporates considerations about power and feasibility raised in chapters 3
and 4. I will propose an approach centered on an ideal of solidaristic em-
powerment. This ideal asks us to support persons’ pursuit of a flourishing life
by affirming both negative duties not to block or destroy, and positive duties to
protect and facilitate, the development and exercise of the valuable capacities
that give rise to their status-dignity. Enacting appropriate respect and concern
for this dignity precisely involves enhancing and using power in solidaristic
ways. This conceptual and normative perspective has important implications
for the justification of specific human rights, such as the rights to political
participation and decent work, which I proceed to explain in detail in chapters
9 and 10. It is also significant for justifying more ambitious demands of social
justice, thus helping illuminate the full arc of humanist justice. This will be the
topic of chapter 11. So, the idea of human dignity gives rise to an ambitious
and fruitful theoretical and practical program. The structure of dignitarian
arguments is discussed in chapter 8. In this chapter, I will concentrate on the
articulation of the key notions of power, solidarity, and capability enhance-
ment, and deploy them to formulate the ideal of solidaristic empowerment,
which is the substantive normative core of the dignitarian approach I propose.
Before we proceed with the proposed development of the dignitarian
approach, it helps to identify a set of key questions about human dignity to
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162 Human Dignity and Human Rights

chart the course of our discussion, noticing what we have done so far and what
lies ahead. These are the questions:
Q1: Use: In what occasions, and for what purposes, is the phrase “human
dignity” used?
Q2: Concept: What are the rules for the application of the phrase? What is
it for a person to have human dignity?
Q3: Conception and justification: What makes claims regarding human
dignity true? What kinds of justification of those claims are appropriate?
Q4: Theory and practice: How is a theory (a conception) of human dignity
related to the practice of pursuing it? What difference (if any) does
the former make to the latter?
In chapters 5 and 6, we took steps in answering Q1 and Q2. Various uses of
human dignity were identified, and six significant roles for the phrase were
outlined. I suggested that we see human dignity as involving a conceptual
network whose components are deployed in the fulfillment of the six roles
identified. Two key notions in the network are those of status-dignity and
condition-dignity. To have human dignity in the sense of status-dignity is to
have certain valuable features that give rise to certain dignitarian norms with
broad, human reach, and to have human dignity in the sense of condition-
dignity is to enjoy a situation in which those norms are fulfilled. Further
notions were identified, including those concerning the basis of dignity, the
circumstances of dignity, and dignitarian virtue, amongst others.
The distinctions mentioned in answering Q2 help organize our discussion
regarding Q3. The question about conception and justification calls for a
substantive view of human dignity that informs arguments about dignitarian
norms, their content, justification, and nature. Dignitarian norms are require-
ments whose fulfillment constitutes condition-dignity. Their justification in-
vokes status-dignity. And the theoretical and practical enterprise concerning
the discovery, defense, and implementation of dignitarian norms is shaped
by some commitments to the broad, human significance of the dignitarian
norms. A conception of human dignity provides substantive theses about the
desirable conceptual roles of human dignity, and accounts of what makes
various dignitarian claims true.
There are significant philosophical questions facing the development of a
substantive account of human dignity.¹ A first philosophical question con-
cerns the basis of dignity. The basis of dignity is the set of valuable features in

¹ For a survey of some philosophical questions see Marcus Düwell, “Human Dignity: Con-
cepts, Discussions, Philosophical Perspectives,” in M. Düwell, J. Braaving, R. Brownsword, and
D. Mieth, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2014), 23–49. Düwell does not organize the debate in terms of the seven issues I proceed
to identify.
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 163

virtue of which human persons have status-dignity (in the endowment-based
sense). A substantive account of the basis of dignity naturally provides relevant
grounds for ascribing status-dignity, and also for justifying various specific
dignitarian norms (that is, various rights and duties). It also charts the
contours of humanist discourse. An example of philosophical debate on the
basis of dignity concerns whether we should only focus on rational agency
(the capacity to make reasoned choices about how to shape our life) or
whether we should acknowledge other valuable features of human beings,
such as their capacity to feel pain and pleasure.
Besides the question about what constitutes the basis of dignity, there are
questions about how we should link status-dignity and its basis with the
various dignitarian norms. What should those norms be like if they are to
articulate appropriate responses to the valuable features that give people their
status-dignity? Thus, second, we should ask what are the objects of the
rights and duties flowing from dignitarian norms. How demanding should
dignitarian norms be? Should they call only for supporting people’s pursuit of
a basically good or decent life, or should they also support their pursuit of a
flourishing life? What would decency and flourishing involve? Third, what is
the structure of dignitarian norms? Do they involve positive rights and duties
or only negative ones? Should dignitarian norms require provision of help
besides avoidance of harm? Fourth, what is the weight of dignitarian norms?
Are there different kinds of dignitarian norms, some stronger and some
weaker? How would these different dignitarian norms measure up against
competing considerations? Fifth, what is the site of dignitarian norms? Do
they apply only, or primarily, to institutional structures such as those making
up a coercive state? Or should they also apply more broadly to relatively
“informal” contexts in which human beings interact with each other in
consequential ways?² Sixth, what is the scope of dignitarian norms? How
broad in geographical space and historical time can these norms apply? And
what is the relation between dignitarian norms and norms concerning the
treatment of non-human entities (such as non-human animals, plants, and
inanimate objects)? If the scope of the moral community is wider than
humanity, should we acknowledge forms of dignity, and dignitarian norms,
that outstrip it? Seventh, and last, what should be the overall strategy of

² For an illuminating exploration of the various sites of dignity injury and dignity affirmation,
especially with regard to race and sexual orientation, see Edwin Cameron, “Dignity and Disgrace:
Moral Citizenship and Constitutional Protection,” in C. McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human
Dignity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 467–82. Discussing the legal and cultural
stigmatization of blacks and homosexuals in South Africa, and the radical changes responding
to it, Cameron explains that “[a]s with the effects of . . . subordination, the reparatory project is
both private and public, both internal and external” (p. 473). Cameron explores various ways in
which the post-apartheid South African Constitution and accompanying jurisprudence deploy
appeals to human dignity.
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164 Human Dignity and Human Rights

justification of dignitarian norms? The debate might reach as far as the
fundamental principles in normative ethics and political philosophy. For
example, should dignitarian norms be construed within a consequentialist or
a deontological framework? What forms of these (or other) broad families of
ethical theory would be most appropriate? Might it be better, instead, to avoid
a top-down approach based in these philosophical theories and proceed instead
from an “overlapping consensus” amongst existing beliefs about what dignity
amounts to? Is the justification of dignitarian norms ultimately based on con-
tentious moral, religious, or metaphysical propositions or can it be (and perhaps
should be), at least to some extent and in some contexts of discussion, carried out
independently of affirmation or rejection of such propositions?³
A substantive account of human dignity will have to address these questions
about the basis, content (objects), structure, weight, site, scope, and strategies of
justification of dignitarian norms. It is difficult to regiment these debates in
any quick fashion. I will not attempt to provide a preliminary survey of the
possibilities. Instead, I will develop my own view and address these questions
as they become relevant in the exposition and defense of it.
To conclude this mapping of questions about human dignity, consider the
fourth question (Q4), which concerns the relation between theory and prac-
tice. What is the point of theorizing about human dignity? Does it make any
practical difference? In response, I first note that philosophical work on
human dignity may be valuable in itself by simply satisfying our theoretical
curiosity. This is not unrelated to responding to our dignity as intellectual
beings with epistemic interests. But there is more. As I see it, work in academic
philosophy regarding human dignity and related topics is a natural outgrowth
of reflection and discussion that already occurs outside academia. We ask
ourselves what we owe to each other as beings with dignity in various practical
contexts—at work, in politics, within the family, in friendships, and so on.
Although I do not think that it has any special epistemic authority, academic
philosophy does a significant job by systematically, and potentially fruitfully,
pushing these already existing conversations further both conceptually and
substantively. Thus, philosophical work can help us organize our public
debates about the nature, content, and justification of certain norms of justice
(such as human rights) by articulating with precision the main concepts
involved in them. This may help participants in those debates to better
understand their interlocutors (and themselves), and to identify clearly the

³ The discussion can go even further and address meta-ethical issues. Are claims about
human dignity and dignitarian norms to be characterized within a cognitivist framework, an
expressivist framework, or an error-theoretical framework? How are normative claims about the
basis of dignity and the content of dignitarian norms to be related to descriptive propositions
about the nature of human beings and social organization? How might the latter illuminate the
justification of some dignitarian norms—e.g., by addressing the feasibility of their fulfillment in
actual ethical and political practice?
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 165

options for debate without confusion and without talking past each other.
Furthermore, philosophical work can propose valuable substantive articula-
tions of the content, and defense, of dignitarian conceptions of justice. For
example, philosophers can offer illuminating views about the basis of dignity,
and suggestions as to what are promissory ways to state and vindicate the core
dignitarian norms. Philosophers can also help in the organization of interdis-
ciplinary research by exploring how inquiries in ethical theory, law, social
science, and public policy can interact in coherent and cross-pollinating
ways. The methodology of those interactions is itself an important area of
second-order inquiry, which philosophy is well equipped to address. Finally,
philosophical work on human dignity is part of the ethical and political
practice of supporting human dignity in a very direct sense. We do not only
want to support human dignity, we also want to know that and why we do so.
Understanding human dignity is a central part of responding to its value.
Appreciating our own value as beings with dignity is thus multiply significant.

7.2. DIGNITY, POWER, AND S OLIDARITY

In this section I present a characterization of the ideas of solidarity, dignity,

and power. I also formulate some initial points about their relation.

7.2.1. Solidarity

What is solidarity? There are several existing and possible accounts of this
idea, which I will canvass in section 7.2.5. As I see it, in a nutshell, solidarity is
a feature of human relationships and interactions in which persons adopt
towards each other an attitude that is fundamentally non-instrumental and
involves positive concern. A person A approaches another person B non-
instrumentally when A does not see B merely as a means to A’s benefit, and
A approaches B with positive concern when A sees the benefitting of B as an
end in itself.⁴ The solidaristic approach should be non-instrumentalist and
involve positive concern in a fundamental way, not in every way, because

⁴ As I interpret Kant’s famous Formula of Humanity (according to which you ought to act in
such a way that “you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other,
always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means”), it mandates both attitudes (not
only the first, which is the one that often receives attention). It says that we should refrain from
treating human beings as mere means and also that we should treat them as ends. See Pablo
Gilabert, “Kant and the Claims of the Poor,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 81
(2010), 382–418, at 389–90. See Immanuel Kant, Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals
(Ak 4:429), in Kant, Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
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166 Human Dignity and Human Rights

some forms of mutual instrumentalization or non-benefitting may be justified
on the basis of deeper norms that do express non-instrumentalization and
benefitting. Thus, in some competitive games there are partial forms of
instrumentalization and non-benefitting that are permissible, but these are
justified if the existence of the game itself can be endorsed as contributing to
social relations that are solidaristic. Another, more controversial example is
the institutions of a market economy. Some believe that markets are justifiable
because through their use people foster each other’s autonomy and well-being
more than they would if they used feasible alternative ways to organize economic
exchange. Even if in discrete market transactions two individuals A and B focus
primarily on their own benefit and only instrumentally on the benefit of others,
by sustaining a market economy as a societal system, A, B, and others are
sustaining the best feasible way to foster others’ (not only their own) autonomy
and well-being. This belief is certainly debatable, but it seems sincere when it is
accompanied with an acceptance of taxation to fund help for those who would
likely not benefit very much from an unregulated market economy.

7.2.2. Dignity

Dignity is, first, a normative status that persons have in virtue of certain
valuable features of them. It grounds certain duties to treat them in ways
that enact respect and concern. Solidaristic treatment is an appropriate
response to persons’ dignity. By not instrumentalizing people unduly and by
exercising concern for them, we acknowledge the value of the features that give
rise to their dignity (that is, persons’ intrinsic worth). Thus, we engage in
appropriate treatment when we do not destroy and when we enhance persons’
valuable capacities, when we do not disable, and when we enable and further,
their achievement of a life in which they develop and exercise those capacities
to achieve autonomy and well-being. To the extent that people are treated in
an appropriate way when it comes to their access to conditions of autonomy
and well-being, they have condition-dignity (to be distinguished from the
status- dignity mentioned above). As an example, consider educational insti-
tutions. When children are taught philosophy, and they learn about history
and other world cultures, their capacities for independent reasoning and
human sympathy are fostered. When their education is doctrinarian and
one-sided those capacities are stunted. The first, and not the second, kind of
education responds properly to children’s status-dignity; it helps them
achieve, and promote others’, condition-dignity.
In this book, I argue that human justice targets the forms of condition-
dignity people are entitled to in their social relations. We can distinguish
between basic and maximal justice. An account of the former is provided by a
conception of human rights, which identifies the conditions that have the
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highest priority and should be the focus of the most urgent domestic and
global concern and action. But dignitarian claims can go further. Human
dignity, and social justice, include but go beyond human rights. While the
former focuses on the basic condition-dignity of having access to a decent life,
the latter focuses on the more expansive condition-dignity of having access to
a flourishing life (that is, one in which people help each other to achieve as
much autonomy and well-being as they reasonably can). Thus, education
should not only enable children to become productive workers, but should
also enable them to engage in forms of work which let them assume decision-
making responsibilities and fulfill their singular talents. Liberal egalitarianism
and socialism are examples of conceptions of maximal justice. Although in
this book I mostly focus on basic justice, I also believe that a dignitarian and
solidaristic view of maximal justice is correct, and will explain so in chapter 11.

7.2.3. Power

Power can be, and has been, defined in many ways.⁵ I prefer to work with a
fairly general definition. Using a broad conceptual account is preferable
because it leaves specific options open for substantive debate instead of ruling
them in or out by definition fiat. Philosophical and normative reflection and
debate about power is in this way enhanced rather than short-circuited.
A second desideratum that I find important is that a concept of power help
us illuminate our critical reasoning about what we ought to do. To do this, the
concept has to focus on the intentional agency of power-holders. The concept
should help us make claims about what difference agents can, and should,
make in practice.⁶
How shall we understand agential power? We can say that an agent A has
power with respect to a certain outcome or state of affairs O to the extent that
A can voluntarily determine whether O occurs. Applied to social and political
contexts, this definition leads to the view that A has power over another agent
B to the extent that A can get B to be or to act in ways A intends. The general

⁵ My discussion in this section draws on Pablo Gilabert, “A Broad Definition of Agential

power,” Journal of Political Power 11 (2018), 79–92. For surveys, see Steven Lukes, Power:
A Radical View, 2nd ed. (New York: Palgrave, 2005); Peter Morriss, “Power,” in G. Gaus and
F. D’Agostino, eds., Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy (New York: Routledge,
2012), 585–95.
⁶ Thus, in this text I use “agential power” to refer to a specific kind of power that can be had
and exercised by entities in their capacities as agents. Agential power differs from other powers
or dispositions (such as those held by non-agential entities—think about the power of water to
dissolve sugar—or by agents when not operating agentially—as when my body has the power to
displace water when it falls on a pond by accident).
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idea is simply that agents’ power is their ability to shape aspects of the world as
they will. More formally, I propose the following definition:
Broad definition of agential power: In certain circumstances C, an agent
A has power over a subject S (where S is either a thing or an agent, be it
agent A or some other) with respect to whether some final outcome or state
of affairs O occurs to the extent that A can voluntarily determine whether
S exists or behaves in such a way as to generate O.⁷
This characterization is indeed very open and allows for the articulation of,
and debate about, various substantive claims about power. This is indeed one
of its main virtues. Let me highlight some (often related) features of this
account that show its broad applicability:
• The characterization proposed allows for degrees of power. Two agents may
have power to achieve a certain outcome, but one of them may have more
power to achieve it than the other. For example, A and B may both be able
to win in a competitive game, but even if both go for winning, A may be
more likely to do so than B. And different outcomes may be accessible to
different degrees to different agents, so that A may be more powerful than
B with respect to O1 while B is more powerful than A with respect to O2.⁸
• It includes power over oneself as well as power over others. One respect in
which agents can be more or less powerful concerns their ability to get
themselves to act in certain ways. For example, A may be more powerful
than B due to having more self-discipline, or willpower. There is an
intrapersonal dimension of power. So comparisons of power between
two or more agents have to look at interpersonal power (if there are
potential interactions between the relevant agents) but also at intraper-
sonal power. Interestingly, the comparative exercises might also have
to look at the relations between the two cases. Sometimes A’s power
over B has to be explained by the differences in self-directed power
between them. B may grant a position of leadership to A because A is
more self-disciplined. In reverse, sometimes interpersonal power shapes

⁷ We can add time indices to make the account more explicit. We can, e.g., talk about
A having power at time t1 with respect to an outcome at tn—where tn coincides with, or
comes later than, t1. Furthermore, it is common to add a counterfactual clause saying that the
outcome of power exercise would not have occurred without that exercise. One should phrase
this point carefully, however, as it could be that, e.g., if A had not exercised power over B to get
B to produce O, O would have still been produced by B because, say, C got B to do it, or B decided
to do it independently of anyone else’s prompting. What is crucial for the counterfactual is that
O would not have arisen in the exact same way (the one whose description makes reference to the
agent of power’s exercise of their power).
⁸ As a matter of degree, power is best characterized as involving scalar feasibility. I explore this
point in more detail in appendix 2.
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intrapersonal power. It is not uncommon for some people to lose
self-command when they are systematically subjected to domineering
command by others.⁹
• It can apply to individuals acting alone, to individuals acting in concert,
and to collective agents. As an individual, A may be more powerful than
B, but the group to which A belongs may be less powerful than the group
to which B belongs. A worker may be extremely weak when negotiating a
labor contract with a capitalist, but if the worker is part of a union, their
bargaining power shoots up. Individuals can form collectives with great
power, such as trade unions, political parties, armies, and states.¹⁰
• It includes a capacious notion of outcome that allows for process-based
considerations. Following Amartya Sen, we can distinguish between
“comprehensive” and “culmination outcomes” and focus on the former,
illuminating the process that leads to a final result in addition to that
result itself.¹¹ What agents have power to bring about can include the
process through which the final result arises. This point is significant
when we engage in normative discussions about social power, as in those
debates we are often interested in procedural issues about how people treat
each other as they go about producing certain final results. For example,
collective agents (unions, parties, states, etc.) may be organized in more or
less democratic ways, and it may be reasonable to prefer a more democratic
organization even if decision-making would be less effective in terms of
producing some desirable procedure-independent outcomes. In any case,
process-related and process-independent (or culmination outcome focused)
dimensions of power can be distinguished and their relative explanatory
and normative significance explicitly explored.
• It allows for various mechanisms of exercise of power. The characteriza-
tion of power proposed here is non-moralized in the sense that it captures
forms of power that may be bad as well as those that might be good (both
regarding procedures and what results from using them). A can lead B to
produce O by rationally convincing B that B has good reasons to do it
which are independent from A’s saying so. Or A can get B to produce
O through force, coercion, or manipulation.¹²

⁹ I should add that although my characterization of power focuses on what agents can voluntarily
bring about, it does not assume that the choices, intentions, etc. of those agents must be conscious.
It is not ruled out by the definition proposed here that power be wielded unconsciously.
¹⁰ We can in this way capture the idea of “power with.” See Morriss, “Power,” 589.
¹¹ Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 215–17.
¹² Often power operates through communicative interaction. That interaction can involve
respectful and concernful discursive argumentation of the kind explored by Jürgen Habermas’s
discourse ethics and politics. See Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action
(Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1990) and Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 1998). Communicative interaction can also display mechanisms of violence and
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• It can be used to account for the idea that social structures are significant
for power. Without needing to reify social structures—that is, without
treating them as agent-like entities—we can use the broad account of
agential power to understand why the power some people have over
others depends on systemic or structural dimensions of their social life.
Social structures simply are crystallizations of past social actions and
relationships. They affect current actions and relationships, but they
can also be changed within them depending on how people choose to
construe the terms on which they live together. So, take the structural
power of capitalists over workers as displayed in their unequal bargaining
when setting up a labor contract and in their day-to-day interactions in
the workplace. The relevant forms of structural power here concern the
relative power that agents have in virtue of their class position within a
class system.¹³ Workers have some power as owners of their labor force.
They may not be put to work without their formal consent. Capitalists in
turn have power as owners and controllers of the means of production.
Capitalists can bargain with significant clout with workers. Since workers
lack means of subsistence, they must seek employment under some
capitalist, who normally seeks to maximize profits and minimize labor
expenditures (that is, wages). This structural power is the result of, and
affects, the adoption and sustenance of certain conventions about private
property rights in means of production and their application. Once
accepted and deployed, these conventional rights become resources for
agential power. As the history of social revolutions shows, however,
property regimes and class structures can change dramatically, and
when agents make these changes, they alter the resources for agential
power in specific social environments.
• It includes various possible targets in the subject of power. Thus, in the
case of social power, A may have power over B regarding the production
of O more or less directly. A may physically force B to bring about, or
constitute, O (as when A uses B as a human shield), or get B to make
choices that generate O by influencing the process of formation of the

domination. See Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1991). Rainer Forst has recently proposed an expansive view of power that
captures many of these forms. See Forst, “Noumenal Power,” Journal of Political Philosophy 23
(2015), 111–27. According to Forst, A has power over B when A can intentionally affect the reasons
B draws on to think and act as they do. I am here proposing an even more expansive view which
does not rule out mechanisms of power exercise that involve sheer causal force operating without
the recruitment of the intentional endorsement of others. Thus, A can exercise power over B by
using B as a human shield in combat with C even if this is achieved only through direct brute force
(i.e., A never communicates with B and B never makes any choice as to whether to be A’s shield).
¹³ See Erik Wright, “Working Class Power, Capitalist Class Interests, and Class Comprom-
ise,” in Understanding Class (London: Verso, 2015), 185–230.
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 171

beliefs, desires, emotions, dispositions, and other features and circum-
stances of B that affect B’s intentions and actions regarding the produc-
tion of O (as when A persuades B to go for O by presenting some evidence
that O would satisfy B’s present desires, or by steering B into forming
some new desires that lead B to pursue O, or by reshaping the feasible set
of options available to B so that O gains prominence in terms of its
noticeability, desirability, or feasibility).¹⁴
• It includes power over things besides persons. Thus, we can talk about
power as a social relation, but also as a relation between human beings
and their material environment.¹⁵ We can talk about technological
power, and also explore its significance for social power. An important
topic in both social science and political philosophy concerns the
extent to which the feasibility of certain types of social organization
(such as capitalism and socialism, or an international system of legal
human rights) is constrained or affected by various levels of technological
power.¹⁶
We can develop substantive views about power relationships by asking and
answering descriptive and normative questions about the different dimensions
of power allowed by this broad conceptual characterization. Substantive

¹⁴ There is also the view that subjects of power may themselves be, in some respects,
constituted by exercises of power. This happens, e.g., in the contexts of socialization in the
family or in educational institutions, in which many people’s beliefs, preferences, and habits
are formed. The topic of constitution is familiar from sociological research. See Lukes, Power.
It is also a central element in Michel Foucault’s inquiries about power. See, e.g., Foucault, “The
Subject of Power,” in Foucault, Power, ed. J. Faubion (New York: The New Press, 2000),
326–48.
¹⁵ So, even though the account of power presented here is restricted to intentional agents
with respect to the power-wielder, it does not say that the subject of power must also be an
intentional agent, and even when the subject of power happens to be an intentional agent, the
account does not say that every power relation must affect the receiving subject as an
intentional agent.
¹⁶ For a strong view of this constraining relation, see G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of
History: A Defense, expanded ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001). For a
critique of technological determinism that affirms a greater malleability of social frameworks,
see Cornelius Castoriadis, The Imaginary Institution of Society (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 1998), Part I. The debates about the relative significance of physical violence and
various forms of persuasion and consensus formation sparked by the work of Antonio
Gramsci on hegemony are still relevant and interesting. See Antonio Gramsci, The Antonio
Gramsci Reader, ed. D. Forgacs (New York: New York University Press, 2000), sects. VI and
X. For discussion, see Perry Anderson, “The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci,” New Left
Review I/100 (1976), 5–78; Chantal Mouffe, ed., Gramsci and Marxist Theory (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979); Adam Przeworski, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Erik Wright, “Working Class Power, Capitalist
Class Interests, and Class Compromise.” Of course, another important topic concerns the
normative dimensions of power relations between human agents and non-human animals
and plants.
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172 Human Dignity and Human Rights

debates turn on how to best specify, in a certain context of discussion, the
relevant circumstances, agents, subjects, outcomes, and their relations.¹⁷

7.2.4. Exploring the Relations

Power asymmetries may be used in ways that fail to show solidarity, and
affront dignity. Typical cases are domination (the subjection of others to one’s
will) and exploitation (the unfair taking advantage of the relative vulnerability
of others for one’s own benefit). Domination and exploitation are forms of

¹⁷ To provide a handy framework to organize debates about the multiple possibilities identified
above, I suggest that we can formulate and seek answers to the following questions about a
certain power:
i. Who has or exercises this power? (Agents of power—power-holders or power-wielders.)
ii. Over what or whom is this power held or exercised? (Subjects of power.)
iii. What outcomes does this power help create or facilitate? (Outcomes of power. Range of
power.)
iv. To what extent would these outcomes be under the control of the agent? (Degree of power.)
v. What are the unintended effects (to be distinguished from the intended outcomes) of
power relationships and exercise? (This relates to historical issues—see below.) (Intended
and unintended outcomes of power.)
vi. What are the means, or mechanisms, through which the agent can exercise this power,
and help create or facilitate the relevant outcome? (Force, coercion, inducement, per-
suasion, etc.) (Means, mechanisms, forms of power.)
vii. What are the resources the use of which enable the agent to exercise this power?
(Prestige, status, authority, economic resources, tools of violence, organization, know-
ledge, rhetorical and argumentative skills, etc.) (Resources of power.)
viii. Why, and in what circumstances, do the agents of this power want to have and use this
power (if they do)? (Operative reasons for power.)
ix. Why, and in what circumstances, do the agents of this power have reason to have and use
this power (if they do)? (Normative reasons for power.)
x. What are the enabling, and what might be some disabling, conditions for the agent to
exercise their relevant power? (e.g., circumstances that might be necessary for the agent
to use certain resources successfully, or that may block the likelihood of their intentions
being fulfilled, etc.) (Enabling and disabling conditions or circumstances of power.)
xi. How did circumstances C arise? (History of circumstances of power) (This includes the
constitution of the agents and subjects of power; which may themselves be the effect of
previous processes involving power.)
xii. How might C change? What feasible reforms or transformations are feasible and how
feasible are they? What degree of power do agents have to introduce them? (Feasibility of
change in circumstances of power; dynamic power.)
xiii. How should C be changed (if C should indeed be changed)? (Desirability of change in
circumstances of power.)
xiv. If there is reason to reform or transform C, how does this change relate to the relations of
power under discussion (both normatively and causally)?
xv. If certain power relations are desirable but not sufficiently feasible or reasonably access-
ible in C, is there reason to change C (into different circumstances C*) so that the new
relations emerge? If so, what could and should be done to change C in this way?
(Dynamic duties to change circumstances of power.) (On dynamic duties and dynamic
power, see appendix 2.)
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 173

instrumental treatment, and are often also humiliating. Another important
case is neglect or indifference (the failure to help when one can do so without
unreasonable cost). Indifference exhibits lack of positive concern. Asymmetric
power can sometimes also be used in a solidaristic way by helping the less
powerful develop and exercise their capacities, and achieve greater levels of
autonomy and well-being. Sometimes the relevant solidaristic duties will be to
eliminate or reduce existing power asymmetries by empowering others or by
disempowering oneself. Other times, these reductions of inequality in power
may be infeasible, or all things considered undesirable. In those cases, solidar-
ity may involve a use of asymmetric power that benefits others. Protecting
others from threats by third parties in an emergency is an example. Enhancing
their ability to seek and achieve what is of value to them—for example, by
providing them with material resources they currently lack—is another.
The points made above help us arbitrate some contemporary debates about
the characterization and significance of power. Peter Morriss helpfully distin-
guishes between two ways in which social arrangements can be critically
evaluated by reference to power.¹⁸ One addresses issues of “powerlessness”
or “impotence.” The concern here is whether people have “power to meet their
own needs or wants.” The other form of critical evaluation takes up issues of
“domination,” and addresses situations in which people are “subject to the
power of another.” Morriss claims, and I agree, that the distinction is import-
ant. We can criticize a society’s arrangements by focusing on either issue
separately.
Steven Lukes challenges this view.¹⁹ He grants the analytic distinction
between powerlessness and domination. He also agrees that we should avoid
the “paranoid fallacy” that assumes that powerlessness always necessarily
results from domination. But he thinks that Morriss is mistaken to see
powerlessness and domination as sharply separate issues. The powerful may
often make others powerless, or fail to remedy their powerlessness, whether
deliberately or not.
Lukes is right to point out that powerlessness and domination are often
causally related. But I think that he muddles the waters when he suggests that
reference to domination is always necessary to account for the injustice of
social arrangements. Lukes poses a rhetorical question: “If we think of power-
lessness as an injustice, rather than as bad luck or misfortune, is that not
because we believe that there are those in a position to reduce or remedy it?”²⁰
Now, we should not think that powerlessness involves injustice only if there is
domination. Lukes’s point is the more modest (albeit important) one that
powerlessness carries injustice only if there are relatively powerful agents who

¹⁸ Peter Morriss, Power: A Philosophical Analysis, 2nd ed. (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2002), 40–2.
¹⁹ Lukes, Power: A Radical View, 67–9. ²⁰ Ibid., 68.
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174 Human Dignity and Human Rights

fail to fulfill an obligation to remedy the powerlessness of the powerless when
they can. But notice that this obligation need not derive from considerations
about domination. It need not consist in the elimination of, or a compensation
for, harms imposed by domination. It may reflect independent, positive
requirements of solidarity. Non-domination is not coextensive with solidarity.
The latter includes certain positive requirements that go beyond the negative
ones captured by the former. Consider, for example, the relation between two
countries, A and B, which are quite well-off and relate to each other on fair
terms, as equals. Imagine that an asteroid hits B, with devastating conse-
quences. The new, relative powerlessness of people in B is not the result of
domination on the part of A and its people, but it would be an injustice if
people of A did not (through their state or on their own), help the people of
B—or so the ideal of solidaristic empowerment would require.
We can, more generally, distinguish between (a) a “vertical” dimension of
power that concerns the ability of agents to do or be certain things (such as
things they have reason to value), and (b) an “horizontal” dimension of power
that concerns the ability of agents to significantly affect the condition of other
agents. The second dimension has multiple variants. Some involve the ability
to harm, while others involve the ability to benefit and empower. The second
dimension crisscrosses with the first, because what makes the affecting of
others significant is that it touches upon their ability to access what they
value or have reason to value (such as their personal liberties, their economic
opportunities, etc.).
This book explores what basic justice requires in terms of empowerment
and solidarity. Notice that the account of dignity, by referring to persons’
capacities, already addresses issues of power, as capacities are powers (more on
this in section 7.3 below). Solidarity is a certain use of power that affects the
power of others. Dignity imposes an orientation to a solidaristic use of power
in social life.
We need to think about how to connect the existence and use of power with
negative duties of respect and with positive duties of aid to others. Sometimes
asymmetries of power should be dissolved. But when asymmetries of power will
not dissolve, or should not dissolve, negative and positive duties to exercise
power in certain ways are crucial. Furthermore, positive help should be framed
in certain ways if it is to honor dignity. It should aim at expanding the capacities
of others to pursue their own projects. It should also proceed so that those who
are helped can have an active role in the process by having a say as to whether,
and how, they are helped. These points were briefly made in chapter 4 (section
4.2.2.3). But their significance becomes clearer once we adopt the dignitarian
framework and make the ideal of solidaristic empowerment explicit. I will
illustrate these points extensively when discussing political rights (see section
7.3 below, and chapter 10). Those rights give agents real opportunities to be
protagonists in the social processes fostering their autonomy and well-being.
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 175

As we consider the points just made, it is important not to confuse
autonomy or self-direction with independence understood as self-reliance. It
is the former that imposes crucial constraints on solidarity from the point of
view of dignity by demanding that nobody is made to live on other people’s
terms. The ideal of independence sometimes seems to involve this idea. To
that extent it is acceptable. But independence is sometimes construed in the
sense of radical self-reliance, which is problematic. This book argues that
radical self-reliance is both unrealistic and undesirable. We need help from
others to develop and exercise our capacities, and it is a good thing when we
do help each other in this way. The ideal of independence as self-reliance
sometimes is used to block or criticize solidaristic help as leading to arrogance
(in the helpers) and humiliation (in the people helped). Once we make sure
that autonomy and empowerment are in the picture, the remaining worries
lose force. We should learn to receive and give solidarity without humiliation
and arrogance, as the appropriate way of dealing with our condition as socially
interdependent agents.²¹

7.2.5. Dignitarian Approach and Solidaristic Empowerment

We can now state the substantive view emerging from the foregoing consid-
erations. According to the dignitarian approach, we have reason to organize
social life in such a way that we respond appropriately to the valuable features
of human beings that give rise to their dignity. That dignity is a deontic status
in accordance to which people are owed certain forms of respect and concern.
The relevant forms of respect and concern are stated by various norms,
including human rights and requirements of social justice. These dignitarian
norms can be articulated as specifying an ideal of solidaristic empowerment,
which we can state as follows:
Solidaristic empowerment: We should support people in their pursuit of a
flourishing life by fulfilling both negative duties not to destroy or block
their valuable human capacities and positive duties to protect and facilitate
their development and exercise.²²

²¹ Some level of interdependence is also arguably a precondition for the questions that
political philosophy addresses to make full sense. Radically independent beings would have no
need to puzzle over the distribution of material advantages and the allocation of political power.
Taken to its limit, the idea of independence as self-sufficiency or self-reliance points to an
imaginary context in which politics has no place. See Robert Goodin, “Independence in Demo-
cratic Theory: A Virtue? A Necessity? Both? Neither?” Journal of Social Philosophy 24 (1993),
50–6, at 52.
²² A flourishing life includes a decent life as its most urgent part, and human rights typically
focus on the latter.
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176 Human Dignity and Human Rights

It is important to insist that human dignity gives rise to both negative and
positive duties. If an individual has status-dignity in virtue of certain valuable
capacities, it is surely pro tanto wrong to destroy those capacities or block their
development and exercise. But it is also pro tanto wrong to not help other
agents maintain, develop, and exercise those capacities when we can do so at
reasonable cost. What grounds negative respect also grounds positive concern.
We do not fully respond to the value of the valuable capacities unless we give
proper weight to both kinds of considerations. This also means that justice
includes, but goes beyond, non-domination. Taking seriously the dignity of
others does not only involve avoiding the subjection of their will to one’s own.
It also involves reaching out to help them by enhancing their ability to pursue
a good life for themselves.²³ I use the term “solidarity” in the ideal of solidar-
istic empowerment precisely to emphasize these points concerning the posi-
tives duties to help others.
Since the idea of solidarity has received comparatively little attention by
political philosophers when compared to others like freedom and equality, it
makes sense to pause for a moment to illuminate the conceptual territory it
covers, and to make more explicit the part of it the ideal of solidaristic
empowerment focuses on.
We can understand solidarity in a very minimal sense as dispositions and
behavior (including their institutional articulation) toward others which af-
firm them by being helpful besides being non-harmful. But such dispositions
and behavior may take many forms. The wealth of possibilities can be cap-
tured by considering the following questions:
(1) Who (qua who) are solidaristic?
(2) To whom (qua whom) are they solidaristic?
(3) When, in what circumstances, are they solidaristic?
(4) How, in what ways, are they solidaristic?
(5) Why, on the basis of what motives and reasons, are they solidaristic?
(6) To what extent, within what limits, are they solidaristic?
A descriptive, or empirical, study of social life would give us many different
answers regarding these aspects of people’s helping dispositions and behavior.
Solidaristic empowerment normatively selects some of them.

²³ I think that this point is not fully captured by some Kantian views of dignity only focused
on the ideal of independence as non-domination. See, e.g., Arthur Ripstein, Force and Freedom
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Two societies could be equally just as far as
non-domination is concerned, but one may be more just than the other because in it people
justifiably go further in terms of creating practices and institutions that enhance the power of
each to effectively (and freely) pursue their well-being. I explore the possibility of a wider Kantian
view that includes solidaristic empowerment in “Kantian Dignity and Marxian Socialism,” Kantian
Review 22 (2017), 553–77.
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 177

Questions (1) and (2) refer to the agents and recipients of solidarity. They
can be understood as members of a family, a club, a profession, an ethnic
group, a religious group, a class, a nation, or humankind at large. Solidaristic
empowerment can range over any of these sets, but in this book I am focusing
primarily on the widest form of it, which centers on solidarity amongst all
human persons insofar as they can affect each other. Although many forms of
solidarity tend to appear, as a matter of fact, among those who share a
particular conception of the good or share more or less defined identities as
members of particular groups,²⁴ we should not underestimate the strength of
universalistic solidarity. A powerful example of the latter can be found pre-
cisely in contemporary movements for global justice and human rights.
Members of these movements speak a language of solidarity that is clearly
universalistic in nature.²⁵ Human rights call for a form of human solidarity
based on the fellowship of humankind. There was nothing absurd when the
UN General Assembly declared December 20 the “International Human
Solidarity Day.” This is what solidaristic empowerment, as an articulation of
the dignitarian approach, calls for.
Questions (3) and (4) track the occasions and activities of solidarity. Soli-
daristic behavior tends to arise when others require help to meet their interests
or needs. But those interests or needs can be understood differently in
different contexts. Members of a family may be sensitive to certain interests
which would not stand out for officials distributing benefits in a welfare state.
Helping behavior can come in many flavors too. You may help by directly
giving others what they need, or indirectly by offering resources and oppor-
tunities they can use through their own choices (see the point about autonomy
below.) When it comes to (3) and (4), solidaristic empowerment has the
following significant features. First, it has a wide range of application, includ-
ing institutions and personal behavior. When deployed as an ideal of justice, it
is certainly geared to guiding the assessment of institutional structures such as
states and international organizations, property law and labor law, the organ-
ization of firms, and the like. But it can also guide individuals in their face-to-
face encounters. We can be solidaristic as citizens supporting a welfare state
and as officials working within it, but also as participants in social movements

²⁴ See Kurt Bayertz, “Four Uses of Solidarity,” in K. Bayertz, ed., Solidarity (Dordrecht: Kluwer,
1999), 3–29; David Miller, Principles of Social Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1999), 26–7; and Charles Taylor, “Cross-Purposes: The Liberal-Communitarian Debate,” in Taylor,
Philosophical Arguments (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995), 181–203.
²⁵ Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012), 144. See also Kai Nielsen Globalization and Justice (New York: Humanity Books, 2003);
and Iris Young, Responsibility for Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). On the
existence and evolution of tendencies to both narrow and inclusive forms of helpful and
cooperative behavior, see Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, A Cooperative Species (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).
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178 Human Dignity and Human Rights

seeking to create new institutions or reform existing ones, and as ordinary
people encountering each other in various informal settings. Second, the needs
or interests solidaristic empowerment focuses on are those that concern the
development and exercise of the capacities that give rise to people’s human
dignity. Not every conceivable wish or desire or need would qualify. Third,
and finally, when possible solidaristic empowerment targets the fostering of
autonomous agency. To empower others to access what would meet their
relevant interests is not simply to shovel the objects of those interests down
their throats, but to support their ability to meet those interests as they choose.
We can see autonomy itself as something people have a critically important
interest in, given their capacities for prudential and moral judgment and the
role of these capacities in allowing them to shape their own lives from within.
The last question targets the limits of solidarity. Most people will find
themselves unable to help others in certain situations, due to their lack of
abilities or resources or their (sometimes justified) lack of motivation, or on
account of the tension between certain solidaristic duties and other duties,
solidaristic or not. I may lack the time to join a particular initiative by a human
rights social movement, or might have to pass up the occasion to do so (even if
I could join) in order to attend to the urgent needs of my son. Solidaristic
empowerment, in so far as it caters for the dignity of all people both as agents
and as recipients of respect and concern, will accept that there are reasonable
limits to the demands of helpful support.
Of course, the different answers to these questions are connected with the
answer to the fifth question about the principles of solidarity. This is the crucial
normative dimension of solidarity. A deliberative (rather than descriptive)
answer to this question will frame the normative answers to the others.
Determining what kinds of duties of solidarity we should accept will orient
us in determining who ought to help whom, on what occasions, in what ways,
and within what limits. I have already said some things about the distinctive-
ness of solidaristic empowerment as a universalist, capacity-supportive, and
autonomy-oriented principle. I would like to add to these points about scope
and object two further points regarding modality and forms of specification.
With respect to modality, we must first distinguish between egoism and
solidarism. I am egoistic to the extent that I care only about my own interests,
not about those of others. On the contrary, I am solidaristic to the extent that
I care about the interests of others. There are, however, different ways in which
I may care about the interests of others. These would yield different modalities
of solidaristic concern. A merely instrumental concern would be one in which
the solidaristic agent cares about the interests of the recipient only to the
extent that doing so would produce some benefits for the agent (by actively
promoting the agent’s interests or by preventing harm to them). Think about
the attitude of an employer concerned with the well-being of a worker.
Typically, such concern is conditional on making sure that the worker is as
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 179

productive as possible so as to maximize the employer’s profits. Another
example can be found in some of the arguments raised by some citizens of
rich countries for helping poor countries, which appeal not so much to the moral
duty of so doing, but rather to the prudential consideration that otherwise their
inhabitants would inundate rich countries with immigrants.²⁶ At the other
end of the spectrum we find sacrificial modalities of solidarity. In these,
helping agents take the interests of the recipients to always matter more
than their own, or even to be the only ones that matter. One can find this
kind of disposition in certain ultra-altruistic persons, or guilt-ridden ones.²⁷ In
between instrumental and sacrificial forms of helping disposition and behav-
ior, we find, finally, the modalities of fair reciprocity. You are solidaristic in a
fair way when you take your own interests and those of others as being, in
principle, worthy of moral consideration. Behavior among the members of a
cooperative or among friends can be good examples. The idea of fair reci-
procity is different from the instrumental one. It may require helping others to
an extent that is not matched by their own past or future help. The point is
that we help each other actively, given our abilities, not that we contribute to
each other’s needs to the same extent. The needs of the other, not the amount
of their previous and future contributions, is what moves us here, although we
expect the other to be responsive and responsible in turn, helping in what they
reasonably can, and will be feel justified in withdrawing or limiting our
support when they neglect our needs. Solidarity as fair reciprocity implies
neither self-denial nor other-denial, but an appropriate balance between one’s
and others’ claims.²⁸
Solidaristic empowerment will gravitate towards the modality of fair reci-
procity. But we should be careful when we state this idea. The point is not only
to help others when they also help you. One rightly expects, and is entitled to,
similar contributions on the part of others, but in addition there is a specif-
ically other-directed concern at play. There is reason to help others for their
own sake. Solidaristic empowerment includes, but is not reducible to, a
principle of fair play amongst those involved in a joint action or a joint

²⁶ Ulrich Steinvort, “The Concept and Possibilities of Solidarity,” in Bayertz, ed., Solidarity,
29–37, at 35–6.
²⁷ This seems to be the view presented in Emmanuel Levinas, “Philosophy and the Idea of
Infinite,” in A. Peperzak, ed., To the Other (West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue University Press,
1993), 88–119. Some would be reluctant to take instrumental helpfulness as a kind of solidarity at
all, and some would perhaps take sacrificial helpfulness as an extreme form of altruism rather
than as a form of solidarity. But these would likely be normative claims about what kinds of
concern or helpfulness deserve to be elevated to the rank of morally required solidarity. While
solidaristic empowerment shares this substantive preference, at the conceptual level it is import-
ant to make room for different conceptions of solidarity, without eliminating, by definitional fiat,
those which we not favor.
²⁸ Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According To Their Ability, To Each
According To Their Needs’,” Journal of Social Philosophy 46 (2015), 197–225.
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180 Human Dignity and Human Rights

venture. This is why it can be used to justify unilateral and one-off acts of
rescue of others in distress, or a call for starting new political associations
when these do not exist but would, if created, enhance the power of others to
lead decent or flourishing lives (even at some cost to oneself). The natural duty
of justice to create such associations is not only grounded (if it is) in one’s
reason to protect or enhance one’s advantages, and cannot be based on duties
to mirror contributory moves by others in an associative framework which
does not yet exist. It has an irreducible aspect that focuses on catering for the
interests of others as fellow human beings even when they are not yet fellow
associates.²⁹ Fair reciprocity is a constraint on how the associations should be
articulated once they are up and running. But that such associations should
be created in the first place is a requirement that reflects the fundamental
moral duty to respond to the dignity of everyone. The construction of domes-
tic and international institutional schemes supporting human rights gains a
distinctively sharp outline once we see it this way rather than merely as an
instrument of self-protection or as a device of mutual advantage.
Finally, regarding specification, it is important to note that solidaristic
empowerment, and with it the requirement of solidarity, operates at different
levels. The first, initial idea is quite abstract (although still clearly substantive).
It says that we should take reasonable and feasible steps to support people in
the development and exercise of their valuable capacities—the ones giving rise
to their status-dignity. But how exactly such support should proceed depends
on the articulation of certain schemes of justice, which will involve various
considerations which cannot be simply read off the statement of the abstract

²⁹ I believe that this point is not sufficiently clear in the otherwise valuable account offered in
Andrea Sangiovanni, “Solidarity as Joint Action,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 32 (2015),
340–59. Sangiovanni recognizes that there may be a natural duty of justice to create political
associations (pp. 353–4), but the directly other-regarding reason for doing so is not illuminated.
Furthermore, Sangiovanni dismisses the idea that solidarity might involve acting “on behalf of
another” as different from acting “with another” (p. 350). But there is no necessary contrast here.
Solidaristic empowerment recommends both. Sangiovanni says that a view of solidarity includ-
ing relief of other people’s suffering is a case of the Christian doctrine of “universal love,” which
he disqualifies as a political ideal given that it is based on certain religious doctrines (p. 356). But
human solidarity (which is a political ideal within the human rights movement) can capture a
plausible normative kernel in that doctrine without stating it in religious terms. The agent-
neutral besides the agent-relative significance of solidarity is recognized in the account of
solidarity offered in Avery Kolers, “The Priority of Solidarity to Justice,” Journal of Applied
Philosophy 31 (2014), 420–33, at 428. Kolers’s account, however, seems to operate at a more
specific level than mine, as it is concerned with contexts of collective action, while solidaristic
empowerment ranges more widely. Kolers develops his account more fully in A Moral Theory of
Solidarity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
A helpful point in Sangiovanni’s analysis is that he takes solidarity to be geared to facing some
adversity. This point articulates the common intuition that solidarity involves a dimension of
struggle without assuming that the struggle is that of a group of “us” acting against a group of
“them.” You and I may aim at constituting a group-agent, an active “we,” in order to face a
problem like global warming, and this “we” may really include every human being on the planet.
Here we would be fighting “it” rather than “them.”
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 181

ideal. Thus, we would need to develop more elaborate accounts of human
rights and social justice which would specify solidaristic empowerment for
certain contexts. These accounts would identify desirable and feasible require-
ments for practices and institutions which, when fulfilled, would provide the
support for people’s access to a decent and flourishing life that is appropriate
in the contexts to which they apply. In this book, I focus on human rights.
In chapter 11, however, I take some steps to explore the extension of the
dignitarian ideal of solidaristic empowerment to social justice, which includes
more ambitious egalitarian requirements.

7.3. RANK, S TATUS, AND P OWER

I present now a more determinate and substantive account of human dignity

that puts to use, and combines, the resources laid out in section 7.2. I should
emphasize that this proposal is partial rather than complete. It focuses on
foregrounding the significance of solidaristic empowerment.
Some formulations in human rights discourse state intriguing connections
between human dignity and social and political power. The Preamble of the
Vienna Declaration says that people “should be the principal beneficiary and
should participate actively in the realization” of the human rights that derive
from their status-dignity. This statement suggests that people should have the
power to shape the social processes that fulfill their human rights rather than
be merely the passive recipients of it. Empowerment seems to have intrinsic
significance and it also seems to be a constitutive part of the condition in
which human rights are fulfilled. Article 6 of the UN Millennium Declaration,
in turn, says that “democratic participatory governance . . . best assures” the
fulfillment of human rights. Here specifically political empowerment appears
to have at least instrumental significance. It may be causally important in the
process of human rights fulfillment. How can we make sense of these connec-
tions between human rights, dignity, and power?
One possibility is to explore further the notion of dignity as a status. If we
look at some central human rights statements, we notice an important con-
trast.³⁰ Human rights are based on a status-dignity that all human beings

³⁰ Some utterances seem to refer to human dignity as an inherent property of human beings, a
status they constantly have. The first sentence of the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (UDHR) refers to the “inherent dignity . . . of all the members of the human
family.” The fifth sentence expresses “faith . . . in the dignity and worth of the human person.”
Article 1 says that “[a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The second
and third sentences of the Preambles of both the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) also refer to human persons’ “inherent dignity.” The expression also occurs in the first
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182 Human Dignity and Human Rights

possess. Such a status differs from more circumscribed ones that might be
attached to specific or contingent social positions. In his recent work on the
subject, Waldron has accounted for this kind of contrast by exploring the
genealogy of the idea of dignity in relation to the idea of rank.³¹ Historically,
dignity was first associated with the high rank or nobility of some individuals
occupying high positions in hierarchical social structures. But later dignity
became ascribed to all individuals in an egalitarian way. Waldron explores, in
particular, the significance of this shift for the development of our view of the
nature of juridical institutions. I think that the genealogical link is worth
exploring further to reveal the importance of social and political power for
dignity and human rights. The inegalitarian and non-universalist use of
dignity in the past was directed to agents who had power over others. Thus,
the egalitarian and universalist use could be seen as demanding equal em-
powerment. Such an empowerment, I suggest, would be part of what
condition-dignity involves, and it would be a fitting response to people’s
status-dignity.
Although the genealogical exploration of the relation between the ideas of
rank and dignity is illuminating, we cannot make full sense of condition-
dignity as involving equal empowerment if we just think about how to
universalize and equalize the earlier entitlements of rank. First, as Waldron
recognizes, some entitlements would simply disappear if they were to be
universalized (this holds for essentially hierarchical power positions such as
being a slave-holder or an aristocrat).³² Second, in this exercise we would be
stuck with the raw materials provided by the hierarchical societies we take as
starting points. These may not provide enough information to articulate all the
forms of condition-dignity and empowerment that we have reason to recog-
nize. In addition to the formal test (according to which we should recognize
only those conditions that survive universalization), we need a more substan-
tive strategy that helps us explain why some candidates make moral sense,
which amongst those that can be universally held are to be accepted, and why
power is an important dimension for their articulation.

clause of Article 10 of ICCPR and in the first sentence of Article 20 of the Vienna Declaration. It
is important that human dignity as an inherent status of human beings differs from other,
specific social statuses. “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this
Declaration without distinctions of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” (UDHR,
Article 2).
³¹ Jeremy Waldron, “Dignity and Rank,” European Journal of Sociology 48 (2007), 201–37;
and “Tanner Lectures: Dignity, Rank, and Rights” (Berkeley, April 2009), available at http://
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1461220. The latter has later been reprinted as
Dignity, Rank, and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
³² “Dignity and Rank,” 224–5, 227–8; “Dignity, Rank, and Rights,” 32.
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 183

Why does power matter for dignity? The answer I propose has two com-
ponents. First, power matters for status-dignity because some forms of it are
among the facts that make human beings need and deserve treatment in terms
of human rights. Second, power matters for condition-dignity because some
forms of it contribute both intrinsically and instrumentally to the fulfillment of
human rights. I will argue that these points can be helpfully articulated in the
language of capabilities, which is already being used to explore the link
between what human beings can do or be and what they should be able to
do or be in their social and political life. Because of this link, the capability
perspective helps us account for human rights and dignity. Human beings
have some capacities that justify status-dignity, and they should have some
capabilities that constitute and secure condition-dignity.
Before unpacking these claims, let me briefly say why the concept of
capability can be used to articulate various considerations about power. The
general idea is that we can use the vocabulary of capabilities to capture
important issues commonly couched in terms of power. This is possible
because of the striking coincidence between the two concepts (or, at any
rate, between the aspects of them that I proceed to mention). Let me start by
characterizing the notion of capability. As used by defenders of the so-called
“capability approach,” a capability is a real or substantive (as opposed to
merely formal) opportunity or freedom of persons to do or be certain things
(that is, to engage in certain “functionings”) if they so choose.³³ This notion
can be used to capture the concept of agential power presented in section 7.2.3
in both its general sense and in its specific social and political senses. As
discussed above, the general sense is that an agent’s power consists in their
ability (which comes in degrees) to shape aspects of the world as they intend.
Now, as I see it, a capability is an agent’s power to do or be certain things.
A more specific sense of power concerns social and political settings: here an
agent has power to the extent that they can voluntarily shape their social
interactions with others, including the decision-making processes through

³³ Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999), 74–6. Martha
Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 20–5,
Ingrid Robeyns, “The Capability Approach,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Winter 2016), sect. 2. Similar conceptions of justice underscoring the link between
supporting people’s autonomy and well-being and supporting the development and exercise of
their capacities have been developed by others. See, e.g., Carol Gould, Rethinking Democracy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), and Iris Young, Justice and the Politics of
Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). A common source of many
approaches to social and political philosophy that focus on supporting the development and
exercise of important human capacities is the work of Karl Marx. Thus, Nussbaum acknowledges
a debt to Marx in her development of the idea of capability in Women and Human Development
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 13, 70–4. I discuss and develop the Marxian
approach to justice as the support for people’s capabilities in “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each
According To Their Abilities, To Each According To Their Needs’.”
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184 Human Dignity and Human Rights

which the outcomes of those interactions are determined. Specific capabilities
in social and political life can be identified to capture instances of this
dimension of power.
Let us now consider how the idea of capability, by articulating the afore-
mentioned general and specific dimensions of power, can help us make sense
of status-dignity and condition-dignity.
(a) Status-dignity. To illuminate the relation between capabilities and status-
dignity we can ask: What are the general facts that make our practical attitudes
and responses to human dignity desirable and feasible? This question tracks
what this book calls the “basis of dignity” and the “circumstances of human
dignity.”³⁴ Regarding the basis of dignity, it seems to me that at least part of the
answer should refer to some basic capacities (that is, some basic powers) that
people normally have.³⁵ Some valuable basic capacities are among the features
of human beings that ground our view of them as deserving the kind of respect
and concern that human rights specify. These clearly include the capacities
concerning reason, conscience, and solidaristic action. Human beings are
typically able to recognize, assess, and act on the basis of reasons. These
involve both prudential considerations about how to live a good life and
moral considerations about how to show proper respect and concern toward
other persons. Human beings can take initiative and shape their lives (to
pursue the good and the right) in multiple ways. They can imagine alternative
forms of personal and social life, and achieve some of them through techno-
logical inventions, productive work, and social cooperation. Of course, people
have other valuable basic capacities, such as to experience pleasure and to
relate cognitively and aesthetically to the world around them. (I will say more
about this pluralistic view of the basis of dignity in chapter 8.)
Referring to the aforementioned valuable capacities is key for explaining
status-dignity. But to link to talk of rights and duties, and for this talk to be
practically relevant, there must also be some facts that render the development
and exercise of the valuable basic capacities into socially supported capabilities
both difficult and feasible. These facts constitute the circumstances of dignity.
Sources of difficulty include the existence of certain disvaluable capacities—
such as to be cruel or domineering—and certain deficiencies regarding the
exercise of valuable capacities—such as indifference or insufficient solidarity.
They also include conflicts of interests given material scarcity (so that people

³⁴ See chapter 5, section 5.3.3, and chapter 8, section 8.1.

³⁵ Notice that I use here the term “capacity” rather than “capability.” In this section, I reserve
the latter to refer to the developed forms of the former which are the outcome pursued by the
practices structured under the banners of human rights and social justice. Furthermore,
I recognize that people vary in the extent to which they have these basic capacities, but what is
crucial for what I proceed to say is that they have them to a sufficient extent. These capacities are
what John Rawls calls “range properties” (see A Theory of Justice; Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1999, rev. ed., sect. 77).
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 185

find it hard to simultaneously realize their prima facie permissible life-projects
when there are not sufficient resources for everyone). Still, if talk of human
dignity and rights is to have real practical traction (as it clearly does), circum-
stances have to be such that important achievements regarding the develop-
ment and exercise of basic valuable capacities are accessible. Thus, it should be
the case that the operation of the disvaluable capacities is not always triumph-
ant, valuable capacities could be extensively deployed, and circumstances of
scarcity and conflict can be ameliorated (for example, through technical and
institutional innovation). Dynamic duties to expand the scalar feasibility of a
decent or flourishing life for all must be possible to fulfill. In other words, the
prospects of dynamic power regarding these outcomes must not be too dim.³⁶
(b) Condition-dignity. Human beings typically are agents with capacities
for prudential and moral reasoning, imagination, knowledge, productive
labor, and social cooperation. They have reason to respond to the existence
of these features with respect and concern, by recognizing the status-dignity of
each person. Given material and social difficulties, such respect and concern is
to be expressed by articulating, and pursuing the fulfillment of, a set of human
rights and duties. The basic valuable capacities that give rise to status-dignity
ground a plurality of human interests whose content concerns the power to
maintain, develop, and exercise such capacities in desirable and permissible
ways. This brings us to the issue of condition-dignity. We can identify various
kinds of social conditions in which human dignity is taken seriously. Human
rights practice focuses on the most urgent of them. In general, seeing human
rights as supporting capabilities means being concerned with whether people
are really able to do and be what they have urgent reason to value.³⁷ If there is a
human right to x, then every human person ought to have the capability—that
is, the power—to get x.³⁸

³⁶ For discussion of the notions of scalar feasibility and dynamic power, see appendix 2.
³⁷ Nussbaum, “Capabilities, Entitlements, Rights: Supplementation and Critique,” Journal of
Human Development and Capabilities 12 (2011), 23–37, at 29–30.
³⁸ The power/capability perspective helps account for the actual fulfillment of human rights.
It provides a compelling account of what it is for a human right to be fulfilled because focusing
on capability requires paying attention to different individuals’ specific circumstances or situ-
ation (personal, social, environmental)—which crucially affect their access to the object of their
rights. A’s human right to x is fulfilled to the extent that A is capable to get x given A’s specific
circumstances or situation. By figuring out people’s power or capabilities we track the informa-
tion that is relevant for appraising their human rights achievements. Take, e.g., the right to an
“adequate standard of living” including access to “food, clothing, housing, and medical care,” as
stated in Article 25 of the UDHR. The capability perspective addresses the “conversion problem”
that plagues other accounts that focus on resources and general means without being sensitive to
important differences between agents in their ability to turn them into valuable functionings.
Amy and Maria may have the same income, but since Amy is pregnant, she needs more food
than Maria, and more income to purchase it. The medical care available to Carlos and Robert
may be the same, but since Robert is physically handicapped he needs specific forms of assistance
that the care available may not provide.
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186 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Now, the existence of specific capabilities involves the presence of social and
political empowerment, which is significant both intrinsically and instrumen-
tally. It is intrinsically significant for condition-dignity because it is desirable
that the occurrence of states of affairs in which people develop and exercise
their capacities is up to them—that they select and shape them through their
choices. It is important that people be able to perceive themselves as shapers of
their own lives rather than as mere puppets of external agencies or as helpless
billiard balls pushed around by uncontrollable causal processes. Consider
labor rights.³⁹ People should be able to work, but no one should be forced to
work. And labor conditions should not be humiliating and degrading, as is
often the case in contemporary sweatshops. Social and political empowerment
is also instrumentally significant. It makes sense to recognize rights to form
and join unions because they give workers the strength to bargain for labor
conditions and remuneration that are not crushing. I will develop these points
into a full account of labor human rights in chapter 9 of this book.
If we think of the content of human rights as involving capabilities to
engage in valuable functionings, then it is important that people can choose
whether to engage in such functionings. This includes being able to articulate,
through exercises of prudential and moral reasoning and in inclusive and
respectful decision-making with others, some appropriate solutions to cir-
cumstances of conflict of interests (and rights). Such political capabilities, and
the empowerment they involve, are significant intrinsically, as their fostering
involves a public recognition of people’s capacity to judge and choose how to
organize their social life. They also matter instrumentally: individuals can use
them to prevent domination, oppression, or indifference to their basic inter-
ests.⁴⁰ People need political power to keep mechanisms of collective decision-
making responsive to their urgent interests. They also need power to process,
in a fair and insightful way, the indeterminacy and the disagreements about
rights that exist. Political empowerment is a reasonable response to the
common tendencies to exclude groups of people from access to social advan-
tages (including political participation itself), be self-serving and biased when
wielding decision-making power, disagree on moral matters, and have limited
knowledge of the needs and views of others.
The points just made help defend democratic rights as human rights. The
claim that such rights exist has recently been subject to philosophical

³⁹ See, e.g., Art. 23 of UDHR.

⁴⁰ This also applies to collective self-determination. Empowerment of political communities
in their international relations (or of national minorities within multinational states) deserves
attention. This is important when addressing the common worry that human rights are used as
an ideological instrument in domestic or international domination. To the extent that political
equality exists within and between states, the worry loses force. For a use of dignitarian language
to refer to collective claims, see Article 20 of the Vienna Declaration (which refers to indigenous
peoples).
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 187

challenges. I will respond to those challenges, and develop a fuller defense of
them, in chapter 10. But it is worth noting now that democratic rights are
increasingly recognized in the international practice of human rights. Article
21 of the UDHR and Article 25 of the ICCPR include very strong statements of
political participation rights. And a plethora of grass-roots movements from
Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s to the Arab Spring and the
Occupy movement in 2011 have framed domestic and global campaigns for
democracy in terms of human rights. Importantly for our discussion in this
chapter, rights of political equality clearly make sense once we see human
dignity as tied to power. When some people are treated as political inferiors
their capacities for reason, conscience, and solidaristic action with their fellow
human beings are not properly recognized. Their status-dignity is not respected.
And when they lack political equality their condition-dignity is not appropriately
guaranteed. Some are avoidably placed at the mercy of others who are more
powerful. The realization of their urgent civil and socioeconomic rights is thus
less secure than it would be in a political system that gave them full political
standing, and with it the power to effectively defend their interests.
Let me add a cautionary remark about the limits of a treatment of human
rights and dignity in terms of empowerment. In addition to identifying the
many ways in which persons have or need power to fulfill their human rights,
we must also recognize unavoidable restrictions. In politics, in economic
affairs, and in personal life, human beings cannot be completely independent.
A radical ideal of independence is infeasible. We all depend on the help of
others to live a decent life. We may not always be able to reciprocate. Given
that some significant differences of social and political power may remain even
after profound reforms, we may not always be able to make it prudent (on
instrumental grounds) for others who are more powerful to help us. Hence, we
should emphasize the importance of solidaristic help which is not equivalent
with increasing relative social power for those helped, and cultivate our readiness
to give it and receive it. This affects the proper understanding of the nature and
content of human rights. Consider, for example, Articles 1 and 25 of the
UDHR. The first refers to the idea of universal “brotherhood,” and the second
recognizes a right to assistance for those who cannot fully support themselves.
Securing human rights requires not depriving certain people of power they have,
and helping certain people get power they lack. But it also requires that people
use their power with a spirit of human solidarity. This will not be achieved unless
we articulate our commitment to human dignity and human rights in a way that
illuminates the passive besides the active dimensions of the human condition.
We need moral space for dignified vulnerability and receptivity.⁴¹

⁴¹ “Children” are said to be within the scope of dignitarian principles. “[W]e have a duty . . . to
all of the world’s people, especially to the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the
world” (UN Millennium Declaration, Art. 2). Further, we need this sensitivity to avoid sliding
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188 Human Dignity and Human Rights

The ideal of being able to stand alone, on one’s own feet, without having to
depend on others as a supplicant, is powerful. I feel the force of it. This includes
the sense that depending on the help of others may be experienced as a form of
humiliation. But perhaps we are in the grip of a sad exaggeration here. We need
the help of others, and should not have to feel humiliated when we get it, or ask
for it. We should also not need to feel that if we want to help others we will
necessarily be engaging in patronizing or demeaning treatment of them.
Respect as avoiding undue interference or domination is certainly part of
what we should care about when envisioning how we should treat each other.
But there is more. A proper concern for other people’s needs and important
interests would also call for solidarity to help other people pursue the satis-
faction of their interests. This would require empowerment and capability
promotion, which go beyond negative duties of non-interference and non-
domination.⁴²
I conclude this chapter by briefly stating some synergies, complementar-
ities, and disagreements with respect to the capability approach as developed
by Martha Nussbaum. The conception of human dignity and human rights
presented in this book is independent from Nussbaum’s capability approach,
and the points made in this section can be stated without reference to that
approach. However, I have found it useful to establish a connection. The
synergies are obvious. I agree with a view of human rights as requiring the
presence of certain capabilities. I also take some basic capabilities (or capaci-
ties, as I refer to them) as the ground of human dignity, recognize that there is
a plurality of them (including forms of sentience and striving that lie beyond
rational agency), and claim that the content of human rights (which identify
what is needed for a life worthy of human dignity) includes securing various
central capabilities. These central capabilities, as Nussbaum explains, involve a
development of basic capabilities (capacities) into “combined capabilities” that

from the connection between dignity and power into a destructive attitude toward the non-
human natural world. The pluralist view of human interests (discussed in chapter 8, section 8.2)
can enhance this sensibility.
⁴² The socialist tradition provides a particularly illuminating view of dignity, power, and
solidarity which enables us to make these points. There are strands in this tradition that capture
the importance of non-domination and autonomy while avoiding the pitfalls of the ideological
exaggerations that accompany certain affirmations of these ideals. In socialism, there typically is
concern for individual and political autonomy or self-determination and for social solidarity and
fair interdependence. Consider the slogan “From each according to their capacities, to each
according to their needs.” It asks us to see people as producers and beneficiaries in a solidaristic
and egalitarian economy. Under a moral and political culture shaped by this principle, there is no
shame in getting more (to satisfy one’s needs) than one produces (through using one’s capabil-
ities) so long as people make their appropriate effort to contribute and are capable to shape with
others (through democratic politics) the terms on which the economy is run. See further
chapter 11, and Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According To Their
Abilities, To Each According To Their Needs’.”
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Dignity and Solidaristic Empowerment 189

include both agents’ internal preparedness to do or be certain things and
external material and social conditions that allow them to do so.⁴³
This book advances original points that were not developed by Nussbaum,
but which are nonetheless consistent with her work. It provides a direct
discussion of the uses of “dignity” in human rights documents, and offers a
deliberative interpretive proposal to articulate their structure and substance.
It explores the fruitful connection between capabilities and various issues
normally couched in terms of power. Finally, it introduces the idea of the
circumstances of dignity, and within them it emphasizes the significance of
disvaluable capabilities. I also emphasize the importance of distinguishing the
moral dimension of practical reason from the prudential one (that is, the
power to be reasonable besides rational).
An important difference with Nussbaum is that I present reference to
valuable capabilities as providing only a partial key to articulating human
rights. There may be human rights whose content is not best, or fully, captured
as securing some capability. An example concerns rights to due process, which
are based on independent considerations of fairness. The wrongness of some
violations of rights, such as the avoidable failure to make health care available,
need not in every case depend on lack of choice by the right-holder (even if
that makes them worse). Even when someone would choose not to use health
care, sometimes the lack of access to it may involve a human rights violation.
Furthermore, and relatedly, I think that to move from the identification of
interests in having certain capabilities to the identification of rights to access
them we need to deploy a framework of reasoning that systematically factors
in the perspective of duty-bearers beside that of right-holders. We can thus
articulate considerations of feasibility, fairness, and responsibility that con-
tribute to determining whether the interest in having a certain capability does
really link up to correlative duties of others to protect or promote its satisfac-
tion. A more explicit and systematic account of how dignity features in our
overall normative reasoning is needed.⁴⁴ I turn to the task of developing this
framework of reasoning in chapter 8.

⁴³ Nussbaum also proposes a list of ten central human capabilities, which, in her account,
ground the various human rights. They refer to conditions securing adequate levels of people’s
capabilities with respect to life; bodily health; bodily integrity; the use of their senses, imagination
and thought; the engagement of their emotions; the use of their practical reason; the develop-
ment of social affiliation; the concerned relation with other species; activities involving play; and
the control of their political and material environment. Although this is a valuable list, I do not
develop my own account of the justification of human rights on the basis of it. I also find it
problematic that the account of practical reason in this list does not distinguish between
capacities for moral and prudential reasoning.
⁴⁴ I thank Matthew Liao for discussion on these points. For a more detailed discussion of the
advantages and limitations of the capability approach to human rights as developed by Nussbaum and
Sen see Pablo Gilabert, “The Capability Approach and the Debate between Humanist and Political
Perspectives on Human Rights: A Critical Survey,” Human Rights Review 14 (2013), 299–325.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program

8.1. DIGNITARIANISM

I see the human rights project as a key form of dignitarianism. In this chapter,
I outline the contours of dignitarianism—or the dignitarian approach—in its
most general form, as a normative program, and explain how human rights
can be fruitfully construed as an exemplary instance of it. As I present my
account of dignitarianism, I will give especial attention to the ideal of solidar-
istic empowerment. As we saw in chapter 7, this ideal says that to enact proper
respect and concern for the dignity of persons we should pursue social orders
in which power relations are constrained and oriented by negative duties not
to destroy or block, and positive duties to enable and facilitate, the develop-
ment and exercise of people’s valuable capacities. The purpose of this chapter
is to articulate the main features of dignitarian arguments that apply this ideal,
and to explore relevant philosophical issues that arise about their form and
significance. The chapter starts by outlining the general structure of dignitar-
ian arguments and by presenting human rights as an exemplary instance of
them (section 8.1). It then proceeds to address several philosophical issues
regarding dignitarianism. It offers a broad view of human capacities and
interests (section 8.2), an account of how dignitarianism helps bridge the
justificatory gap between important interests and rights supporting them
(section 8.3), a recruitment of moral contractualism as an illuminating device
for defending dignitarian norms (section 8.4), an exploration of the relation
between dignitarianism and ethical pluralism (section 8.5), and a presentation
of dignitarian inquiry as a form of critical theory (section 8.6). The chapter
concludes by outlining the main components and tasks of dignitarianism
understood as a theoretical and practical program (section 8.7). Chapters
9–11 of the book will then provide specific illustrations of its deployment to
justify labor rights, political rights, and more ambitious egalitarian require-
ments of social justice.

(i) Dignitarianism in general. I start with a general statement of the normative

perspective adopted in this book.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 191

Dignitarianism: Dignitarianism is a type of normative approach accord-
ing to which at least some of the central norms concerning the treatment of
individual entities depend on their inherent dignity.
According to the dignitarian approach, we should treat entities (such as a
human person, or a non-human animal) in a way that involves certain forms
of respect and concern for them. The norms framing this treatment depend on
these entities’ inherent dignity in the sense that the former articulate the
appropriate response to the latter. The inherent dignity of an entity is a
normative status that gives rise to various reasons for action, including
norms that state rights and duties. The normative status is based in certain
valuable features that are characteristic of the entity. The content of the rights
and duties also depends on the content of these features. The fulfillment of the
rights and duties gives the entity what is owed to it in the relevant circum-
stances. When the rights and duties are fulfilled, the entity enjoys a dignified
condition. Thus, in the case of human beings, an agent who can affect them
should respond to their capacities to reason prudentially and morally by
recognizing that they have various rights to develop and exercise those
capacities and by acknowledging various duties to not disable and to further
(when reasonably feasible) that development and exercise.
Dignitarianism can be seen as a case of what Shelly Kagan calls “reflection
theory” in normative ethics.¹ According to reflection theory, moral reasons are
a matter of responding appropriately to (they reflect) the features of certain
entities (that is, certain facts about them). An intuitive way to motivate a
“reflection theory,” and within it dignitarianism, is to ask ourselves why we
think we should treat human persons, non-human animals, plants, and stones
in different ways. The natural answer is that these entities are very different.
We assume that the proper treatment of an entity depends on what the entity
is like. Our norms should reflect, or appropriately respond to the valuable
features of each entity. What is distinctive about dignitarianism is its view that
the valuable features characteristic of an entity give every individual entity that
has these features a certain deontic status (dignity), which the norms about
how it should be treated by agents who can affect it specify or articulate.
(ii) Structure of a dignitarian conception. A dignitarian conception within a
certain normative domain comprises substantive views about a set of related
points, which constitute the elements that such a conception characterizes in a
certain way. We have considered some of these elements in chapters 5–7,
when exploring the conceptual network of dignity. In this chapter, I return to
that network with the systematic purpose of showing how to weave

¹ Shelly Kagan, Normative Ethics (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1998), sect. 7.4. See also the
powerful discussion of the idea of appropriate responses in Robert Nozick, Philosophical
Explanations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), ch. 5.
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192 Human Dignity and Human Rights

substantive normative arguments with some of its elements and the relations
amongst them. I first state some of these elements and relations in their most
abstract way, by referring to what is involved in the treatment of some entities
E by some agents S. (The component “power,” however, is only applicable
when E are also agents.). Later I articulate their use in the context of human
social life.
A dignitarian conception involves claims regarding these basic elements:
Basis of dignity: Certain characteristic features of E that are valuable.
Status-dignity: E’s dignity as an inherent property, a normative status of
each individual E that gives rise to certain dignitarian norms, which include
some rights and duties.
Dignitarian rights: Some of E’s rights to objects related to E’s basis of
dignity.
Condition-dignity: E’s condition in which E’s dignitarian rights are
fulfilled.²

² See further chapter 2, section 2.7; chapter 5, section 5.3.3; and chapter 6, section 6.7. The
dignitarian norms, including the rights and duties, may be more or less abstract or specific. We
may sometimes mark the distinction by calling some norms “abstract” and others “specific.” But
it is important to notice that there is a continuum between them. Also, norms may be wider or
narrower. Conceivably, there may be imperfect duties and rights. The latter are fulfilled when-
ever duty-bearers give the right-holders proper consideration regarding their access to a certain
good or condition (which is not the same as giving them access to that good or condition). It
could be objected that the claim that rights can include amongst their correlative duties some
imperfect duties is unconvincing because no one will be wronged when imperfect duties are not
fulfilled. But we should not assume that someone’s right to an object is only linked to duties that
are perfect. This seems to me to be an unduly narrow account of rights. Take, e.g., a right to
health care. Governments have perfect duties not to arbitrarily deprive any resident of access to
existing public health care programs. They may not, e.g., discriminate on the basis of political
opinion, race, ethnicity, or gender. But surely governments also have a duty to create some
needed health care programs that do not yet exist. This duty is imperfect because it is indeter-
minate as to what programs of the many that are possible should be chosen (when not all can be
feasibly and readily introduced at reasonable cost). It can be made more determinate at the level
of policy. But its more general and imperfect (and thus somewhat indeterminate) form is itself
significant. It is one of the reasonable counterparts of a constitution that includes social rights,
and citizens and courts could press governments to acknowledge it and take steps to fulfill it in
some of the many ways possible. (On the role of courts in getting the political process to
acknowledge and specify rights, see Varun Gauri and Daniel Brinks, “Human Rights as Demands
for Communicative Action,” Journal of Political Philosophy 29 (2012), 407–31.) But, you may
ask, who is wronged when an imperfect duty is not fulfilled? Everybody who is amongst the
possible beneficiaries even if no one in particular, I answer. For a simple case, imagine that you
can (without incurring unreasonable costs) save one of two persons A and B, who are drowning
and could only be saved by you, but not both. You do not have a perfect duty to save A and you
do not have a perfect duty to save B. You have an imperfect duty to save one of the two. If you
saved A but not B, B would not be wronged by you (as long as you gave B some chance to be
saved—e.g., by tossing a coin to choose between A and B). But if you saved neither, you would
wrong both. For further discussion about the possibility of a conception of justice including
imperfect duties, see Pablo Gilabert, “Justice and Beneficence,” Critical Review of International
Social and Political Philosophy 19.5 (2016), 508–33.
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Dignitarian duties: S’s duties towards E concerning the fulfillment of E’s
dignitarian rights (and thus their dignity in the two senses).
Power: Degree to which E, as also being S, may control the processes that
affect the fulfillment of E’s rights.
Circumstances of dignity: Circumstances in which dignitarian norms are
practically relevant: their fulfillment is both necessary (in the sense of
“called-for”) and feasible.³ In these circumstances, there are threats and
obstacles to the achievement of condition-dignity, and those threats and
obstacles can be overcome. These threats and obstacles may exist because of
some disvaluable features of E and/or S, or because of some deficits in the
development and display of some valuable features of E and/or S, or
because of some external conditions (such as scarcity of material resources).
The problems may be resolvable because of the potential of E and/or S (for
example, some of the valuable features of E and/or S involve capacities
which if exercised would support condition-dignity) or the changeability of
their surrounding environment.
The central relations between the elements just mentioned are the following
(assuming that the circumstances of dignity hold):
1. E have status-dignity in virtue of some of E’s valuable features.
2. E have dignitarian rights because they have status-dignity. The objects of
those rights are related to the features constituting the basis of E’s status-
dignity.
3. E’s dignitarian rights are those rights the fulfillment of which makes it
the case that E have a dignified existence (condition-dignity).
4. S have duties to respect, protect, and promote the fulfillment of E’s
dignitarian rights.
5. To secure the fulfillment of E’s rights, E may require and have a right to
access various forms of power. Some forms of power may be instrumen-
tally significant (to achieve and retain condition-dignity). And some
forms of power may be intrinsically significant (their recognition may
involve an appreciation of valuable capacities which are among the
features that give rise to status-dignity).
What is the point of the phrase “dignity” in dignitarianism? It has at least
three important roles. First, it directs us to identify valuable features of the

³ Like the dignitarian norms, the circumstances of dignity can be more or less specific. They
help us distinguish between more or less abstract and specific rights and duties. If we want to
mark the difference between quite general and quite specific circumstances of dignity, we can use
the term “situations of dignity” to refer to the latter.
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194 Human Dignity and Human Rights

entities for whose treatment we are trying to articulate norms. Status-dignity is
based in those features. Second, the use of “dignity” leads us to identify what
forms of response are owed to entities with those features. For example, when
those features are capacities, we would have to identity ways to protect and
further their development and exercise. Condition-dignity is the states of
affairs in which the entities are treated properly, when their value is appro-
priately responded to.⁴ A third role of “dignity” is that it marks the presence of
a certain kind of normative exercise. By making us focus on entities’ valuable
features, dignitarianism leads us to recognize the equal normative standing of
each and every individual entity that has those features, and to articulate
the norms this recognition calls for. Of course, the development of a dignitar-
ian conception depends on substantive views about what features of the
entities under consideration are valuable, and what are appropriate ways of
responding to them. Invoking the idea of “dignity” does not spare anyone
the work of figuring out these substantive matters. But this does not render
the phrase empty. To the contrary, given the conceptual roles just mentioned,
its use frames the substantive normative work in an intuitively appealing
and fruitful way. To see this more clearly, we should consider some actual
form of normative discourse. The case of human dignity in human rights is
paradigmatic.
(iii) Dignitarian conceptions of human rights. As shown in detail in previous
chapters, human dignity is a central idea in human rights discourse. It is
commonly invoked as the moral ground of human rights. For example, the
Preambles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural
Rights (ICESCR) present human rights as “derived from the inherent dignity
of the human person.” I am now suggesting that we understand the use of
human dignity in human rights discourse by linking it with a universalistic
idea of solidarity that involves negative and positive duties to respond, in
appropriate ways, to valuable features of human beings. Dignity is a normative
status that persons have in virtue of certain features of them. It gives rise to
certain duties to treat them in ways that show respect and concern. Solidaristic
treatment is an appropriate response to others’ dignity. By not seeing human

⁴ I note that even though status-dignity is a binary notion (an entity has it or it does not),
condition-dignity is a scalar notion. E.g., an entity’s rights may be more or less honored or
infringed upon. Even though E retains their status-dignity all along, S may act in ways that
involve more or less appropriate response to E’s status-dignity, and thus contribute more or less
to E’s condition-dignity. I thank Cecile Laborde for helping me to articulate this point. Some of
these duties are such that flouting them amounts to straightforward rights violations, while
others might be such that not fulfilling them involves contributing to human rights deficits. See
Rowan Cruft’s point reported in chapter 3, note 30.
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individuals as mere instruments and by considering how to further their
life-prospects, we acknowledge the value of the features that give rise to their
dignity (that is, individuals’ intrinsic worth). For example, we engage in
appropriate treatment when we do not destroy and when we help further
individuals’ valuable capacities, when we do not disable, and when we enable,
their achievement of a life in which they develop and exercise those capacities.
To the extent that people have access to conditions of autonomy and well-
being in which their valuable capacities are supported, they have condition-
dignity (to be distinguished from the status-dignity mentioned above).
A doctrine of rights identifies the forms of condition-dignity people are
entitled to in their social relations. More specifically, a doctrine of human
rights identifies the conditions that have the highest priority. However, dig-
nitarian claims can go further. Human dignity, and social justice, include but
go beyond human rights. Human rights focus on the basic condition-dignity of
having access to a basically good or decent life, and social justice focuses on the
more expansive condition-dignity of having access to a flourishing life.
Let me develop further this proposal about how to understand human
dignity in human rights discourse by returning to the schema articulated
above (in section 8.1(ii)). I start with the basic elements. Regarding the basis
of dignity, human rights respond to characteristic features of human persons
that are valuable, such as their reason, conscience, and capacity to act in a spirit
of brotherhood.⁵ Human rights articulate status-dignity by recognizing a nor-
mative status of individual human beings, which they possess as an inherent
property independently of their class, nationality, and other similar features.⁶
The general idea of dignity as a normative status is that dignity requires certain
kinds of treatment toward those who have it. If X has dignity, then every agent
Y ought to treat X in certain respectful and concernful ways. Furthermore, in
our context of discussion, if X has dignity, then X is entitled to certain kinds of
treatment by Y. The details about what forms of treatment are owed is specified
by the corresponding human rights norms, which state dignitarian rights and

⁵ “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood” (Universal
Declaration of Human Rights—UDHR, Art. 1). (The capacity to act in a spirit of brotherhood
must be assumed to exist since people “should” act in that spirit, and in this usage should, like
ought, implies can.) These features contrast with other features that are irrelevant as a basis for
human dignity. “Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration
without distinctions of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status” (UDHR, Art. 2).
⁶ The Preamble of the UDHR refers to the “inherent dignity . . . of all the members of the
human family,” and the Preambles of ICCPR and ICESCR refer to “the inherent dignity of
the human person.” For a detailed explanation of this characterization of status-dignity as a
normative status (a moral standing in accordance to which human individuals are owed certain
forms of respect and concern by agents that can affect them), see chapters 5–7 of this book.
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196 Human Dignity and Human Rights

duties. Thus, the dignitarian rights are the various civil, political, and socio-
economic human rights of the sort stated in the major human rights docu-
ments (such as UDHR, ICCPR, and ICESCR). When these human rights are
fulfilled, people enjoy condition-dignity. Condition-dignity is related to, but
differs from status-dignity. Condition-dignity refers to a contingent situation
that may or may not be enjoyed by people depending on whether they are
treated in ways that honor the rights which they already have in accordance to
their status-dignity. Examples of condition-dignity in human rights discourse
include the reference to “economic, social, and cultural rights [that are] indis-
pensable for [persons’] dignity and the free development of [their] personality”
(UDHR, Art. 22), and the view that workers are entitled to remuneration
ensuring “an existence worthy of human dignity” (UDHR, Art. 23).⁷
Human rights discourse recognizes the existence of duties to support the
fulfillment of every individual’s human rights. For example, Article 22 of
UDHR presents social, cultural, and economic human rights as requiring,
for their fulfillment, “national effort and international co-operation.” Article 29
says that “[e]veryone has duties to the community in which alone the free and
full development of his personality is possible.” These are dignitarian duties
because they are correlated with the dignitarian rights mentioned above,
which flow from status-dignity and outline the target of condition-dignity.
The rights whose fulfillment these duties support have global scope.
“[E]veryone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights
and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized” (UDHR,
Art. 28). This sweeping universalism is to be expected if human rights are
derived from human dignity, which is a normative status held by each
individual in their relation with every individual who can affect them.
The duties also have a broad site. They certainly apply to governmental
institutions, national and international. There is increasing discussion as to
whether international private institutions, such as multinational corporations,
should also be seen as duty-bearers. Given their enormous power over govern-
ments and individuals, it is reasonable to say that they indeed should.⁸ The site
of duties is broad also in the sense that it is interpersonal as well as institutional.
Thus, the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination
Against Women identifies requirements that range over “the political, eco-
nomic, cultural, civil or any other field” (CEDAW, Art. 1). In its Preamble, the
UDHR is presented as “a common standard of achievement for all peoples and
all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society . . . shall
strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and

⁷ See also education rights in ICESCR, Art. 13, and the treatment of refugees in the Vienna
Declaration, Art. 23.
⁸ See Allen Buchanan, The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 233–4.
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freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure
their universal and effective recognition and observance.” Any dimension of
social life may be subject to dignitarian analysis.
Human discourse also recognizes calls for respecting and enhancing
people’s power to control the political process and other mechanisms that
affect the fulfillment of their human rights.⁹ This flows naturally from the
recognition of the dignity of human beings as agents capable of prudential and
moral judgment and self-determination. Depriving them of the power to chart
their own destiny on terms they themselves articulate or accept is to fail to
appropriately respond to their capacities of agency. To fail to help them when
they find obstacles in this process of self-governance and self-development is
often also a deficit of proper appreciation—or so the ideal of solidaristic
empowerment, including as it does positive as well as negative duties, would
give us reason to think.
The last element in the dignitarian schema is not explicitly articulated in
human rights discourse. But (as we saw in previous chapters) we must accept
some account of the circumstances of human dignity to make sense of the
practice of human rights. The circumstances of dignity are the circumstances
in which human rights norms are practically relevant. In these circumstances,
there are threats and obstacles to the achievement of condition-dignity, and
they can be overcome. These threats and obstacles may exist because of the
presence of disvaluable features of human beings (such as their greed or
cruelty), or because of some deficits in the exercise of valuable human capaci-
ties (such as insufficient sympathy), or because of some external environmental
conditions (such as scarcity of material resources). Some specifically modern
conditions are of crucial significance for contemporary human rights discourse.
For example, the powerful modern state may protect people’s civil liberties, but
also pose serious threats to them. Modern economies can create multiple
opportunities for people to develop and exercise their talents and skills, but
also generate involuntary unemployment and poverty. These problems may be
resolvable thanks to the potential of human beings and the changeability of

⁹ Here are some statements of social and political participatory rights. “[A]ll human rights
derive from the dignity and worth inherent in the human person, and . . . the human person is
the central subject of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and consequently should be
the principal beneficiary and should participate actively in the realization of these rights and
freedoms” (Vienna Declaration, Preamble, third sentence). “[E]xtreme poverty and social
exclusion constitute a violation of human dignity . . . It is essential for States to foster partici-
pation by the poorest people in the decision-making process by the community in which they
live, the promotion of human rights and the efforts to combat extreme poverty” (Vienna
Declaration, Art. 25). “Men and women have the right to live their lives and raise their
children in dignity, free from hunger and from the fear of violence, oppression and injustice.
Democratic participatory governance based on the will of the people best assures these rights”
(UN Millennium Declaration, Art. 6). Furthermore, UDHR (Art. 21) and ICCPR (Art. 25)
state strong rights of political participation.
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198 Human Dignity and Human Rights

their external environment. For example, people can use their moral and
prudential judgment and choice to create democratic political institutions,
and they can deploy their capacities for creative work and social cooperation
to develop technological innovations that reduce material scarcity.¹⁰
While identifying the elements of the dignitarian schema as developed in
the case of human rights (and assuming that the circumstances of human
dignity hold) we have also discussed the central relations between them. They
can be stated succinctly as follows:
1. Human persons have status-dignity in virtue of some of their valuable
features.
2. Human persons have human rights because they have status-dignity.¹¹
3. Human rights are those rights the fulfillment of which makes it the case
that human persons enjoy a dignified life (condition-dignity).
4. Human persons have duties to respect, protect, and promote the fulfill-
ment of those rights. Such duties may have a wide scope and site (that is,
they may impose responsibilities on agents across the world, and may
apply to various institutional and interpersonal settings).
5. To secure the fulfillment of human rights, human persons require,
and have a right to access, various forms of power. These forms
of power may be instrumentally or/and intrinsically valuable. For
example, political empowerment exhibits both instrumental and intrin-
sic significance: with it people can defend their condition-dignity from
threats, and through it they gain recognition for features of them that
ground their status-dignity, such as their capacities for judgment and
self-determination.
The idea of human dignity is very far from empty.¹² It frames the
important task of identifying norms that articulate the appropriate responses
to valuable features of individual human beings in social life. It helps us
articulate human rights as universal rights, as presenting the basic charter for
the fellowship of humankind, the one that includes you and I, and every
other human individual we can affect. Before continuing our exploration of the
articulation of dignitarian arguments in human rights discourse, I should recall
the caveat that this discourse covers only a subset of these humanist dignitar-
ian norms. They are the most urgent ones. Other humanist dignitarian norms

¹⁰ Recall the notions of dynamic duties and dynamic power introduced in chapter 3 and
appendix 2.
¹¹ Recall the claim that human rights “derive from the inherent dignity of the human person”
(ICCPR, ICESCR, Preamble).
¹² On the worry that it might be empty, see Charles Beitz, “Human Dignity in the Theory of
Human Rights: Nothing But a Phrase?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 41 (2013), 259–80.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 199

can be captured by wider principles of social justice, and even further,
morality. Although human rights are a paradigmatic case of humanist digni-
tarianism, they do not exhaust its domain. I return to this issue in chapter 11
of this book.

8.2. HUMAN CAPACITIES AND I NTERESTS:

A BROAD VIEW

The idea of human dignity illuminates the characteristic view of human rights
norms as norms applying to all human beings in virtue of their common
humanity. By reference to human dignity, we anchor the human rights project
in the strong and inspiring thought that each individual human person, in
virtue of possessing certain valuable features, has a normative standing that
imposes duties on every human person who can affect them. Human rights are
rights that people have in virtue of relatively general and constant valuable
features that are not contingent upon their race, class, or nationality. But what
are those features?
As suggested in chapters 5 and 6, to identify the features making up the
basis of human dignity in a certain domain, we do not need to take a top-
down, rigidly sequential approach that starts with a conclusive list of the
valuable features of human beings as such and then, in a second step, moves
to a contextual exploration of how these features are engaged in the circum-
stances or, even more contextually, certain situations of dignity. The process of
inquiry is likely to be, and in my opinion should be, less tidy and linear. We
can move back and forth between judgments about the general valuable
features of human beings and judgments about the appropriate norms to
support people when they face challenges in their pursuit of a decent or a
flourishing life in various social contexts.
We can then start, for example, by proposing an initially plausible list as a
hypothesis. Put in the most abstract way, we can say that what makes a
hypothetical list initially plausible is that its items are (a) general (i.e., they
are widely displayed by the entities whose treatment we are considering), (b)
valuable (i.e., they are worthy of appreciation and supportive normative
response), and (c) justificatorily important (i.e., it is fruitful or relevant to
mention them in the defense of the norms concerning the appropriate treat-
ment of the entities we are considering). When certain features of some
entities satisfy these conditions, they are consequential for the task of formu-
lating, justifying, and applying dignitarian norms regarding these entities. We
can reasonably refer to them as we engage in that task, and re-evaluate and,
where necessary, revise them as our engagement progresses over time.
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200 Human Dignity and Human Rights

We can formulate an initial hypothetical list by articulating what we seem to
be committed to when we invoke some dignitarian norms that are compelling
to us. In our specific context of discussion regarding human rights, we can
start by elaborating on UDHR’s Article 1, which (as we saw in section 8.1(iii)
above) suggests the significance of reason, conscience, and the ability to act in
a spirit of brotherhood. These capacities are generally held by human beings.
They also seem quite significant in themselves (i.e., they are worthy of
appreciation and support). Finally, they also strike me as providing plausible
grounds for defending important civil and political rights. The fulfillment of
the various such rights that people have—to pursue their own personal life
projects and to make political choices that shape the contours of the diverse
local, domestic, and global communities in which they participate—seem to
me to be tied to the development and exercise of these capacities. A full
depiction of them would feature reference to people’s capacities for prudential
and moral reasoning, and for acting solidaristically to support the life pros-
pects of other human beings. The rights deserve to be articulated through
high-priority norms with universal reach—precisely the kind of norms that
human rights are.
To justify other significant rights which are also prominent in human rights
discourse, such as the various social and cultural rights supporting people’s
access to education, cultural and scientific products and activities, health care,
and decent work, we can appeal to the items in the foregoing list and add some
more. We can include, in addition to the capacities for prudential and moral
reasoning, and the capacity for cooperation and sympathy, other general,
valuable, and important capacities such as those concerning sentience, know-
ledge, aesthetic appreciation, and creative production. The items in this list, in
connection with other dignitarian considerations (such as the circumstances
and situations of dignity), can thus be used to defend various rights that people
have to work to produce goods that meet their own needs and the needs of
others, to help fellow human beings facing hardship and suffering, and to
experience their social life as providing opportunities to enjoy the results of
human discovery and creativity. Furthermore, other norms which are not yet
currently stated in human rights discourse might also be proposed and gain
credence in the future if they come to stand out to us on reflection as
constituting appropriate responses to these and other components of the
basis of human dignity. The inquiry about the content and justification of
human rights is an ongoing project.¹³

¹³ Of course, some putative norms—either already widely endorsed or not—could also be

criticized by appeal to similar considerations.
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Consider now the worry (which may be part of what motivates narrow
conceptions of the basis of human dignity¹⁴) that this broad account, by

¹⁴ Another, perhaps related worry motivating narrower conceptions of dignity is that broader
conceptions are too indeterminate. See Griffin, On Human Rights, 51–6, 88–90. I think that
determinateness of sense is important. But we should also attend to the other important
desiderata. If a somewhat less determinate proposal fits better the other desiderata than an
alternative, more determinate proposal, then we may have all things considered reason to prefer
the former. The need for greater determinacy can then be fulfilled at other levels of our
conception through interpretations of dignity in specific contexts.
Another motivation for narrow conceptions lies in the desire for parsimony or simplicity, so it
is worth pausing to evaluate its significance and strength. According to (one version of) the
principle of parsimony, when we compare two theories, if they yield the same conclusions, we
should choose the simpler one—the one that includes the smaller number of principles,
hypotheses, etc. Is this principle appealing? Sometimes it might be worth following. Simplicity,
economy, may be appealing. We may prefer a thinner theory because it is easier to learn,
remember, communicate, and teach. There may be aesthetic considerations too: simplicity
may be a mark of elegance and beauty. Another, common reason is that the claims of the
thinner theory may be less controversial than some of those included in the thicker one. It seems
desirable to be able to justify as many relevant conclusions as possible on the basis of principles
that are as uncontroversial as possible.
But the principle provides only a pro tanto consideration. It can be defeated. As stated, it
already has a ceteris paribus clause. Sometimes other things are not equal, and it is no doubt
better to embrace a complex truth than a simple falsity. Furthermore, there are cases in which we
may have reason to prefer a thicker theory even if it would yield the same relevant conclusions as
the thinner one. Theories can be assessed not only from the point of view of whether certain
important claims (scientific, philosophical, ethical, etc.) can be inferred from them, but also from
the point of view of whether such inferences afford us understanding of what they yield. We want
our scientific, moral, or philosophical theories to give us insight into what they explain (i.e., help
us grasp what the relevant object-domain consists in, how it works, why it matters, etc.). More
complicated explanations may sometimes be more insightful, give us more understanding, than
the simpler ones. When this is the case, it may be worth embracing them even if they are harder
to understand and communicate, even if they are not as dashing and elegant, and even if they
attract more controversy than the thinner, or simpler ones.
The foregoing considerations are relevant to explain why a pluralistic account of the basis of
dignity is appropriate. But the points made here are more general. Consider another illustration.
Sometimes, in ethics and political philosophy, there is an attempt to derive recommendations
typically viewed as moral from grounds that are exclusively prudential. This strategy seeks to
explain why we should not harm other people, or why we should help them, by showing that our
own long-term interests are best served if we do not harm others, or if we help them, in certain
ways. The structure of prudential reasoning seems easier to grasp than the structure of moral
reasoning, and the claim that we have prudential reasons is less controversial than the claim that
we have moral reasons. So if we can cast views regarding the latter category in terms of views
regarding the former, we will achieve more simplicity and less controversy. I think that the more
parsimonious approach is in this case seriously problematic. I do not deny that it is a good idea to
develop prudential arguments for moral actions. They may be useful to convince, or motivate,
agents (including ourselves) when they must act soon but seem unlikely to be swayed before the
relevant decisions are made by reasons other than prudential ones. But from the point of view of
understanding moral reasons, and also from the point of view of expressing proper respect and
concern toward other people (and ourselves), we cannot rest content with the more parsimoni-
ous approach. We understand our moral reasons better when we can see how they track what we
owe people for their own sake. And we are reassured in our relationships with each other (and in
our self-understanding) when we see that we can give and take moral reasons for action that are
not reducible to self-interest. A reduction of moral rationality to prudential rationality seems
perverse. Even if a theory of morality only based on prudential reasons yielded the same
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202 Human Dignity and Human Rights

including sentience, or the capacity to feel pain and pleasure, will be ill-suited
for the task of identifying specifically human rights. The account would yield
rights that some non-human animals (given that they are sentient) would also
have. Wouldn’t it be better, in an account of human rights, to see the basis of
human dignity as comprising specifically human capabilities and interests?
We can respond to this worry in at least three ways, which I present in order
of decreasing concessiveness. First, we can give instrumental arguments about
the importance of responding appropriately to human beings’ capacity to feel
pain and pleasure. An example would be to point out that when people
experience extreme pain, they are unable to exercise their specifically human
capacities of rational agency. This response retains the narrow account of
human dignity because the not specifically human capacities or interests are
causally but not constitutively relevant for it.
A second response is to point out that people have a specifically human way
to experience pain and pleasure. Usually, such experiences have an intentional
content that involves some level of linguistic and inferential articulation. This
response is less concessive than the previous one because it sees at least some
instances of pain and pleasure as constitutive of specifically human life.
I accept the foregoing responses, but I think that we should go further.
Consider pain. We also want to recognize the great importance of sheer,
animal, pain in our lives, even when it is not articulated in the ways the second
response envisages. We want to have arguments for human rights to avoid
unwelcomed experiences of such pain that are not merely instrumental but
also based on the recognition of their great intrinsic significance. For example,
we do not only want to be able to say: “I shouldn’t be beaten up or tortured
when I try to express political dissent, because if I am I will be less likely to
enjoy my right to political participation.” We also want to be able to say, more
directly: “I am entitled to live without arbitrary impositions of pain.” Human
rights practice would be severely impoverished if utterances like the last were
ruled out as basic (rather than merely derived) moves.¹⁵
A third response seems then to be called for, in which we take some
capacities that humans have, even when other animals also have them, as
among the constituents of what gives rise to the normative status of human
dignity. This response is not concessive to the objector, because it denies that
human dignity must only be based on features of human beings that are not
shared with other beings.

conclusions about what we have reason to do than a more complicated and controversial theory
that proceeds from moral principles (something I granted here for the sake of argument, but find
quite improbable), we would still have reason to explore the latter both in order to reach more
explanatory insight about what obligation is and in order to develop a morally more appropriate
attitude to others and ourselves in our practical life.
¹⁵ I thank Christian Rostboll for discussion on this example.
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How should one then respond to the likely protest that this account fails to
capture human rights? By insisting that the not specifically human features
included are extremely important to understand what human beings are like,
and what interests they have. Even if other animals also have these features,
they are no less human for that. The objector may say: But will we not then
have to grant dogs human rights to avoid pain? The answer is: Of course not,
as dogs’ pain is not humans’ pain. But it is pain all the same, the objector
continues. At this point one must simply say: Surely there are animal rights
(rights of non-human animals) that partly overlap with human rights.¹⁶
An important source of the difficulty here is that the idea of human dignity is
sometimes associated with a hierarchical perspective on value. Human dignity
must capture the very high worth of human beings in contrast with other, lesser
beings (by analogy with the earlier, historical use referring to the dignity of
those in higher classes or castes when compared to those in lower ranks). I see
the force of this point. But what gives “higher” worth to human beings is not all
that gives worth to them: “lesser” sources of the worth of humans are still
significant. Thus, the capacity for rational agency may make humans (or those
humans who have it) especially significant, but their abilities to feel pleasure
and pain are additional sources of value. I also see that pressing this line may
lead to issues of conflict of interest between humans and non-human animals.
But when not utterly tragic (as when we would die unless we killed animals for
food), these conflicts may have to be responded to by surrendering, or severely
qualifying, humans’ alleged entitlement to harm other animals.¹⁷
The pressure to focus on what only human beings, as such, display may
have two sources. One, quite legitimate, is that we have evolved, historically, to
a point at which we think about what human beings, independently of specific
social markers such as class or nationality, have rights to. This is the origin,
and point, of talking about human rights as the rights that “all human beings
have in virtue of being human.” The other source is a form of speciesism that
we could well progress further to leave behind. The moral community may (so
far as we know) only include human beings as its moral agents, since (so far as
we know) only human beings are capable of moral reasoning. However, the
moral community, understood as the set of entities that deserve respect and
concern for their own sake, is larger. The grounds of dignity are articulated not

¹⁶ My account relies on a conjunction: There is a human right to O if (inter alia) this is a right
that humans have and O is connected with some of the features F that give rise to status-dignity.
Other animals might have some F, and a right to O, but since the right would not be one that
humans have, the absurd conclusion that they have a human right to O does not follow. The
relevant contrast when shaping our ideas of human dignity and human rights is not between
humans and other species, but between what belongs to all humans and what belongs to some by
reference to special features such as race, class, and nationality (see chapter 6, section 6.5).
I thank Rowan Cruft and Massimo Renzo for discussion on these issues.
¹⁷ See Martha Nussbaum, Creating Capabilities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2011), 157–63.
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204 Human Dignity and Human Rights

by statements about what valuable features humans have, but by statements
about what valuable features there are. Human beings will display some, but
other entities may display their own (some overlapping, some not), and
deserve respect and concern by moral agents accordingly. The moral domain
outstrips humanity.
In sum, our lists of the features making up the basis of human dignity need
not narrowly focus on what only human beings display. We should avoid the
(unfortunately common) assumption that the basis of human dignity must be
constituted by what distinguishes human beings from other entities. What is
crucial for human dignity is the valuable features that human beings have.
Some of those features (such as sentience) are also present in other animals.
Furthermore, the epistemic procedure envisaged here is a pursuit of delib-
erative reflective equilibrium in our dignitarian conception.¹⁸ This amounts to a
holistic, ongoing, and discursive development of our views about the basis of
dignity, status-dignity, various dignitarian norms, and dignitarian virtue. Thus,
we can sometimes proceed from an account of the basis of dignity to an account
of rights—as when we invoke the significance of the capacity for prudential and
moral reasoning to defend political rights. In reverse, we can revise an account
of the basis of dignity by reference to our commitment to certain rights—as
when we move from recognition of rights against the imposition of bodily pain
on people who do not have certain reasoning capacities to a more pluralistic
account of the basis of dignity that is not narrowly centered on rational agency.
It is important to note, to conclude, that this broad account of the basis of
dignity is consistent with recognizing that some components have special
significance for certain purposes. Thus, when present, the capacities for prac-
tical reasoning deserve special deference: it is often wrong to paternalistically
impose on others forms of life they reject, or deprive them of opportunities to
shape the political processes that structure their social opportunities, even if
such impositions would make them experience more pleasure and less pain.
The space of dignitarian reasons is pluralistic but not flat. Considerations based
on certain capacities—such as those enabling self-determination—may have
greater weight than others. This point will become prominent in chapters 9–11,
as we consider specific social and political rights.

8.3. SOLIDARISTIC EMPOWERMENT, THE BRIDGE

PRINCIPLE, AND THE SCHEMA OF JUSTIFICATION

The idea of human dignity helps organize and orient the search for the
grounds and content of human rights. It does so by generating the two tasks

¹⁸ See section 8.7 below.

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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 205

of characterizing status-dignity and condition-dignity. It directs us to identify
the valuable features of human beings in virtue of which they have a universal
normative status and to develop an account of both abstract and specific rights
and duties that state how we should properly respond to those features in
various social circumstances (in which response is called-for because people
face certain threats or difficulties that can feasibly be dissolved or limited at
reasonable cost).
I am proposing in this book a substantive articulation of dignitarian norms
in terms of the ideal of solidaristic empowerment.
Solidaristic empowerment: We should support people in their pursuit of a
flourishing life by fulfilling both negative duties not to destroy or block
their valuable human capacities and positive duties to protect and facilitate
their development and exercise.¹⁹
To act in a “spirit of brotherhood” (UDHR, Art. 1) towards those who have
status-dignity, we should respond to the significance of what gives rise to that
dignity. Whether the valuable features in the basis of dignity are maintained,
developed, or exercised by their holders partly depends on whether other
people treat them in respectful and helpful ways or in harmful or neglectful
ways. Solidaristic empowerment asks that we be ready to support the human
development of other people. Of course, although this is a universalist ideal
involving, in principle, everyone (both as givers and as receivers of human
solidarity), the precise duties and rights that would specify this general
normative project can be fully stated only by looking at various contexts.
We will have to identify specific duties for individuals, corporations, states,
international organizations, and so on. The task is to develop the social
arrangements that would provide the most reasonable implementation of
the ideal in the relevant contexts.
Importantly, the dignitarian perspective helps strengthen arguments for
specific human rights. A common strategy for justifying a human right is to
show that its fulfillment supports important human interests. Unfortunately,
although illuminating and appealing as far as it goes, reference to human
interests is not enough to provide a robust defense of rights. We need more to
claim that the agents who can affect people’s access to the goods catering for
those interests owe them support in gaining and maintaining this access.
There is a logical gap between interests and rights. Moving from the former
to the latter seems to involve a categorial leap from the evaluative to the
deontic. To bridge this gap, we need to mobilize a notion that makes contact
with both ends of it. It must, like rights, be deontic (which here I understand as

¹⁹ I do not claim that every requirement of respect or concern regarding dignity must be
construed in terms of solidaristic empowerment. A flourishing life includes a decent life as it
most urgent part, and human rights often focus on the latter.
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206 Human Dignity and Human Rights

regarding what people ought morally to do); and it must, like interests, be
evaluative (which here I understand as regarding what people have reason to
appreciate, or to want as contributory to their well-being and their autono-
mous functioning). In this section, I argue that the idea of human dignity
provides a bridging notion of the kind we need. By showing that the interests
supported by a right are related to the maintenance or development of some of
the valuable capacities that give rise to human dignity (as status-dignity), the
link between interests and pairs of rights and duties that the interests-based
justificatory strategy invokes is given a more compelling form. The idea of
human dignity enables the move from interest to rights, operating as a
bridging category, because it has both an evaluative component (concerning
the valuable features of the basis of dignity) and a deontic component (con-
cerning the character of status-dignity as comprising rights and duties).
Human rights, as dignitarian norms, specify the requirements flowing from
more fundamental conditional claims that say that human beings have status-
dignity when they have certain valuable features.²⁰
I will now explain how the bridge between interests and rights works. The
account I propose in this section (and the remaining ones in the chapter)
focuses primarily on human rights, but it carries a core that can be extended to
other dignitarian norms and to other rights which are justified by appeal to
important human interests.
When we seek to answer the question “Why do people have rights?” it is
illuminating to refer to people’s dignity, and to the valuable capacities that give
rise to it. But when we do so, we can also find a link to the important interests
that people have. As it turns out, people have important interests in being able
to develop, maintain, and exercise those capacities—interests whose fulfill-
ment generate well-being and autonomous functioning. To articulate this line
of argument involving a link between capacities, dignity, interests, and rights,
I propose the following principle:
Bridge principle: When human individuals have dignity, they have the
deontic status of being owed (reasonable and feasible) support by every
agent who can affect the fulfillment of their interests in being able to
develop, maintain, and exercise the human capacities that give rise to that
dignity. The features in the basis of dignity simultaneously ground status-
dignity, certain interests, and rights to support regarding those interests.²¹

²⁰ On these conditional claims, see chapter 5, section 5.3.2.

²¹ Notice that this principle does not claim that no entitlement can be justified unless it is
based on the interests regarding the support for the capacities grounding the dignity of the
entitlement’s bearer. There may be other sources of entitlement. My focus here is to explain how
justifications of entitlements that invoke interests could succeed. This caveat also applies to the
Schema of Justification.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 207

This principle was briefly mentioned in chapter 5 (section 5.3.2). Let me
explain in more detail its content and role.
The bridge principle links certain important interests with rights via dignity.
The thoughts crystallized in this principle can be reconstructed in terms of a
sequence linking the following points:
• Recognizing and fulfilling human rights (generally)
• Responding appropriately to people’s dignity (as status-dignity)
• Supporting people’s valuable capacities at the basis of their dignity
• Supporting people’s interests in maintaining, developing, and exercising
these capacities
• Recognizing and fulfilling specific human rights that support these inter-
ests and capacities in various relevant contexts (that is, some dignitarian
norms the fulfillment of which constitutes condition-dignity in certain
circumstances of dignity).
The general stance we adopt when we recognize and fulfill rights can be
explained by saying that it constitutes an appropriate response to people’s
status-dignity. When we are asked, “Why do we take people to have human
rights, and treat them accordingly?” it is fitting to answer, “Because that is
what recognizing that they have human dignity amounts to.” That response
can be articulated in terms of the task of supporting the valuable capacities in
virtue of which people have such status-dignity. This support, in turn, can be
enacted by catering for the interests that people have in maintaining, devel-
oping, and exercising these capacities. The autonomous functioning and well-
being people would enjoy when they are treated in this way (or, in other
words, the decent or flourishing life they would thereby be able to achieve)
depends, at least in part, on their having the power to fulfill those interests.²²
The support for people in the fulfillment of these interests can finally be

²² My hypothesis here is that well-being and autonomous functioning (at least in part)
coincide with the development and exercise of the capacities that give rise to human dignity.
Whether we adopt an objectivistic, desire-satisfaction, or hedonistic view of well-being (or some
combination thereof), states of well-being and autonomous functioning are likely to feature in
the conditions protected and promoted by the fulfillment of dignitarian norms. I favor an
objectivistic account according to which well-being involves access to objective intrinsic goods
that include the development and exercise of various valuable human capacities. But success in
this development and exercise might also involve the satisfaction of informed desires of the kind
that desire-satisfaction theories of well-being center on. And, finally, the enjoyment that comes
with these processes are of the kind a hedonistic theory might praise (and might, additionally, be
highlighted by an objectivist theory that takes pleasure as one of the items in its theory of
objective goods—perhaps because of the value of the capacity of sentience or because enjoyment
is constitutive of what it is to develop and exercise capacities well). In turn, autonomous
functioning can be seen as an aspect of well-being, or as a separate constraint generating an
independent interest. Either way, it would be amongst the targets of dignitarian treatment, as it
engages the development of (especially) valuable human capacities for reflection and self-
determination.
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208 Human Dignity and Human Rights

articulated in terms of specific rights and duties in various contexts. But these
requirements specify the general stance mentioned at the outset: they are
dignitarian norms the fulfillment of which would give people the condition-
dignity their status-dignity calls for.
Thus, by deploying the bridge principle, we can provide the additional
argument needed to move from certain interests to rights. We can do so by
linking the interests with the valuable human capacities that ground people’s
status-dignity. The strictures of the proposed dignitarian justification of rights
can be stated, in their most general form, through the following schema:
Schema for dignitarian justification: Moral rights are justified if, and to
the extent that, their fulfillment (through certain institutions and practices)
is either necessary for, or strongly contributes to, the feasible and reason-
able support for important human interests regarding the existence, devel-
opment, and exercise of certain valuable human capacities of the relevant
individuals—the ones grounding human dignity.
Specifically, the robust defense of rights requires identifying the institutions
and practices, the human interests, and the human capacities stated in this
schema in various contexts in which the circumstances of dignity hold. It
involves showing that certain rights are indeed dignitarian norms—that is,
that their fulfillment is either necessary for, or strongly contributory to, the
feasible and reasonable support for important human interests linked to
the valuable human capacities of people in the relevant contexts.
It is beyond the scope of this section to provide a detailed demonstration of
how each putative right is justified. I will consider some cases in chapters 9–11.
My point here is that the appeal to human dignity and solidaristic empower-
ment are fruitful for the defense of human rights (as well as other rights)
because they provide a deontic strengthening of those justifications which
appeal to human interests. By drawing on dignity, we can more easily move
from interests to rights, from the good to the obligatory. The key idea is that
since some important human interests are linked to valuable human capacities
that give rise to status-dignity, responding to status-dignity as solidaristic
empowerment requires would call for taking steps to support the interest
people have regarding the development, maintenance, and exercise of their
capacities. If we do not support the satisfaction of these important human
interests (when we can do so at reasonable cost) it is not just the interests that
are set back. We are also failing to enact proper respect and concern for the
persons who have such interests. The interests are linked to the capacities that
give rise to our duty to enact respect and concern for these persons to begin
with. We cannot enact respect and concern and neglect the interests. What
grounds these interests also grounds rights and duties regarding their support.
Two points in the schema for dignitarian justification need further clarifi-
cation. The first is the reference to what is “either necessary for, or strongly
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 209

contributes to” the human development of right-holders. This formulation is
meant to avoid unduly demanding statements of rights. It might not be strictly
impossible for people to access the object of a right if others do not discharge
correlative duties to support them. For example, people might be able to access
food and other basic necessities through the charity of some private individ-
uals without being granted access to jobs or to governmental assistance in
times of crisis. But since this is not sufficiently likely for all, stating a right
seems appropriate. Furthermore, the fulfillment of the correlative duties might
not completely secure access to the relevant object, but might still be justified
because of the strong contribution that fulfillment would make to that access.²³
Secondly, and relatedly, the reference to support that is “feasible and reason-
able” is meant to recognize some important limits on duties. We discussed
feasibility when outlining the idea of the circumstances of dignity (as well as in
chapter 3). In addition, we must consider not only the interests of a particular
right-holder who is being targeted for support by a duty-bearer, but also the
interests of other right-holders, including the relevant duty-bearer and third
parties. Their rights must also be taken into account. section 8.4 considers how
this holistic assessment might proceed.

8.4. THE ARTICULATION OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES

AND CONTRACTUALISM

What is key for solidaristic empowerment is that duty-bearers take seriously

into account every right-bearer they can affect, by considering how they might
affect their relevant options to lead decent and flourishing lives. How could
they do that? Rights are best seen as correlative to several kinds of obligations.
Because solidaristic empowerment focuses on supporting people’s interests in
the maintenance, development, and exercise of their valuable human capaci-
ties, it is best served by a broad approach to the duties correlative to human
rights. Consider some examples. First, duties correlative to socioeconomic
human rights can be quite general and quite specific. A government may
have a duty to develop some new, more extensive plan of health care for all,
and it may have to make sure that no one is deprived of coverage by whatever
specific plan exists. Second, the duties can be negative and positive. Govern-
ments, and citizens under them, may have to avoid pursuing economic

²³ I add that the schema can be used to provide linkage arguments for human rights. These
arguments are common in the theory of human rights. See Nickel, Making Sense of Human
Rights, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), ch. 5. They indirectly justify some rights by noting that
their fulfillment is necessary for or strongly contributory to the fulfillment of other, independ-
ently justified rights. I will draw on these kinds of arguments in chapters 9 and 10.
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210 Human Dignity and Human Rights

policies that foreseeably create massive unemployment, and they may have to
help create opportunities for employment that do not exist. Third, duties can
be perfect and imperfect. Individuals have a perfect (clearly delineated) duty
not to kill others (with standard exceptions such as self-defense), and they
have imperfect duties to take action to protect others either directly or through
campaigning for new institutions that enhance security.²⁴ Fourth, duties can
be held by governmental or private institutions and by individuals. If Peter can
give emergency assistance to John, who has just had a heart attack while
traveling on the same bus, then he should do it. This duty is complementary
to institutional responsibilities of health care agencies, and it may sometimes
state the only available recourse when such agencies are severely deficient.
Fifth and finally, duties can be agent-relative and agent-neutral. We should not
only refrain from the deprivation, and seek the promotion, of opportunities
for our fellow citizens to avoid destitution. We should also take reasonable
steps to prevent the destitution of members of other societies. In all these cases
the animating thought is the same. The importance of supporting every
human being’s human interests in the maintenance, development, and exer-
cise of their valuable capacities can give rise to multiple reasonable responses.
As Amartya Sen has put it, there is a general duty to “give reasonable
consideration” to possible action fostering people’s capabilities.²⁵ The deter-
mination of what specific actions this duty might generate depends on many
factors and should not be corseted by any narrow view about the kinds of
duties mentioned above.
What is central according to the dignitarian ideal of solidaristic empower-
ment is that we respond in appropriate ways to the dignitarian interests of
each person affected by the issue we are considering. I will now suggest one
way in which we can develop this approach (and in particular the Scheme of
Dignitarian Justification stated in section 8.3) by adopting a contractualist
framework for the justification of rights.
Moral contractualism, in its Scanlonian version, is the view that in deter-
mining how to act we should follow the principles that no one could reason-
ably reject as a basis for informed, unforced, general agreement.²⁶ Four key
features of “reasonable rejection” are these. It is comparative: a principle is
justified by showing that the objections to it are no stronger than the

²⁴ See note 2 above.

²⁵ Amartya Sen, “Elements of a Theory of Human Rights,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 32
(2004), 315–56, at 319, 321–2, 338–42, 346–7.
²⁶ T. M. Scanlon, What We Owe To Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
1998), 153. The features of reasonable rejection I proceed to mention are outlined in ch. 5 of
Scanlon’s book. The following five paragraphs draw on Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to
Global Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), sect. 2.6; and “The Capability
Approach and the Debate Between Humanist and Political Perspectives on Human Rights.
A Critical Survey,” Human Rights Review 14 (2013), 299–325, 311–14.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 211

objections to relevant alternatives. It proceeds from individuals’ standpoints: a
principle is rejected by showing that it imposes unacceptable burdens on
individuals to whom it applies. It appeals to “generic reasons”: when we
consider how individuals would be affected by a principle, we focus on reasons
that any individual facing similar circumstances should accept. Finally, it is
pluralistic: a principle may be rejected by appeal to various kinds of consid-
erations, such as well-being, autonomy, fairness, and responsibility. Contrac-
tualist justification is an appropriate response to the moral status or dignity of
human beings: to relate to them on the basis of principles they could not
reasonably reject is a way to express and elaborate our view of them as ends in
themselves.²⁷
Contractualism can be fruitfully used to articulate dignitarian arguments for
rights. Judgments about interests linked to important human capacities pro-
vide input in the formulation of generic reasons that human rights principles
articulate. Those principles state requirements to support people in the fulfill-
ment of their dignitarian interests. These judgments also supply what is
necessary to formulate the substantive aim of human rights as requiring the
achievement of condition-dignity. Condition-dignity is the aimed-at state in
which people treat each other in such a way that their dignitarian interests are
properly supported. Finally, contractualism provides a framework to process
the input regarding human interests when reasoning our way to human rights
principles. The four features mentioned above cohere well with key features of
the dignitarian account as developed in this book. In particular, contractual-
ism is helpful in the development of the dignitarian account because it
illuminates the perspective of contributors besides that of beneficiaries of
contributions to human rights fulfillment and because it is capacious when
it comes to capturing the various considerations that might be relevant for
justifying rights. Thus, when assessing a candidate for a human rights norm,
we consider what its fulfillment would look like from the point of view of every
individual affected. And, adopting these perspectives, we consider how any of
the relevant generic reasons is engaged, selecting the principles that on balance
do the best job at catering for these reasons.
As developed by Scanlon, contractualism is a general theory of moral right
and wrong. But it can be tightened to frame reasoning about rights. Let me
propose the following general schema for justifying rights: A (a right-holder)
has a right to O (an object) against B (a duty-bearer) just in case there are

²⁷ Scanlon, What We Owe To Each Other, 103–7. Scanlon’s contractualism has some affinity
with Immanuel Kant’s so-called Realm of Ends formulation of the categorical imperative in
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (in Kant, Practical Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996; Ak 4:439). Kantian contractualism and Scanlonian contractualism are
illuminatingly discussed in Derek Parfit, On What Matters (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2011), vol. 1, sects. 52–3. See also Pablo Gilabert, “Kant and the Claims of the Poor,” Philosophy
and Phenomenological Research 81 (2010), 382–418.
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212 Human Dignity and Human Rights

feasible and reasonable demands on B that B support, in some significant ways
to be specified, A’s access to O. The specification of what B owes to
A regarding O tracks the moral importance of A’s interest in O, the feasible
ways for B to support A’s access to O, and the subset of such feasible forms of
support that do not involve morally unacceptable burdens on B or others
(given the importance of their own interests) and on A (given the importance
of other interests of A besides that concerning access to O). Further normative
considerations (for example, regarding responsibility and fairness), and feasi-
bility considerations (for example, concerning progressive fulfillment over
time) are also relevant, and considerations specific to human rights (such as
their global scope and high priority) should be added. Contractualist reason-
ing is helpful in identifying the importance and content of each of these
considerations in various contexts.
As an example, consider the important human interest in having bodily
health, and a putative human right to it. In any social context agents will have
very strong reasons to value access to some healthy functionings, and there
will normally be some feasible and reasonable ways to help others maintain or
gain them. There is an abstract right to assistance regarding health. The
determination of appropriate mechanisms of assistance is a matter of specific
rights in specific contexts. Thus, in the contemporary world, some forms of
assistance are infeasible even though pro tanto desirable. Many, perhaps most,
have reason to be able to choose whether they live indefinitely. But no one can
deliver for anyone the conditions for such a choice. Other forms of assistance
might be feasible, but might not be the subject of a reasonable demand.
Perhaps some very expensive forms of medical treatment that could extend
the life of those with cancer for a short period of time could be freely offered to
most adults with cancer but only at the cost of serious public disinvestment in
other areas of crucial concern, such as elementary education or other forms of
health care (such as prenatal care or assistance to children facing life-
threatening conditions). In those cases, it might be reasonable to reject a
claim that there is a specific human right to the expensive medical assistance
mentioned. Some forms of basic medical assistance, however, will certainly be
reasonable to demand. In this way, contractual reasoning helps us account for
the urgency of human rights claims.²⁸

²⁸ As we move from abstract to specific rights, we can make increasing room for contextual
diversity. Conceptions of healthy functioning may vary across persons and cultures, and thus the
specific articulation of human rights regarding health may vary too. Of course, some variations
may track conventions that are not themselves reasonable (as when the health care of boys is
deemed more important than that of girls). But other cultural patterns may be acceptable,
embodying an autonomous choice by agents living in specific circumstances that is consistent
with the application of justified abstract rights. A contractualist framework is open and in fact
attuned to diversity, while it also helps frame conditions on its appropriate content.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 213

Additional considerations, such as fairness, help us develop further the
account of the relevant rights. If Alberto needs help to gain bodily health, and
can get it from Bob and Carol, in principle it would be best if Bob and Carol do
part of what is needed to help Alberto, not all of it. But if Carol chooses not to
help Alberto, Bob might end up having to do a lot to help Alberto (if the badness
of Alberto’s need is morally more significant than the badness of Bob shoul-
dering more than his fair share to help Alberto). Given the possibility, and
indeed the likelihood, of this kind of situation, it is a good idea to set up
institutions that impose penalties on agents like Carol who fail to do their fair
share in helping others like Alberto. Where these institutions are in place,
recipients’ interest in being helped and contributors’ interest in not having to
do more than their fair share are protected. This is one reason why the
development of welfare states involved a clear improvement when compared
to earlier mechanisms of private charity, and why one of the common properties
of human rights is that they should often be pursued by political means. The
additional consideration of responsibility for harm done would also help in
further developing our account of rights. If one of two agents is, and the other is
not, causally responsible in a blameworthy way for the deprivations of a third
agent, then there is reason to believe that the first agent has stronger, or more
extensive, duties than the second to remedy the condition of the third. Thus,
generic reasons other than the importance of well-being are significant, and are
explicitly in view in contractualist reasoning about rights.
To avoid misunderstanding, I note that I am not claiming that there is a
necessary connection between dignitarianism and moral contractualism. Con-
tractualism seems to me useful and natural if one accepts dignitarianism, but
the former is not implied by the latter, and it is the latter that is taken as basic
here. Although I find the alliance between dignitarianism and contractualism
fruitful, I present it here merely as a suggestion. I admit that a full defense of it
requires further work.
A dignitarian approach identifies certain valuable features of certain entities
and takes them to ground the status-dignity of those entities and to inform the
rights and duties whose fulfillment constitutes the entities’ condition-dignity.
This is what the schema for dignitarian justification from section 8.3 requires.
But such an approach is incomplete in the absence of an explanation of how
we can move from listing the features making up the basis of dignity to
identifying the norms stating the dignitarian rights and duties. The deploy-
ment of moral contractualism helps in this task. Contractualism may be
understood as an operationalization of dignitarianism in the domain of
human morality.²⁹ Dignitarianism and contractualism go well together in at

²⁹ I am not saying that this is the only way of understanding it, or that it has been so
understood by others—although there are elements in Scanlon’s work that point in this direc-
tion, I do not want to present these remarks as an exegetical proposal.
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214 Human Dignity and Human Rights

least the following ways. First, organizing our moral reasoning by considering
what others could reasonably accept or reject is to take up the perspective of
other people as intrinsically significant, and to treat them as ends in them-
selves in virtue of (inter alia) their capacities to be rational and reasonable.
This shows respect and concern for their dignity. Second, dignitarian consid-
erations may enter as inputs in contractualist reasoning, in the identification
of “generic reasons” to be explored and articulated in norms. We could
reasonably reject principles by referring to the fact that their general accept-
ance, or observance, would block the development or exercise of people’s
valuable capacities that form the basis of their dignity, or because it would
fail to foster them appropriately. Third, given its holistic and comparative
nature, contractualist reasoning helps us consider the relations between vari-
ous dignitarian considerations, exploring their relative weight and their inter-
action. Contractualism also allows moral reasoning to mobilize considerations
about fairness, responsibility, and feasibility, which often bear on what pre-
scriptions are justifiable. Thus, in a slogan, we can say that dignitarianism
helps show the substantive normative point of contractualism, and contrac-
tualism helps organize the justification of dignitarian norms.
An interesting phenomenon in ethical reasoning is that we can hold several
theories of normative ethics simultaneously, and organize them into nested
sets.³⁰ In my case, I hold two such theories. One of them is contractualism.
I find it quite helpful in the task of assessing principles of right conduct. But
when I think about what gives rise to the multiple generic reasons used to
support our rejection or acceptance of normative principles, or to articulate
their content, I need to draw on another theory. My preferred such theory is
dignitarianism as a form of reflection theory (presented in section 8.1 above).
Thus, in the case of human beings, we can say that one should respond
appropriately to their ability to reason prudentially and morally, cooperate,
have sentience, and so on. The generic reasons used to justify moves within
contractualist reasoning appeal to these type of responses, and the contrac-
tualist framework helps manage their relations, to identify their relative
weight or the ways they might support, constraint, or intensify each other.
Dignitarianism also helps us argue for the significance of contractualism itself.
Contractualism is appealing precisely because it provides a fruitful way to
organize our inquiry into how to appropriately respond to the dignity of each
human being.³¹
This two-tiered approach is helpful to develop an account of human rights.
The idea of human dignity engages the reflective part, and the articulation of

³⁰ Kagan, Normative Ethics, 298–9.

³¹ It seems to me that Scanlon himself engages in in this kind of exercise when he presents
contractualism as responding to the value of rational life (see What We Owe to Each Other, 106).
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 215

rights the contractualist part. Status-dignity gives rise (in certain circum-
stances) to the human rights project. The contents of that project involve
asserting certain rights and correlative duties. When we articulate these rights
and duties we aim at realizing condition-dignity (the condition in which
human rights are fulfilled). The identification of rights is done by considering
what reasonable and feasible claims human beings in different contexts can
make on each other. The contractualist approach fruitfully frames this exercise
by asking us to adopt the standpoint of the people affected to identify the
reasons they might have for accepting or rejecting alternative normative
proposals.

8.5. DIGNITARIANISM AND E THICAL PLURALISM

Ethical pluralism is the view that there are various fundamental moral norms.
It is opposed to ethical monism, the view that there is only one fundamental
moral norm. Act consequentialism (which holds that an act is right just in case
it would make things go best) is a typical example of ethical monism. David
Ross’s ethics of prima facie duties is an example of ethical pluralism.³² Ross
argues that there are some (in his list, seven) prima facie duties each of which
has permanent ethical importance, cannot be justified by reference to more
basic norms, and is not absolute but may legitimately conflict with the others
(so that all-things-considered, or final, duties must be identified for any
circumstance in which conflict arises).
Dignitarianism, as developed in the previous sections of this chapter,
involves ethical plurality in three ways. First, in the human domain, the
basis of status-dignity includes various valuable features of human beings.
Unlike narrower views, such as Kant’s, which focus only on rational agency,
dignitarianism can recognize that other features such as sentience may be of
crucial and irreducible significance. This plurality regarding the capacities
making up the basis of dignity generates a second, related plurality concerning
interests and reasons regarding the support for such capacities. Third, and as a
result of the first two points, dignitarianism recognizes multiple dignitarian
norms articulating what forms of respect and concern are owed to human
beings (including for example various civil, political, and social rights). We can
identify a set of pro tanto (or prima facie) rights and duties demanding
support for the existence, development, and exercise of certain valuable
capacities that human persons have. These norms could be justified intuitively,

³² David Ross, The Right and the Good (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1930).
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216 Human Dignity and Human Rights

showing, via examination of cases, that they explain our judgments about what
to think and do in a wide range of significant cases.
However, dignitarianism is not a form of ethical pluralism as defined above.
It takes one principle, the dignitarian principle that each entity ought to be
treated in a way appropriate to its inherent dignity, as the single basic norm.
Of course, one cannot deduce logically from that principle any statement of
the various components of the basis of dignity, or any statement of the various
dignitarian norms targeting condition-dignity.³³
The relation between fundamental general principles in ethics and more
specific norms is not one of deduction, but one of expression and elaboration.
We must conduct ourselves in a way that expresses our recognition and effort
to honor the principles in our thought and action. And we elaborate the
principles by articulating specific ways in which they can be applied. The
elaboration is a substantive exercise that proceeds by appeal to experience,
imagination, and reflection. We develop an elaboration of a principle by
reflecting on various practical problems (in which threats and opportunities
regarding the support for persons’ valuable features is engaged), imagining
more or less specific ways for agents to enact a proper (desirable and feasible)
response to the inherent dignity of persons in the relevant circumstances and
situations under consideration. We revise our views as we go on. For example,
we can start with a narrow view of dignitarianism in human affairs as
requiring respect and promotion of people’s rational agency. But then we
notice that this does not illuminate our reactions to people who are not
capable of rational agency. We still think that they have inherent dignity
and that it would be an affront to them, for example, if we chose to gratuit-
ously cause them pain. On reflection, we decide to expand our view of the basis
of the dignity of human beings to include the capacity to feel pain, and
acknowledge additional dignitarian norms for our relations with people who
have this capacity. We have entertained this kind of expansion in section 8.2.
In the human domain, the dignitarian principle would involve something
like this imperative: “Act in ways that involve an appropriate response to the
inherent dignity of human persons, giving them the respect and concern that
is their due.” This principle identifies a high-level, right-making property of
some acts (their being such that they involve an appropriate response to
status-dignity). It subsumes, or gathers, lower-level right-making properties

³³ In this way, I think, dignitarianism functions in a way similar to Kant’s so-called Formula
of Humanity of the categorical imperative (which enjoins you to “act so that you use humanity,
whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never
merely as a means”). Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals (in Kant, Practical
Philosophy; Ak 4:429). This principle requires that we avoid treating people with indifference
and in merely instrumental ways, and also that we give them positive telic treatment. But what
appropriate treatment of these kinds amounts to is open to interpretive specification. See Allen
Wood, Kant’s Ethical Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1999), ch. 5.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 217

(which identify norms of respect and concern, or specific instances of them).³⁴
The latter state how the features making up the basis of dignity should be
engaged (via preservation rather than destruction, protection or promotion
rather than indifference, and so on). This articulation in turn can be developed
further through contractualist reasoning. As explained in section 8.4, we
can reasonably reject principles on the basis that their general acceptance,
or observance, would block the development or exercise of valuable
capacities that form the basis of dignity, or because it would fail to foster
them appropriately.
The reader might be curious about my metaethical commitments. Although
I do not hold distinctive views in this philosophical area, and I think that the
normative claims made in this book are probably compatible with different
metaethical views, I will briefly state my current metaethical beliefs and relate
them to the normative picture I have just outlined.
What is the status of dignitarian normative propositions? They say, at
bottom, that it is wrong to treat entities in ways that fail to respond appro-
priately to their inherent dignity. I suppose it is possible to view dignitarian
propositions through various metaethical lenses. They could be seen as not
aiming at truth. An example of this non-cognitivist construal would be some
expressivist view according to which dignitarian propositions are used to
express certain conative attitudes on the part of the speaker (certain feelings,
commitments, plans, etc.). Secondly, they could be construed as making truth
claims that have only subjective status. They could be said to hold for certain
agents (either individual or collective) only if they can be derived from basic
commitments they happen to hold. Alternatively, dignitarian normative pro-
positions could be seen as intended to affirm objective truths. These affirm-
ations could be taken to be false if we hold some error theory. On this, fourth,
view, dignitarian discourse systematically tries, but fails, to capture normative
properties or facts (because these properties or facts simply don’t exist).
Finally, dignitarian propositions could be seen as sometimes succeeding if
we hold some form of ethical objectivism. Ethical objectivism is the metaethi-
cal view according to which there are some ethical truths that hold independ-
ently of any desires, beliefs, or other attitudes of agents.
My own intuitions lead me to embrace the last, objectivist approach. The
expressivist approach fails to capture the phenomenology of ethical deliber-
ation and argument. When we examine some dignitarian norm or judgment,
we primarily assess claims about what is valuable in some entity and about
what is owed to it, not reports of our feelings (or other attitudes) about it. We
justify the feelings by appeal to the normative status of the entity, not the other
way around. Subjectivist views fail to capture the fact that we hold our beliefs

³⁴ On higher- and lower-level right- or wrong-making properties, see Parfit, On What

Matters, vol. 1, 369, 414–15, 476. Parfit applies this point to contractualism.
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218 Human Dignity and Human Rights

and deep commitments (individual or collective) to be revisable on the basis
of whether they properly track the dignity of the entities we respond to. There
is a difference between believing, or holding, something to be valuable or
obligatory and its being so. The latter is the ground of the former, not the
other way around. Finally, although an error theory might in the end be
correct, this would require compelling argument. It cannot be the default
position. For example, the supporting argument could not be that only
empirical propositions about natural properties can be objectively true. This
would rule out mathematical truths, and even the very judgment that only
empirical propositions describing natural properties or facts can be objectively
true (as this proposition is not itself empirical). I endorse the view Parfit calls
“Non-Metaphysical Non-Naturalist Normative Cognitivism,” according to
which “[t]here are some claims that are irreducibly normative in the reason-
involving sense, and are in a strong sense true. These truths have no
ontological implications. For such claims to be true, it need not be true that
reason-involving properties exist either as natural properties in the spatio-
temporal world, or in some non-spatio-temporal part of reality.”³⁵ Dignitarian
propositions deeming some types of acts obligatory, claiming that some
features of some entities are valuable, or taking such valuable features as
grounding status-dignity, are irreducibly normative claims. They do not
function like claims of empirical science. Their point is not to report what
we believe, feel, or do. They are substantive ethical claims about reasons to
value, respect, protect, help develop, etc., certain entities that have certain
features. Their point is to identify reasons for wanting, or choosing, to act in
certain ways. For example, when we say that the fact that human beings can
form autonomous judgments about political matters gives us reason to
grant them political rights to participate in the political process that shapes
their life-prospects, we are not describing how we actually treat people with
the feature mentioned. We are making a normative claim about how we
should treat them.

8.6. DIGNITARIANISM AND CRITICAL THEORY

Some might ask: “Aren’t the alleged natural and evaluative facts about the
basis of dignity merely the creatures of some individuals’ beliefs, reflecting
their parochial cultural or personal prejudices or, perhaps, quite general
cognitive limits of human beings’ mental powers?” These are significant
worries.

³⁵ Derek Parfit, On What Matters, vol. 2, p. 21. See also T. M. Scanlon, Being Realistic About
Reasons (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 219

Regarding personal and cultural parochialism, we can counter them
through reflection, experience, and debate. Moral and political inquiry is an
open-ended practice. Part of the dignitarian outlook must thus be a critical
theory of dignitarian thought, which seeks to illuminate the best methods and
procedures to counter narrowness of mind. In the case of human rights, it is
especially important that we pursue discursive engagement with distant others
whose interests we might affect. We should create dignitarian forums in which
everyone’s capacity for normative judgment is recognized and can be engaged.
We can thus add a third tier to the sequence of nested normative views
presented in section 8.4 that includes something like what Habermas’s dis-
course ethics calls for: the search for principles that are the subject of agree-
ment amongst those affected in actual argumentation (which sufficiently
displays desirable characteristics such as inclusiveness, sincerity, non-
coercion, and equal participation rights).³⁶ International debates could help
notice and critically assess prejudices which people have acquired as a result of
being socialized in certain cultural and social contexts, such as the intense
possessive and competitive individualism assumed by some people in capital-
ist societies, or certain forms of oppressive collectivism embraced in deeply
hierarchical social environments.³⁷ International diversity is of course coupled
with domestic diversity, as most societies are multicultural and shaped histor-
ically by interaction with other societies (through trade, colonialism, imperi-
alism, migration, and current processes of economic globalization). So
domestic debate is also likely to provide an illuminating critical exercise. For
example, people in industrialized capitalist societies in North America could
learn from ethical outlooks held by members of indigenous peoples that
robustly articulate caring concern for future generations of human beings
and also for the life and well-being of non-human animals.³⁸ These debates

³⁶ See Jürgen Habermas, Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action (Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press, 1990). In my view, discourse ethics lies downstream from contractualism
because actual agreement is best seen as a proxy for what we think, at a certain moment, to be
what everyone could or would reasonably accept or not reject. The fact of agreement does not do
ultimate justificatory work; instead it tracks hypothetical agreement (which—if dignitarianism is
indeed the fundamental basis of justification—in turn tracks the appropriate responses to what is
valuable in persons in the relevant circumstances).
³⁷ A defender of discourse ethics does not only criticize societies in which individuals are
sacrificed for the sake of “communal integrity.” It also criticizes the atomistic individualism so
common in the capitalist West, which denies the importance of intersubjective practices of
justification, or misconstrues them as strategic bargaining among instrumentally oriented self-
interest maximizers. See Jürgen Habermas, The Postnational Constellation (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 2001), 125–6. See further Pablo Gilabert, “Cosmopolitanism and Discourse Ethics:
A Critical Survey,” New Political Science 28 (2006), 1–21; Seyla Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity:
Human Rights in Troubled Times (Cambridge: Polity, 2011); and Jeffrey Flynn, Reframing the
Intercultural Dialogue on Human Rights (New York: Routledge, 2014).
³⁸ Lars Kirkhusmo Pharo, “Human Dignity in Indigenous Peoples of the Americas,” in
M. Düwell, J. Braarvig, R. Brownsword, and D. Mieth, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of
Human Dignity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 147–54; Linda Clarkson,
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220 Human Dignity and Human Rights

would exhibit the expression and elaboration called for in section 8.5, in which
people join each other in respectful dialogue aimed at exploring, together,
what their dignity calls for in various social contexts.³⁹ The debate called for
may reveal a great deal of unity in diversity. Human dignity is after all a widely
resonant value.⁴⁰ But disagreements will remain at various levels of justifica-
tion and application, and it is important to have fair procedures in place that
people can use to process these disagreements over time as they develop their
shared domestic and international practices and institutions. The third, dis-
cursive tier of the dignitarian view entertained here offers precisely that
procedure.
In contrast, when it comes to species’ parochialism we may face an unsur-
passable limit. We cannot inquire about status- and condition-dignity from a
non-human point of view, with non-human minds. Perhaps beings with more
sophisticated brains than ours would be able to capture the norms of dignity
better than we can. There is then a second sense in which dignitarianism must
be critical. In addition to unleashing the power of our ethical reasoning and
inquiry (including the revision of our beliefs through discussion with others),
it should acknowledge its limits. Of course, we cannot sharply trace the limits,
for that would require knowing what lies beyond them (which is precisely
what we cannot do). But we can develop a sense of humility.⁴¹ There could be
more to dignity than what human minds can grasp.⁴²

Morrissette Vern, and Gabriel Regallet, Our Responsibility to the Seventh Generation: Indigenous
Peoples and Sustainable Development. (Winnipeg: International Institute for Sustainable Devel-
opment, 1992). On the complex and fluid nature of cultural views within diverse contemporary
societies, and the importance of a discursive ethics to frame debates within them, see Seyla
Benhabib, The Claims of Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002). Everyone
should be open to criticism. But given a history of domination and oppression, it is especially
important for mainstream voices to be open to learning from marginalized ones. I thank Rowan
Cruft for discussion on this point.
³⁹ On how practices of public reasoning can be understood as mediums of expressive
elaboration of substantive values, see Pablo Gilabert, “A Substantivist Construal of Discourse
Ethics,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 13 (2005), 405–37; and “The Substantive
Dimension of Deliberative Practical Rationality,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 31 (2005),
185–210.
⁴⁰ For a survey of its articulation across cultures and historical time, see Düwell et al., eds., The
Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity.
⁴¹ These two senses of critical reflection (one emboldening, the other humbling) are well
captured in Immanuel Kant’s program of critical philosophy in his Critique of Pure Reason
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). The third point (about ideology critique)
reflects critical theory’s characteristic efforts to illuminate the “contingency of common sense”
and certain “pathologies of normalcy.” See, respectively, Sally Haslanger, Resisting Reality
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 4; Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (Greenwich, CT:
Fawcett, 1955), 15.
⁴² If we could change human nature, should we do so? What changes should we make? These
questions are unsettling for natural law theory (or at any rate for the versions of it that commit
the naturalist fallacy). It does not help much to say that right actions and institutions are to be
identified by reference to human nature when what we are trying to figure out is what human
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 221

A third way in which dignitarianism must adopt a critical stance concerns
ideology. In general, an ideology is a framework people use to understand their
relation to the world, including their social relations. In a more restricted
sense, on which I focus here, an ideology supports a social order whose
operative norms (the ones that are as a matter of fact dominant and deployed
to defend the existing distributions of decision-making power, material ad-
vantages, and other goods and conditions) benefit some individuals or groups
at the expense of others. In this broadly Marxian sense, ideologies tend to
portray as being in the general interest what is in fact in the particular interest
of only some members of society (such as the members of its ruling class).
A theory of human dignity should include a critique of ideology. Ideologies
often present as essential to social life, or as unavoidable in some social
context, what is in fact only a historically contingent feature that can be
changed. Some views of dignity may be ideological constructs that present
the particular as general, or the contingent as necessary, and in the process
entrench practices and institutions that avoidably and unduly benefit some at
the expense of others.
Consider, for example, the idea of the “dignity of labor.”⁴³ Historically, this
idea has been used to cast the situation of workers in hierarchical societies in
which they are severely exploited, dominated, and oppressed, as being worthy
of esteem and respect. Workers are praised for, and hectored into, “doing their
part” in creating society’s wealth. The ideological maneuver here is to combine
a moderate valorization of the productive efforts of workers with an affirm-
ation of the social order that pushes them into a condition in which they are
subordinated to, and achieve fewer advantages than, those who hire them (and
whose “part” and “rewards” in the social structure are misconstrued as
necessary and deserved). To respond to this maneuver, a critique of ideology
can show that workers have important human interests that are in fact set back

nature should be like. These questions are less of a threat to dignitarianism because it can be
construed as responding to valuable features of entities that are either already existing or
feasible to create. A dignitarian recommendation in the treatment of an entity may be to help
it become different from what it currently is. These questions are heuristically rich, and may
become immediately practical due to scientific and technological developments. Consider, e.g.,
the debates over “posthumanist” and “transhumanist” proposals regarding the “enhancement”
of human nature through biotechnology. See Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, eds., Human
Enhancement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009); Allen Buchanan, “Moral Status and
Human Enhancement,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 37 (2009), 346–81; Martin Weiss, “Posthuman
Dignity,” in Düwell et al., eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity, 319–31.
⁴³ See the illuminating historical discussion in Michael Rosen, Dignity (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 2012), 47–54. For further discussion on dignity and labor, see chapters
9 and 11 of this book, and Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According To
Their Abilities, To Each According To Their Needs’,” Journal of Social Philosophy 46 (2015),
197–225.
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222 Human Dignity and Human Rights

by a social order in which they face avoidable alienation, exploitation, or
domination. Their capacities for meaningful and cooperative work, and their
equal standing and needs as human beings, are not given a fair response in
such circumstances. Furthermore, the critic can point out that there are
background inequalities in resources and bargaining power that enable the
cornering of workers into their subordinate and disadvantaged position, and
that these inequalities are the historical creature of social institutions that
could actually be changed. Through this critique of ideological views, talk of
dignity can move from consolation and cultural discipline to the illumination
of injustices of the existing social order and the articulation of ideals that point
beyond it. A critical dignitarian perspective would insist that some undesirable
facts of current social life (such as the background inequalities in power and
resources) are changeable rather than inescapable, and affirm dynamic duties
to transform them so that more just arrangements are created.
Another example of dignitarian ideology critique is to target the construal
of dignity as individuals’ independence. It is not uncommon to present
independence (and with it dignity) as a function of self-reliance and self-
sufficiency. This view helps reproduce unfair relations of production, ex-
change, and distribution. It encourages the advantaged to see their privileges
as their own achievement and the disadvantaged to blame themselves for their
bleaker condition. It encourages all to eschew mutual help. This ideology has
traction partly because it mobilizes, and twists, some genuine norms and
ideals. By separating the conventional, ideological norms from the justified,
genuine ones, we can criticize the former on the basis of the latter. Thus, we
can distinguish independence and self-reliance from autonomy and empower-
ment, and notice that a society that pursues the former would hamper the
latter. Fostering autonomy and empowerment requires solidarity towards
those in need. We can criticize norms that cement indifference to the interest
of others, or compulsive competition, because under them people do not have
as much power to control their lives as they would in an alternative, more
solidaristic, environment.
As argued in this book, human rights discourse offers a compelling example
of how to pursue both empowerment and solidaristic support. It embraces
empowerment, for example, by recognizing that people have strong political
rights to shape the governmental institutions that structure their social life (see
UDHR, Arts. 20–1), and by requiring that if they work, people do so only on
jobs they choose, while having the entitlement to form and join unions to
defend themselves against abuses by their employers (UDHR, Art. 23).
Human rights practice embraces solidaristic support, for example, by stating
many positive rights to access education, housing, nutrition, and cultural
goods (UDHR, Arts. 25–8). This palette of requirements of solidaristic em-
powerment flows from an understanding of human dignity that responds to,
and recruits, people’s capacities for self-determination, cooperation, and
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 223

compassionate aid. The reference to people’s reason, conscience, and the
ability to act in a spirit of brotherhood (UDHR, Art. 1) can be interpreted as
recognizing these capacities. To concentrate on their development and exer-
cise makes normative sense once we see that the circumstances of dignity
feature human beings not only as agents with initiative but also as patients
who are multiply vulnerable.
Solidaristic empowerment involves an understanding of dignity that avoids
the ideal of independence as self-sufficiency or self-reliance. As discussed in
previous chapters, that ideal is infeasible and undesirable. It is infeasible
because human beings are extremely unlikely to achieve a decent or flourish-
ing life without extensive help from others. During childhood, old age, illness,
or unemployment, people are unavoidably at the mercy of others. The ideal of
independence is also undesirable because it fosters a callous moral culture that
makes those who are helped feel ashamed and those who help feel guilty. This
ideological culture turns the virtues of solidarity into vices, and the vices of
possessive individualism into virtues. By contrast, solidaristic empowerment
calls for supporting others when they are vulnerable. It engages important
human capacities (which give rise to status-dignity) to freely pursue, and help
others to freely achieve, a decent or flourishing life.⁴⁴
Let me conclude this section with a remark about the importance of critical
self-awareness when it comes to power relationships. One of Michel Foucault’s
insights about power is that it has a constitutive effect on agents, that it
changes and shapes them. For example, Foucault makes a distinction between
“subjection” and other types of asymmetric relationships. What is specific
about subjection is that through it subjects’ identity is constituted and affirmed
in the power relationships.⁴⁵ This point is relevant for human rights practice.
Such a practice arguably defends people from many forms of power abuse. But
it also makes them see themselves in a certain way. Specifically, people come to
see themselves as members of a universal human community that is different
from, and in some respects normatively prior to, more circumscribed identities
of country, class, and ethnicity. Now, a suspicion that Foucault teaches us to
cultivate is that as a practice may come to respond to certain undesirable power
relations, it may also enable new ones. This may be the case with the univer-
salist identity that human rights practice nurtures. It may make some people
more available for some forms of control by other agents who are more

⁴⁴ A third possible example of ideology critique is to target the common assumption that
human rights must be premised on acceptance of the modern system of states. This takes as
parametric what is historically contingent. Human rights need not take states (and the inequal-
ities between human beings living in different states) as part of the circumstances, as opposed to
the much more contingent situations, of dignity. See chapter 2 of this book.
⁴⁵ Michel Foucault, “The Subject of Power,” in Foucault, Power, ed. J. Faubion (New York:
The New Press, 2000), 326–48, at 331.
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224 Human Dignity and Human Rights

powerful. For example, a military intervention in another country that is
actually motivated by interests in economic exploitation might be effectively
presented as justified by characterizing it as an act of protection or liberation
of fellow human beings who suffer mistreatment in the country being
invaded (for example, if the people in that country are ruled by a bloody
dictatorship). Of course, this point does not warrant the rejection of univer-
salist human rights discourse and practice. Instead, the lesson is that one has
to be aware that this discourse and practice (like any other) comes with risks.
It is part of what in chapter 5 I called dignitarian virtue to develop an
awareness of these risks and proper judgments about how to handle them.
If the circumstances or situations of dignity include power asymmetries that
cannot be fully eliminated, or if solidaristic empowerment will sometimes
not recommend such complete elimination, then a critical exploration of
the uses of surplus power is essential. The discussion of power and human
rights offered in chapters 4 and 7 should be read as proposing an exploration
of this kind.

8.7. DIGNITARIANISM AS A THEORETICAL

A ND P R ACTICA L PRO GR AM

Dignitarianism is a theoretical and practical program. It outlines a perspective

on how to figure out what are agents’ appropriate normative responses to
various entities they may encounter and affect in diverse practical contexts.
I have focused on humanist dignitarianism, which centers on human relations,
taking human rights as the exemplary set of dignitarian norms. The compo-
nents of the dignitarian program can be elaborated in theoretical inquiry
(in philosophy and social sciences) and tested indirectly in practice (through
institutional experimentation and in day-to-day interpersonal interactions).
In this book, I propose (in chapters 5 and 6) an understanding of the
main dignitarian concepts and (in this chapter and chapter 7) a substantive
agenda of dignitarian justice formulated in terms of the ideal of solidaristic
empowerment.
We can see the dignitarian program as including at least the following
components:
(i) A theory of value that identifies the basis of dignity (the grounds of
status-dignity).
(ii) A theory of right conduct and institutions that articulates dignitarian
norms for individuals and social structures, and the corresponding
forms of condition-dignity.
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The Dignitarian Approach as a Program 225

(iii) A theory of virtue and the related moral psychology that illuminates
the emotional and intellectual dispositions that would lead agents to
grasp and honor dignitarian values and norms.
(iv) An account of feasibility that explores what might make various pur-
ported dignitarian norms implementable and more or less likely to be
fulfilled in various social contexts.
Of course, each of these components can be elaborated in different ways. As
a result, the dignitarian program could be developed into various dignitarian
theories.⁴⁶ Furthermore, the dignitarian norms the theories would articulate
can be more or less abstract, and address more or less immediate problems.
Three key dimensions of these theories would be the following:
DI: The most general and basic dignitarian ideas and principles (such as
the ideal of solidaristic empowerment and the most abstract human
rights).
DII: The implementation of the ideas and principles from DI in certain
contexts by means of certain specific institutions or practices (such
as those required by specific civil, political, and socioeconomic
human rights).
DIII: The processes of political transformation that would get certain
agents from where they are to a situation in which the implemen-
tations envisaged in DII are realized (when this has not already been
achieved).
Each of these dimensions will involve a combination of formulations engaging
each of the four components (i)–(iv) mentioned above. An important chal-
lenge is to figure out how the different moving parts of a dignitarian theory
might be developed so as to support each other and constitute a coherent,
systematic framework that can clarify and orient our normative practices. The
method of deliberative reflective equilibrium is a valuable tool to use as we
pursue this task and try to reach—introspectively and in dialogue with each
other—all-things-considered judgments about the acceptability of a dignitar-
ian conception of justice (or of some part of justice). Thus, in this book I have
offered the reader an exploration of human rights that engages DI–DIII
simultaneously, and have been seeking to outline a dignitarian conception in
which our various beliefs stand in deliberative reflective equilibrium.⁴⁷

⁴⁶ To understand this, we can use Imre Lakatos’s idea of a research program, and think of
programs as involving some core ideas that can be elaborated through sequences of different
theories. See Lakatos, “Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes,”
in I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1970), 91–196.
⁴⁷ “The method of reflective equilibrium consists in working back and forth among our
considered judgments (some say our ‘intuitions’ . . . ) about particular instances or cases, the
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226 Human Dignity and Human Rights

We have so far considered the dignitarian program in a rather general and
abstract way. Let us now test its appeal, and develop it further, by addressing
specific human rights.

principles or rules that we believe govern them, and the theoretical considerations that we believe
bear on accepting these considered judgments, principles, or rules, revising any of these elements
wherever necessary in order to achieve an acceptable coherence among them.” Norman Daniels,
“Reflective Equilibrium,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(Winter 2016). Reflective equilibrium is deliberative (rather than descriptive) when the primary
aim of the exercise is to determine what to believe rather than to report what one does believe. See
T. M. Scanlon, “Rawls and Justification,” in S. Freeman, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Rawls
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 139–67. Furthermore, I take that search to be
informed by experience, science, and debate (besides personal cogitation). I take the search of
reflective equilibrium, thus conceived, to be the general method for normative theorizing.
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Part III
Implications of the Dignitarian
Approach
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Labor Rights

9.1. INTRODUCTION

In this, final part of the book (Part III), I explore some implications of the
dignitarian approach developed in Part II for the articulation and defense of
specific human rights. I will focus on important yet controversial require-
ments, starting with labor rights. Most of us care deeply about work. If we
don’t have a job, we anxiously seek one. If we have one, we fear that we may
lose it, or worry about the extent to which it enables us to live a decent life. The
human rights practice reflects these concerns in its legal documents. It invokes
entitlements to freely chosen work, to decent working conditions, and to form
and join unions. Despite the importance of these rights, they remain under-
explored in the philosophical literature on human rights. This chapter offers a
systematic and constructive discussion of them. Section 9.2 surveys the con-
tent and current relevance of the labor rights stated in the most important
human rights documents. Section 9.3 gives a moral defense of these rights,
justifying their support¹ on the basis of important human interests and
human dignity. Section 9.4 explores central normative issues about the
relation between labor rights and human dignity. It replies to objections
about the importance of work, explains why labor human rights may not
exhaust the demands of dignity regarding labor, and arbitrates a common
tension between independence and solidarity. Section 9.5 concludes. The key
thesis of this chapter is that to solidaristically empower all persons who can
work to access and defend decent working conditions in which their valuable
capacities can be developed and exercised is an obligatory response to their
human dignity.

¹ I use “support” as an umbrella term comprising the standard triad of respect, protection,
and fulfillment. Also, I use “labor” and “work” interchangeably.
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230 Human Dignity and Human Rights

9.2. SURVEY OF MAJOR

HUMAN RIGHTS DOCUMENTS

Labor human rights (hereafter “LHR”) are rights that human beings have in
their capacity as workers. What LHR are there? The central human rights
documents identify several such rights. For example, these are the main claims
in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR):
Article 23: (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to
just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal
work. (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration
ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and
supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. (4) Everyone has
the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.
Article 24: Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable
limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.
For purposes of the discussion in this chapter, I will divide the LHR stated in
UDHR and other major human rights documents into three groups, concern-
ing rights regarding access to work, to decent conditions at work, and to form
and join unions (and related forms of workers’ associational power). In the
remainder of this section, I survey those statements and give an initial sense of
their current practical significance.

9.2.1. Rights regarding Access to Work

The right to work is stated in Article 23.1 of UDHR. Also significant here are
Article 4 of UDHR prohibiting slavery and servitude, and Article 6 of the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)
recognizing “the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the
opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses and accepts.”²
The right to work can be taken to comprise at least three demands: there
should be opportunities for people to work, people should be free to choose
whether and where they work, and there should be some level of security or
stability for those holding employment.
Regarding opportunities to work, two associated ideas are these. First, there
should be no arbitrary discrimination in hiring: people may not be excluded
for reasons that are unrelated to competence in performing the job (such as,

² In 2005, in its General Comment 18 (para. II.8), the Committee on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights claims that the right to work is interdependent with the other groups of labor
rights (in the case of ICESCR, Art. 6 is interlinked with Arts. 7 and 8).
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Labor Rights 231

in many cases, their gender, skin color, or sexual orientation). Of course,
non-discrimination extends to the internal organization of the workplace.
There is a violation of human rights when individuals belonging to some
racial groups are not granted access to certain necessities.³ Second, there
should be mechanisms that support people’s development of talents and skills
they could use in jobs. Thus, the right to education can be seen as importantly
linked with the right to work. The Social Covenant already refers to states’
responsibility to introduce “technical and vocational guidance and training
programmes” (ICESCR, Art. 6.2). The first point identifies negative duties not
to discriminate. The second adds positive duties to help others develop their
talents and skills. A third component of the right to work is a correlative
collective positive duty of the members of a society to help secure job oppor-
tunities for all. Since the drafting of the Universal Declaration, the limitation
of unemployment has been taken as important.⁴ Article 23.1 states a right to
“protection against unemployment” and Article 55 of the UN Charter calls for
the promotion of “full employment.”
The foregoing points about opportunity to work are in practical terms
relevant given common tendencies to racism and other forms of discrimin-
ation, the need for new skills resulting from technological change, and the fact
that without public intervention modern economies seldom generate full
employment (a phenomenon that is heightened during cyclical crises in
capitalist economies).
The two other demands regarding the right to work also address important
current problems. The second demand, about free choice of employment, is
relevant given current forms of labor that come close to slavery (as in human
trafficking for prostitution). Also problematic is work that is not strictly
slavery but is rightly called “forced labor” because of the conditions in which
labor contracts are generated and sustained.⁵
The third demand, concerning some security in employment, is illustrated,
for example, in legislation that limits arbitrary dismissal of workers. This

³ A recent case occurred in a farm in Quebec, Canada, where black workers were required to
use segregated toilet facilities. Adelle Blackett, “Situated Reflections on International Labour Law,
Capabilities, and Decent Work: The Case of Centre Maraicher Eugene Guinois,” Revue Quebe-
coise de droit international (Hors-série) (2007), 223–44, at 235–41. Non-discrimination in the
implementation of human rights flows from basic requirements in UDHR’s Preamble (which
asserts that every member of society has a duty to honor these rights) and Art. 2 (which takes the
rights to apply independently of specific statuses such has race, class, etc.).
⁴ Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent
(Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 162.
⁵ Recently, e.g., impoverished Nepalese were lured into paying high fees to be shipped to
Qatar to work in the construction of sports stadiums. When in Qatar, they faced intensely
exploitative working conditions, legal inability to change jobs, and difficulties in leaving the
country. Peter Pattisson, “Revealed: Qatar’s World Cup ‘slaves’,” Guardian, September 25, 2013.
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232 Human Dignity and Human Rights

demand is significant in an economic environment in which unemployment,
and precarious and temporary employment, are increasingly common.

9.2.2. Rights to Decent Conditions at Work

These rights are briefly stated in Articles 23.1–3 and 24 of UDHR. Article 7 of
ICESCR provides a more detailed statement. After a general “right of everyone
to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work,” it identifies four
subcategories specifying these conditions. The first requires “remuneration
which provides all workers, as a minimum, with . . . [f]air wages and equal
remuneration for work of equal value” and “[a] decent living for themselves
and their families.” Thus, salaries should be sufficiently high that workers (and
their dependents) access basic necessities and an adequate standard of living
(which is itself a right—see UDHR, Art. 25). Campaigning for adequate
minimum salaries is widespread. Many workers cannot make a living even
though they work full-time in some of the richest countries in the planet.⁶
Besides this concern with sufficiency or adequacy, remuneration must track
certain considerations of equality. Equal work must be rewarded equally.
Some forms of discrimination—for example, against women—are salient
targets in human rights advocacy.
A second set of rights at work concerns “safe and healthy working condi-
tions.” Workers face threatening conditions when they work in facilities in
which they are exposed to hazardous substances (such as asbestos) or which

⁶ In December of 2013 fast-food workers protested across the US. Akilarose Thompson joined
a strike at a McDonald’s in Chicago. She said to a reporter, “To put it in perspective, yesterday
I got paid, today I have not a dollar in my pocket.” “Thompson has worked at McDonalds for
almost a year, serving costumers on the cash register or on the drive-thru window. She got a pay
rise in June and now earns $8.28 an hour—three cents above Illinois’s minimum wage of $8.25.
Thompson works a second job too, at Red Lobster, but still has to go to food banks to support her
and her 15-month-old daughter.” She says: “It is so depressing. You put a smile on because
you’re in customer service and you have to. But on the inside it really breaks you down when
you’re always at work but you’re always broke.” Jessica Davies, also working at McDonald’s, says:
“They say this is supposed to be a starter job but really we don’t have any other jobs to go to.
There’s nothing else out there . . . We’re just tired of making multimillion dollars for this
company and at the end of the day we have nothing to show for it.” Adam Gabbatt, “US fast-
food workers strike over low wages in nationwide protests,” Guardian, December 5, 2013.
Campaigners called for a minimum wage of $15 per hour. This campaign sparked a national
debate, and reached fruition in Seattle in 2014 (where a $15 minimum was legally imposed). For
striking stories concerning the working poor in the US, see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
2014/05/19/working-poor-stories_n_5297694.html?utm_hp_ref=@working_poor. See also “On-
tario hikes minimum wage to $11 an hour,” The Globe and Mail, January 30, 2014. The situation
of temporary workers (a growing group) is particularly difficult in terms of salaries, working
conditions, and effective ability to organize for collective action. For a powerful recent depiction
focused on warehouse workers in California, see Gabriel Thompson, “The Workers Who Bring
You Black Friday,” The Nation, November 26, 2013.
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Labor Rights 233

are poorly built or not adequately inspected. A striking recent case is the
garment factories in Dakar, Bangladesh, where in 2013 over 1,100 workers
died when the building they were working in collapsed on their heads.
A third category requires “equal opportunity for everyone to be promoted
in his employment to an appropriate higher level, subject to no considerations
other than those of seniority and competence.” This point has obvious rele-
vance for contexts in which cultural norms discriminate against members of
gender, racial, and other groups. For example, in some Latin American
countries non-white people are underrepresented in leading positions in
business, politics, and the media even though they constitute the majority of
the population.
Finally, the Social Covenant mentions a category of rights regarding “rest,
leisure and reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with
pay, as well as remuneration for public holidays.” The struggle for limiting
working hours has been central since the beginning of the industrial labor
movement in the nineteenth century. As technological development and
automation decreases the social need for human labor, it becomes increasingly
feasible to limit working hours without decrease in production.⁷
Rights regarding holidays have been criticized as either impossible to
implement or implementable only at unreasonable cost. Human rights prac-
tice has addressed this challenge. The International Labor Organization set the
minimum of vacations with pay (in convention 132, in 1970) as three weeks
per year on completion of a year’s service. The European Social Charter went
further in 1996, setting a minimum of four weeks. European countries can and
do implement these provisions. It is harder to achieve an agreement on a
feasible and reasonable schedule with wider, global scope. Several factors seem
relevant and difficult to balance, including “productivity levels, industrializa-
tion, computerization and even the weather.”⁸ But paralysis can be avoided.
Thus, if the minimum the ILO requires is not immediately achievable in
poorer countries, steps can be taken to progressively achieve it. Shorter
vacations can be introduced first, with longer ones following as part of a
plan that includes decisive domestic action and international cooperation.
Article 2.1 of the Social Covenant already envisions progressive implementa-
tion and international cooperation when immediate and complete fulfillment
of rights is either not feasible or too costly.⁹ As argued in chapter 3 of this
book, there are dynamic duties to make the fulfillment of socioeconomic
human rights more feasible over time.

⁷ Another demand attracting increasing attention concerns fair policies of parental leave,
allowing parents (women or men) to take up parental responsibilities without facing severe
economic costs.
⁸ Rhona Smith, Textbook on International Human Rights, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 321.
⁹ See also UDHR’s Preamble.
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234 Human Dignity and Human Rights

9.2.3. Rights to Form and Join Unions

This final group of LHR appears in Article 23.4 of UDHR. Also significant are
Article 22.1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
(ICCPR), which says that “[e]veryone shall have the right to freedom of
association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions
for the protection of their interests,” and Article 8 of ICESCR which adds a
right to strike.¹⁰ A typical issue of debate in the theory and practice of human
rights is how specific the statement of human rights should be. The right to
form and join unions is a case in point. It is more specific than, and a subset of,
the right to associate. The drafters of UDHR debated whether to state it given
that they had already recognized a right to associate (in Article 20). They
decided to state it anyway to highlight its novelty and importance for the
contemporary world, and because its realization was threatened in practice.¹¹
Unions remain important political actors in the protection of the interests
of workers.¹² In capitalist societies, the right to form and join unions is
standardly linked to the right to collective bargaining. The ILO sees the latter
as among the key procedural rights boosting the bargaining power of work-
ers.¹³ Alone, most workers are quite weak when negotiating with employers,
but together (and with the ability to strike) they can secure better working
conditions and remuneration.

9.2.4. Framing Considerations

Several important considerations frame LHR. In the case of UDHR, I would

like to emphasize the point that it identifies duties besides rights. We all have

¹⁰ See further ILO Conventions 87 and 98.

¹¹ Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 173–4. The drafters also discussed
whether to mention even more specific issues about the exercise of the right to unionize (e.g.,
regarding “open” or “closed shop” rules), but decided to let this be settled in national contexts on
the basis of what would best protect workers’ interests in them (ibid., 174–81).
¹² Recent debate on, and increases in, minimum wages in North America are partly the result
of pressure by unions (see, e.g., Josh Eidelson, “Strike wave spurs Obama to make contractors pay
$10.10”; Salon.com, January 28, 2014). However, unions face serious difficulties. Their tradition-
al base in the industrial sector is shrinking and they find it hard to organize workers in the service
sector or in precarious positions involving temporary work, agency work, and subcontracting.
Furthermore, unions face hostility or indifference from powerful business groups and govern-
ments. On various current threats to unions’ activities, see the ITUC Global Rights Index at
http://survey.ituc-csi.org/?lang=en. On the normative significance of the right to strike, see Alex
Gourevitch, “Quitting Work but Not the Job: Liberty and the Right to Strike,” Perspectives on
Politics 14 (2016), 307–23.
¹³ The ILO’s 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work includes:
(a) the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
(b) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labor; (c) the effective abolition of child
labor; and (d) the elimination of discrimination with respect to employment and occupation.
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Labor Rights 235

responsibilities to contribute to the fulfillment of human rights. LHR are
part of the set of social, cultural, and economic rights, which give rise to
both domestic and international obligations. Article 22 presents these rights
as requiring, for their fulfillment, “national effort and international
co-operation.” More generally, Article 28 says that “[e]veryone is entitled to
a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration can be fully realized.” Article 29.1 says that “[e]veryone has
duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his
personality is possible.”

9.3. LABOR HUMAN RIGHTS AS MORAL

HUMAN RIGHTS

We have seen that LHR have a significant legal and political existence. LHR
are defended by international organizations, enforced by courts, articulated in
laws passed by parliaments, and invoked in public debate and street protests.
But are they morally justified? Answering this question is important for
determining whether sustaining the legal and political practice that includes
LHR is a good idea, and for orienting ourselves when interpreting and revising
its contents in contexts of debate.¹⁴ To justify LHR as moral human rights,
I will proceed in two steps. The first makes conceptual possibility claims, while
the second makes substantive existence ones. So, first, I will show that judg-
ments invoking LHR constitute appropriate uses of a concept of moral human
rights. Second, I will show that these rights involve a reasonable and feasible
response to important human interests and to human dignity. This defense
provides an illustration of the explanatory power of the dignitarian framework
proposed in this book. Furthermore, this defense will enable us to address
important normative questions about LHR, as I proceed to show in section 9.4.
In what follows, unless otherwise indicated, when I talk about human rights
(including LHR) I focus on moral human rights.

¹⁴ Moral human rights provide a characteristic and powerful resource to orient and justify
human rights practice. But, as explained in chapter 1, section 1.3, I do not assume that
identifying a moral human right to x provides by itself a sufficient condition for imposing a
legal human right to x (various practical considerations are also relevant to reach that conclu-
sion), or that it provides a necessary condition for such imposition (legal human rights might
be morally justified on other grounds). On these points, see Allen Buchanan, The Heart of
Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), ch. 2. Also relevant are the recent
debates surrounding “political” or “practical” conceptions of human rights, which I engage in
chapter 2.
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236 Human Dignity and Human Rights

9.3.1. Labor Human Rights as Possible Moral Human Rights

Recall the account of the concept of a moral human right introduced in

chapter 1 (section 1.3):
Something is a moral human right when it is (a) a right that (b) is held by all
human beings at least in the contemporary world, (c) has normative force
independently of whether it is already recognized in existing legal and political
institutions and practices, (d) may however be (and normally is) such that at least
in part it should be implemented through legal and political institutions and
practices, (e) has extremely high priority, and (f) gives rise to global in addition to
merely local concern.
Let me introduce some clarifying comments on the components of this
conceptual proposal and on how LHR can satisfy them.¹⁵ Human rights are
(a) rights. “Most if not all human rights are claim rights that impose duties or
responsibilities on their addressees or dutybearers,” and are in that sense
“mandatory.”¹⁶ LHR can satisfy this component. Any person who works or
seeks work can hold them, and they can impose duties on various agents. Here
are some candidates of correlative duties. Employers should avoid discrimin-
ation in hiring and promotion. Governments should promote access to em-
ployment when it is currently lacking (via subsidies and incentives to increase
hiring by private firms, or via direct hiring). Internationally, governments
should regulate trade by imposing labor standards, and consumers should
purchase products made in conditions of decent labor rather than in sweat-
shops if they can do so at reasonable cost.
Condition (b) is used to pick out rights that people have independently of
certain particular social statuses and circumstances such as their nationality or
class (see UDHR, Art. 2). LHR can have universal scope in this sense, as people
have a capacity to work that is independent of those social statuses and
circumstances. Notice, however, that (b) takes human rights to apply “at
least in contemporary times.” This careful phrasing does not assume that
every specific human right must apply to every conceivable situation in
which human beings exist and interact. It is important to note that when we
develop an account of LHR we will often have to make claims at different
levels of abstraction. Some abstract rights (such as a right to rest, or to have a
say on how working conditions are organized) will have a wider scope than
other, more specific rights (such as a right to holidays with pay or to join a
labor union). The latter state the appropriate articulation of the former in

¹⁵ I do not assume that no other concept of moral human rights exists or is useful. For the
purposes of my discussion, it is enough that this is a plausible and fairly ecumenical proposal.
¹⁶ James Nickel, “Human Rights,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Winter 2014), sect. 1.
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Labor Rights 237

certain contexts (such as a modern economy). The difference in scope of
application is not a problem as long as we are aware of the different levels of
discourse we engage in, and thus recognize that some claims are more abstract
and basic while others are more specific and derived.¹⁷
The foregoing point about abstraction and specificity is important when it
comes to characterizing the very notion of work, which is central to this
chapter’s discussion. Indeed, work can be construed in more or less abstract
terms. For example, work might be defined as “the provision of a service for
and under the direction of another in return for remuneration.”¹⁸ But this
definition is too narrow. It implies that work cannot take place in non-
hierarchical settings (such as an egalitarian cooperative) or be undertaken
without pay (as in slave labor). A more abstract definition of work could be
this: work is an intentional activity of production of goods or services that can
satisfy needs or desires. This definition avoids the problems of the former. It is
capacious, allowing that work can take many forms: work can be individual
and cooperative; involve decision-making procedures that give workers au-
tonomy and others that do not; be remunerated and unremunerated; be done
in the household, a private firm, and the public sector; etc. Now, this definition
could in turn be criticized for being too broad. For example, it implies that
hobbies (such as stamp collection) are forms of work, and this may strike some
as a reductio of the definition. It is indeed quite difficult to provide a definition
of “work” that is fully satisfactory for every context of use of that term. How
should we proceed then? I think that we do best by starting with a fairly
abstract definition like the one I suggested because it enables us to identify
different, specific productive activities and explicitly discuss their significance.
We can then formulate more circumscribed characterizations of work that add
further characteristics that are evaluatively relevant in the contexts we are
considering. For example, it will often be important to focus on activities that
benefit others (and are thus worthy of some recognition, remuneration, or
reciprocation) or enable workers to support themselves and their dependents.
My discussion of work in section 9.4 will in fact identify various features that
pick out work in this normatively circumscribed way (without falling for an
unduly narrow definition of the kind rejected here).
Finally, components (c) and (d) in our definition of human rights are
straightforward. We appeal to them to critically assess legal and political

¹⁷ For theoretical articulation of the distinction between abstract and specific human rights,
see chapter 2. The distinction is deployed in the pioneering analysis of LHR in James Nickel,
“Is There a Human Right to Employment?” Philosophical Forum 10 (1978–9), 149–70, at 165–7.
Notice that there are three different, but related axes of consideration here. They concern the
rights’ content, justificatory force, and scope of application. These are tracked by corresponding
distinctions, or continua, regarding the (more or less) abstract or specific, basic or derived, and
universal or particular.
¹⁸ Smith, Textbook on International Human Rights, 314.
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238 Human Dignity and Human Rights

institutions and practices. To be able to do this, we must take human rights to
be relevant to various institutions and practices without reducing the former
to whatever the latter already happen to state as valid. My definition allows for
(and is in fact meant to invite rather than suppress) substantive debate about
what are the appropriate duty-bearers (that is, governments, individuals,
corporations, etc.).¹⁹ In the case of LHR, we can say that laws and economic
practices that do not recognize them should be reformed so that LHR become
accepted and implemented. Workers can hold LHR not only against the state
but also against other individuals and institutions in the economic sphere
(which the state may have to regulate).
Conditions (e) and (f) are crucial for human rights. Human rights are quite
strong, and normally decisive, requirements. Regarding (f), although there is
significant substantive debate about what can and should be done by agents
beyond a certain state to support human rights fulfillment, most agree that
human rights are global standards that cannot be reduced to domestic politics.
It is, for example, prima facie wrong for a government to impose labor
standards on how firms conduct business within its borders, but ignore how
home-based multinational corporations organize production abroad.
There is some skepticism as to whether LHR can indeed satisfy conditions
(e) and (f). Some people worry that poor countries cannot afford to implement
many putative socioeconomic human rights, including LHR. As a result, they
are, unlike civil and political rights, mere aspirations, not rights.²⁰ However,
this charge assumes an unduly narrow understanding of component (a) of
human rights. We should have a broader view according to which rights give
rise (inter alia) to obligations of progressive realization and international
cooperation to address cases in which a full and immediate implementation
in a country is not feasible. In fact, this is already affirmed in human rights
practice (see section 9.2.2 above). Regarding (e), some may doubt that LHR
have the priority that is typical of human rights. Properly to answer this worry,
we need to move beyond merely conceptual considerations and take steps

¹⁹ My own view is that some rights involve direct interpersonal claims in addition to
institutionally mediated ones, and that the relevant institutions are not only those of the state.
Thus, e.g., sexual assault and harassment involve a violation of a right to bodily integrity that can
occur in various interpersonal or institutional contexts (including the workplace).
²⁰ Maurice Cranston, “Human Rights, Real and Supposed,” in P. Hayden, ed., The Philosophy
of Human Rights (St. Paul: Paragon, 2001), 163–73 at 169–73. In his response to Cranston,
Nickel notes that civil rights are also quite expensive to protect, as a review of the costs of
running an effective and fair system of criminal justice would quickly reveal (“Is There a Human
Right to Employment?” 168–9). Another possible response is that significantly higher employ-
ment is less hard to achieve than is often assumed (as governments could fund supplementary
hiring at reasonable cost). For challenges to common assumptions, see David Schweickart, After
Capitalism, 2nd ed. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 76, 104, 112–13,119, 183. In general,
it is a mistake to view socioeconomic rights (as conservative and neo-liberal thinkers and policy-
makers do) as no more than desirable goals. As argued in chapter 3, they generate binding
obligations.
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Labor Rights 239

within a substantive conception of human rights. There is no conceptual
implausibility in entertaining LHR as urgent or high-priority claims. But do
we have substantive reasons to do so? I now turn to this issue.

9.3.2. Labor Human Rights and Human Interests

LHR can be moral human rights. But are they actually so? To answer this
question, we need to consider whether LHR satisfy the conditions mentioned
above, and what makes them do that. I will focus on the most controversial
issue, which concerns the satisfaction of condition (e). What gives LHR the
high priority typical of human rights? A common way of defending a human
right is to show that its implementation supports extremely important human
interests in feasible and reasonable ways.²¹ I start my substantive defense of
LHR by deploying this strategy.
We can defend the three sets of LHR identified in section 9.2 by engaging in
a chain of reflection asking and answering three questions. The first question is
“Why is work valuable?” The answer will help defend the first set of LHR
concerning access to work. I think that work is extremely valuable for at least
the following reasons.²² Work provides a way for us to (1) access consumption
goods necessary for (at least) a basically good or decent life, (2) develop and
exercise our productive abilities, (3) socialize with other persons in common,
cooperative activities, and (4) contribute to the well-being of others by helping
produce goods that satisfy their needs or desires. A further reason is (5) that
working contributes to our sense of self-esteem and self-respect. This reason is
related to the others, and catering for it is partly a function of catering for the
others. Many of us develop self-esteem and self-respect partly by reflecting on
the positive judgment (by others and ourselves) concerning states of affairs in
which we feature as active agents who succeed at accessing goods (1)–(4).
For example, when (1) and (4) are serviced, we feel we can “stand tall” as fully
contributing members of society. There is also a feedback loop here. When we
feel self-esteem and self-respect, we are more likely to pursue productive
activities and relationships effectively.

²¹ See chapter 8 for general discussion on how interests and dignity might feature in the
defense of rights.
²² In developing the view presented in this and the next paragraph I benefitted from the
discussions in Hugh Collins, “Is There a Human Right to Work?” in V. Mantouvalou, ed., The
Right to Work (Oxford: Hart, 2015), 17–38; Jon Elster, “Is There (or Should There Be) a Right to
Work?” in A. Gutman, ed., Democracy and the Welfare State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1988), 53–78; Nien-he Hsieh, “Justice in Production,” Journal of Political Philosophy
16 (2008), 72–100; Virginia Mantouvalou, “Are Labour Rights Human Rights?” European
Labour Law Journal 3 (2012), 151–72; Guy Mundlak, “The Right to Work—The Value of
Work,” in D. Barak-Erez and A. M. Gross, eds., Exploring Social Rights (Oxford: Hart, 2007),
341–66; and Nickel, “Is There a Human Right to Employment?”
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240 Human Dignity and Human Rights

It seems to me that these reasons identify very important interests, and
make it plausible to consider access to work as a high-priority right. (1) and (5)
are obviously very important. For most people in the contemporary world,
remunerative work is the standard means to access consumptions goods
necessary for subsistence (and other goods necessary for a decent life). With-
out access to subsistence goods, other goods are hardly achievable. And self-
esteem and self-respect are crucial for us to have the strength of will to pursue
any life plan.²³ The high priority of (5) is at least in part transferred to the
other reasons when there is a linkage between achieving self-esteem and self-
respect and success in work regarding the dimensions those reasons track.
Furthermore, (2)–(4) have intrinsic significance. Human beings typically are
active agents for whom activities engaging their intellectual and physical
powers are a major source of well-being. They can shape their environment
besides being shaped by it, and cherish doing so by conceiving and executing
tasks in which their talents find fruition. They are social beings who
have strong reason to develop meaningful interpersonal relationships, and
more generally to engage in activities involving cooperation with and sup-
port for other human beings. In contemporary social conditions, given that
people have to spend a lot of their time and energies at work to cater for the
goods mentioned in (1), much of their access to goods (2)–(4) depends
on how work is organized. The same is true of (5).²⁴ This leads us to the
next question.
The second question is this: “What are the features that work should have
if it is to be valuable in the ways just mentioned?” An answer will help defend
the rights to decent conditions at work, the second set of LHR. To be an
ongoing and effective means to a decent living, work should be undertaken
in safe and healthy conditions, and be remunerated adequately. To deliver
on goods (2)–(4), work should be internally organized so that workers
can (at least to some extent) develop and exercise productive abilities,
have fair prospects for advancement, and engage in personally and socially
meaningful cooperation with others. Alternatively or in addition, workers

²³ On the linkage between (1) and (5) and the enjoyment of other values see, respectively,
Henry Shue, Basic Rights, 2nd ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), ch. 1; and
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999),
sects. 67, 82.
²⁴ I disagree with James Griffin’s rejection of a specific right to work in On Human
Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 207–8. He mistakenly assumes that advo-
cacy of the right must focus on “jobs of the old sort” that cater for (1)—which might be
alternatively served through a stipend—but not for (2)–(4). My discussion of other
alternative forms of work in section 9.4.2 below is relevant here: we may need work to
access enough of (2)–(4) quite independently of whether this work is also what delivers
access to (1). Furthermore, as argued in this section and in sections 9.4.1–9.4.2, to the
extent that people are pushed to work full-time, they should also be supported in accessing
(2)–(4) through work.
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Labor Rights 241

should be enabled to access the goods (2)–(4) outside of work. This could be
done, for example, by shaping their working conditions so that working
hours are limited.
Of course, LHR are also supported by other important considerations. The
defense of some specific LHR should draw on them. Take, for example, the
(sometimes disparaged) “right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limi-
tation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay” (UDHR, Art. 24).
Time to rest is obviously important for workers to recuperate and maintain
economic productivity. But this is not all. Workers need free time to cultivate
personal relationships (such as friendship and family), and to participate in
the political and cultural life of their society. The access to these important
goods requires that working hours be limited, and is significantly enhanced
when workers have periodic holidays with pay.²⁵
Finally, we can defend the right to form and join unions by considering the
question “What do workers need to ensure that their conditions of labor will
be decent?” In the contemporary world, workers face common obstacles to
access decent work. Unemployment may be structural in many economies. In
addition, low demand may result from cyclical crises or increased internation-
al competition. Furthermore, the jobs available may involve crushing condi-
tions by being isolating, humiliating, arduous, dangerous, or badly paid. We
considered in section 9.2 examples from poor and wealthy societies. More
generally, capitalist economic systems inherently make workers vulnerable.
People normally cannot access means of subsistence without getting a job in
the labor market. To get and retain a job, they have to bargain with owners
or managers of capital who are more powerful and have an incentive to
limit their salary and other benefits to maximize profit (or even to survive
market competition). To respond to these difficulties, workers should not rely
on self-limitation by employers. Recent research suggests that introduction
by businesses of private, voluntary regulation to honor labor standards is
not sufficient.²⁶ Workers still have to pressure employers to respect labor
standards and governmental institutions to implement them through enforce-
able rules. To effectively defend their rights, workers need to strengthen their
bargaining position. The third set of LHR enabling them to unionize (and to
strike) does exactly that.

²⁵ Although the relevant documents don’t mention it, an alternative is that workers be
granted unpaid holidays but higher salaries. I owe this suggestion to Massimo Renzo.
²⁶ Richard Locke, The Promise and Limits of Private Power: Promoting Labor Standards in the
Global Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). For debate, see the dossier
“Can Global Brands Create Just Supply Chains?” Boston Review 38.3 (2013). Philip Alston
reports that the International Organization of Employers has opposed moving beyond voluntary
codes of conduct or introducing independent monitoring of labor standards. “Labor Rights as
Human Rights: The Not So Happy State of the Art,” in Alston, ed., Labour Rights as Human
Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 1–24, at 22.
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242 Human Dignity and Human Rights

It is important to note that workers need independent unions that are not
controlled by the state, as they often need to challenge its policies both as a
general regulator of the economy and as an employer in the public sector.²⁷
Besides supporting union rights, the foregoing considerations underscore
the importance for workers to enjoy political rights to participate as active
citizens in the political process of their society.²⁸ Historically, a central way in
which workers have improved their situation is by campaigning for recogni-
tion of their voting rights, and later, by helping to form and by voting
for parties that championed laws and policies implementing the three sets
of LHR.²⁹
The foregoing discussion suggests that the fulfillment of LHR would deliver
goods that meet important human interests. The interests seem sufficiently
important to motivate the demand that domestic and international economic
systems be shaped so that LHR are met. Furthermore, it seems in principle
feasible for people’s access to these goods to be respected and promoted
without imposing unreasonable costs. Rich countries have the resources to
introduce general access within their borders. This would require redressing
current levels of concentration of income and wealth.³⁰ But access to the goods

²⁷ I thank Christian Barry for discussion on this point.

²⁸ See the statement of political rights in UDHR, Art. 21, and discussion in chapter 10 of
this book.
²⁹ An important contemporary challenge is to identify ways to implement LHR in the context
of a globalizing economy. Given increasing ability of corporations to move shop to other
countries, the governmental limitation of their power and the unionization of workers in
precarious positions are harder. In response, some unions adopt an international perspective.
E.g., UNITE HERE operates in Canada and the US. According to a recent report, nationalist
rhetoric is not as strong in it as it is in other unions. This “organization is dealing with global
companies that own properties across North America: ‘If the border doesn’t matter to them,’ [an
organizer] says, ‘it doesn’t matter to us’.” John Lorinc, “State of the Unions,” The Walrus,
December 2013, 24–31, at 28.
³⁰ Inequality of income and wealth has been growing in recent decades. “The ‘labour share’ of
national income has been falling across much of the world since the 1980s . . . The Organisation
for Economic Co-operation and Development . . . reckons that labour captured just 62% of all
income in the 2000s, down from over 66% in the early 1990s.” Possible causes of this are global
“trade” and the availability of “cheap labour in poorer places” (e.g., China), technological
innovation (“cheaper and more powerful equipment, in robotics and computing, has allowed
firms to automate an ever larger array of tasks”), and changes in employment laws and
regulations (limiting workers’ entitlements). “Labour pains,” The Economist, November 2,
2013. For the long view, see Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). The following depictions make current inequalities vivid.
The “average compensation among Canada’s top 100 CEOs was $7.96 million in 2012,” while
“the average annual worker’s salary [was] $46,634.” Linda Nguyen, “CEO Pay: Canada’s Top
Bosses Earn Average Salary In 1.5 Days,” Huffington Post Canada, March 2, 2014. In the US, “it
would take a full-time hourly Walmart worker, who the company claims earns $12,67 an hour,
more than 785 years to earn the annual salary of the company’s CEO.” Gerald Caplan, “Workers
deserve a higher minimum wage,” The Globe and Mail, January 10, 2014. Inequality at the global
level is staggering: “The richest 85 people on the globe—who between them control as much
wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together—could squeeze onto a single
double-decker. . . . Those richest 85 people . . . share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the
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Labor Rights 243

at stake is surely more important than the unconstrained control of accumu-
lated capital on the part of any rich person objecting to economic reform. It
would be harder to achieve LHR in poorer countries, but I have not seen any
compelling argument that this is not feasible at reasonable cost in most
countries, and, to repeat a point made above, where feasibility obstacles
exist, there may be a dynamic duty to progressively overcome them over
time. The framing considerations mentioned in section 9.2.4 above have full
traction: we have collective duties, domestically and internationally,³¹ to work
progressively but decisively toward the fulfillment of LHR.

9.3.3. Labor Human Rights and Human Dignity

I will now develop further the substantive defense of LHR by drawing on the
idea of human dignity, which is commonly taken to be the central substantive
ethical idea in human rights discourse. Human rights are said to “derive from
the inherent dignity of the human person” (Preamble, ICCPR and ICESCR).
Social, economic, and cultural rights, which include LHR, are presented as
“indispensable for [everyone’s] dignity and the free development of [their]
personality” (UDHR, Art. 22).
The idea of human dignity is indeed recurrent in central human rights
documents, and more generally in the public discourse of human rights practice.
As I explained in previous chapters, the idea can be interpreted as having
several dimensions. Two of them are what I call status-dignity and condition-
dignity.³² The first concerns a normative status that people have in virtue of
some relatively general and constant valuable features. This status grounds
certain forms of respect and concern towards the persons who have it. Human
rights (among other norms) articulate this response. The passage from ICCPR

poorest 3.5 billion of the world’s population.” “The wealth of the 1% richest people in the world
amounts to $110tn (£60.88tn), or 65 times as much as the poorest half of the world.” Graeme
Wearden, “Oxfam: 85 richest people as wealthy as poorest half of the world,” Guardian, January,
20, 2014. “The richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world’s population
combined. Global inequality is worse than at any time since the 19th century.” Jason Hickel,
“Global inequality may be much worse than we think,” Guardian, April 8, 2016.
³¹ Prudential (in addition to moral) considerations are significant. International labor stand-
ards may be important for countries seeking to fulfill the LHR of their own people to avoid
competitive disadvantage in international trade (as lower labor standards elsewhere would lower
labor costs and make products cheaper). This may partly explain the emergence of the ILO. See
Mathias Risse, On Global Justice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012), 247–9, 257–8.
On trade and labor standards, see Christian Barry and Sanjay Reddy, International Trade and
Labor Standards (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).
³² See chapter 5 (section 5.3.1). Other discussions that link dignity and empowerment
(although in ways different from my own) include Seyla Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity (Cambridge:
Polity, 2011) and Rainer Forst, “The Ground of Critique: On the Concept of Human Dignity in
Social Orders of Justification,” Philosophy & Social Criticism 37 (2011), 965–76.
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244 Human Dignity and Human Rights

and ICESCR quoted above refers to this dimension. Further examples are
Articles 1 and 23.3 of UDHR. People have human rights because they have
status-dignity. Condition-dignity, on the other hand, concerns states of affairs
in which human rights are fulfilled. The passage from Article 22 of UDHR
quoted above refers to condition-dignity, and presents it in conjunction with
the free development of human beings’ personality. We can construe
condition-dignity as referring to situations in which human beings are effect-
ively able freely to develop their personalities (that is, have the power or
capability to do so). The view of human rights as entitlements to the condi-
tions for the “development of human personality” appears also in Articles 26.2
and 29.1.
The distinction between the two dimensions of dignity is necessary to
render consistent certain judgments we want to make, which otherwise seem
contradictory. For example, we want to say that workers in sweatshops both
lack dignity and have dignity. They lack condition-dignity because they don’t
enjoy various LHR. But they have those rights (and should enjoy them)
precisely because they have status-dignity. Human beings have status-dignity
independently of whether that dignity is honored, and they enjoy condition-
dignity to the extent that their status-dignity is honored in practice. More
specifically, we can interpret human rights discourse as making the following
two points. First, human beings have status-dignity in virtue of (at least)
certain valuable human capacities such as those regarding sentience, autono-
mous choice, prudential and moral reasoning, solidaristic cooperation, and
engagement in productive activities. Second, human beings are entitled to
situations of condition-dignity in which those capacities can be developed and
exercised. As explained in chapters 7 and 8, this is what the interpretation of
the dignitarian approach in terms of the ideal of solidaristic empowerment
requires. I now want to argue that LHR can be seen as part of what dignity, so
understood, requires.
On this view, human rights practice responds to human dignity through the
solidaristic empowerment of all persons who can work to access and defend
decent working conditions in which their valuable capacities can be developed,
maintained, and exercised. Linking LHR to dignity is illuminating, and adds to
the defense of LHR given above, in several important ways. First, the link helps
explain why people should be enabled, to some reasonable and feasible extent,
to access work involving the goods (1)–(4) discussed above. It is not just that
people have an interest in these goods. Access to them involves the develop-
ment of valuable human capacities to pursue them.³³ These capacities are part

³³ The link to human dignity bolsters the case for the importance of decent work that caters
for (2) and (3). When people only have chances to do work involving stunting and grueling tasks,
and face a psychologically unhealthy workplace environment that is isolating or involves
humiliating treatment by managers or other workers, their humanity as agents able to develop
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Labor Rights 245

of the basis of people’s status-dignity, and people will not have full condition-
dignity if they don’t have real opportunities to develop and exercise them, as
LHR require. By drawing on dignity, we can more easily move from interests
to rights, from the desirable to the obligatory. Recall that the bridge principle,
presented in chapter 8 (section 8.3) allows us to connect interests with rights
by noting how they are both grounded in the valuable capacities that give rise
to status-dignity.
Second, the dignitarian approach helps us to make sense of the wrong of
discrimination in hiring and promotion, and more generally in differential
support for the LHR of different people: discrimination involves failure to
respond properly to the equal status-dignity of all workers. The common idea
of equal pay for equal work can also in this way be defended further.
Third, reference to human dignity underwrites the global significance of
LHR. Human dignity is a normative status that all human beings have
independently of nationality. Thus, every worker’s condition-dignity matters.
This universalist perspective is quite timely when it comes to handling work-
ing conditions in a globalizing economy, in which the fate of workers any-
where is increasingly dependent upon what happens in an economic system
that operates and is sustained elsewhere. The articulation of duties correlative
to LHR should take notice of these normative and factual points. The pre-
dicament of the workers in a sweatshop in another continent deserves our
serious attention because every human being matters in accordance with their
global status as being with dignity. Our reasons for concern are intensified by
the fact that we are deeply intertwined with these workers as buyers of what
they produce, as voters of governments that bargain hard with their govern-
ments to limit labor regulations, and so on. Through these global interactions,
we may be able to both harm and help distant workers in ways that were not
feasible before.³⁴ Another important case here is that of migrant workers.³⁵
The governments of some rich countries create the legal category of migrant
workers under temporary labor migration regimes. These workers (often
coming from poorer countries) are especially vulnerable and thus subject to
intense exploitation and many kinds of abuse. For example, since their visa is
often linked to their performing a particular job or to being under a particular
employer, they cannot leave them when they are badly treated without facing
deportation. This vulnerable condition is the foreseeable result of the law and

and exercise productive abilities and engage in meaningful social cooperation is not given proper
recognition.
³⁴ For an account of global justice that explores the combination of considerations regarding
normative universalism and facts of globalization, see Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global
Equality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
³⁵ Virginia Mantouvalou, “Exploitation and Workers’ Rights,” in H. Collins, G. Lester, and
V. Mantouvalou, eds., Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, forthcoming).
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246 Human Dignity and Human Rights

policies in the host countries, and is a clear target for normative criticism
based on what the non-conventional, universal moral status of human dignity
requires (which is also what international and domestic human rights law
should be developed to articulate).
Finally, the dignitarian approach helps us to develop further the articulation
and defense of specific LHR that support autonomous agency and self-
determination. Part of what gives rise to people’s status-dignity is precisely
their capacities for choosing what kinds of life to lead and to shape the
processes that fulfill their plans. We can thus understand further why it is
important that work be freely chosen rather than forced: forced labor is an
unwarranted affront to the dignity of people as agents capable of autonomous
choice. Respect for self-determination is also important for the defense of the
third category of LHR regarding rights to unionization, and workers’ political
and associational rights more generally. Other things equal, people should be
able to be protagonists rather than mere recipients of the social processes
supporting their rights. Thanks to their political rights, workers can help make
their decent work conditions more secure. With their increased power, work-
ers are less dependent on the good will of governments and employers, and
become more active shapers of their condition-dignity.

9.4. ISSUES REGARDING L ABOR HUMAN RIGHTS

AND HUMAN DIGNITY

I will now discuss a series of objections and puzzles regarding the arguments
advanced in section 9.3. This will provide occasion to develop the account of
LHR further by addressing important normative issues about the relations
between LHR and human dignity.

9.4.1. The Importance of Decent Work

The assertion of a right to work seems to assume that working is a very

important activity everyone should have access to. But is work really so
valuable? Often the work effectively available to many poor people (which
they must take to afford basic necessities like nutrition and housing) is not in
itself something that seems valuable at all: it involves unfulfilling tasks in
which workers’ productive abilities are stunted rather than developed, long
hours, and conditions of severe heteronomy and humiliation in which workers
must be subservient to managers. In addition, the salaries may enable them to
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Labor Rights 247

afford subsistence goods but little, if anything, else. Why is it important that
people have access to this? Here the goods (2) and (3) are largely absent. The
key elements present are (4) and (1) in its most minimal version, with (5)
partially arising as a by-product. Many people need to work to get a salary to
pay for basic subsistence goods, or to be respected by others as a “contributing
member of society.” But why take for granted the currently existing conditions
of access to subsistence and social contribution and the resulting social status?
Perhaps we could, and should, introduce reforms that make the work available
intrinsically more desirable by providing also some access to goods (2) and (3),
and adequate remuneration so that (1) includes more than bare subsistence.
Not granting workers access to work that is fully decent in these ways when
this is feasible without unreasonable cost is an affront to their dignity as
autonomous agents capable of dynamic and cooperative production, and of
pursuing basic goods other than subsistence ones.
To make vivid the normative point just made, let us entertain, for heuristic
purposes, a policy that where conditions of decent labor can feasibly be
generated without unreasonable cost, people able to work should either have
access to them or receive a basic income through governmental provision.
Some might criticize this policy by saying that it would condone and enable
unfair free riding by letting some people who could work benefit from the
work of others without reciprocation. This concern is important. But it applies
with full force only if the background conditions are not severely unjust. Now,
the circumstances people able to work face when they have to choose between
accepting work that is less than decent and starving often contain serious
injustice. Aren’t the ones who can shape work opportunities so that they
involve decent work failing to support just background conditions that give
every person opportunities to live a decent life, and aren’t they benefitting
from the concomitant vulnerability of impoverished workers by exploiting
them? Complaints by the well-off about the free riding of the poor ring hollow
when the setup (which the well-off, with their superior power, have a dispro-
portional role in shaping and sustaining, and who benefit disproportionally
from it) gives alternatives to the poor that are less than decent.
Another possible response is that the policy entertained here overlooks the
importance of independence for a sense of dignity (an issue I return to below).
When people receive an income as assistance from the government rather
than as remuneration for their work they become dependent, failing to stand
on their own feet. The independence associated with making a living through
work seems to be important for developing a sense of dignity.
In response, I agree that there is a relation between feeling a sense of dignity
and contributing through one’s labor to one’s own sustenance (and also to the
economy of one’s society). This relation is not necessary, but it seems strong,
psychologically, for many people. But it is perverse to appeal to it in a context
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248 Human Dignity and Human Rights

of background injustice where decent labor conditions can be made available
but are not. To tell the poor that they should take work that is degrading so
that they can have a sense of dignity when one is partly responsible for, or
benefits from, their lack of opportunities for decent work is to take advantage
of the vulnerability of the poor in a rather insidious and odious way.³⁶ An
appropriate response to dignity involves duties concerning access to goods (2)
and (3), and a less minimal access to (1) besides a subsistence core of (1) and
(4). Entertaining the policy I mentioned is heuristically fruitful because it
steers us toward tracking conditions of dignity in decent working practices
simultaneously with conditions of dignity resulting from labor contribution,
without accepting painful tradeoffs that can be prevented. When feasible at
reasonable cost, the members of a society have a collective duty to spare
workers conditions that are less than decent.³⁷
From the point of view of a conception of human dignity linked to em-
powerment, the right to work is an entitlement to social conditions in which
persons are not directly forced by others to work (except in emergencies), in
which when opportunities for work that is decent are feasible they are made
available, and when not immediately feasible their creation is made into an
urgent target of progressive public policy. The existence of effective oppor-
tunities for decent work empowers people to provide for their subsistence and
to contribute to society without having to face socially avoidable forms of work
that are stunting and humiliating.

9.4.2. Is Work Really So Important?

Does reference to the goods (1)–(5) mentioned in the arguments in section 9.3
and section 9.4.1 really help justify LHR? This would be so when access to
those goods is tied to work. But it could be objected that this conditional
justification of LHR fails because (1)–(5) could be accessed independently of
work. There could be someone, call him Sebastian, who gets the money he
needs to pay for basic necessities from members of his family, or receives some
of the goods directly from them or through governmental provision. Sebastian
finds self-realization in activities outside the labor market, such as gardening
or painting at home. He socializes in recreational activities. And he contributes
to the well-being of others through domestic work and by volunteering in

³⁶ It is largely the basic structure of a society, and the choices of powerful members of it, that
make it the case that some people are more economically vulnerable than others, and are unlikely
to survive or achieve a minimal sense of dignity unless they take up jobs they hate.
³⁷ To compute the reasonability of costs we should make a holistic assessment of the impact of
a policy choice on the various human rights of all those affected. See chapter 8, section 8.4.
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community-based activities (such as care for the elderly and the distressed).
Thanks to these activities, Sebastian develops some self-esteem and self-respect.
To provide a satisfactory defense of LHR, we need to show that work is
indeed crucial for accessing goods (1)–(5). We do not have to show that no
amount of (1)–(5) could ever be accessed without working, however. That is a
different, hopeless, and unnecessarily demanding task. What we need to show
is that work plays a crucial role in accessing (1)–(5) that cannot be fully
substituted by other mechanisms at reasonable cost for most people in (at
least) contemporary circumstances. To show this we can make two points.
First, the case of Sebastian is not generalizable. In a market society, if the
majority of people did not participate in the labor market, the economy would
collapse, and the conditions for many of the activities mentioned would
disappear (family members would not have resources to share, or the govern-
ment would lack revenues to fund services, or tools for gardening and painting
and the infrastructure for community work would be missing, etc.). More
generally, every society in which economic activity is not fully automated will
push people to work in various ways. Given this pressure, and the fact that
people spend so much of their time working, it is important that they are given
opportunities to work in conditions that are decent.
It could be replied that we do not need to assume that access to work must
proceed through markets (or at least within labor markets as we know them in
capitalist societies). Some forms of work could be available outside the market
and grant access to some of the goods discussed here. This is an important
truth (to which I return in the next paragraph). But (and this is the second
point) it supports rather than undermines the case for LHR. This is so because
it relies on the importance of work, even if this is not work as it is sold and
bought in a market. Gardening and painting, homemaking and community
service, are forms of work. They produce goods that can meet desires or needs,
and engage several valuable agential capacities. Self-esteem and self-respect
still depend, here, on the existence of activities engaging those capacities and
their socially beneficial use. Sebastian is neither idle nor a complete free rider.
Access to decent work remains important. When envisioning opportunities
for decent work providing access to goods (1)–(5) for all, we can construe the
sphere of work in an ample way that includes work that takes place outside the
market (such as domestic work and work in community organizations). It is
important to factor in these “informal” forms of work for at least two reasons.
First, it may be economically infeasible to secure for all decent jobs of the
traditional kind (that is, “formal” jobs in the private or public sector accessed
through the labor market). This may be a matter of conjuncture or, as some
argue, a permanent feature of economically advanced societies. When these
feasibility limits hold, we need additional ways of helping people access decent
work. Second, these activities of informal work are productive and contribute
to the well-being of many. They should be valorized even if this does not
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250 Human Dignity and Human Rights

happen through the market.³⁸ Now, it is important that those who engage in
them have real options so that they do so autonomously.
To secure that workers choose the work they do autonomously, and to cater
for the two reasons just mentioned, some have proposed the introduction of a
policy of universal basic income.³⁹ This policy is appealing. It would indeed
give people the ability to engage in informal but valuable work without being
dominated by other members of their community, or family. It would also give
them more bargaining power to access formal work that is fully decent, and an
incentive for those hiring to offer it. These are all dignity-affirming conse-
quences of the policy.⁴⁰ (It could be introduced as a substitute for the policy
entertained in section 9.4.1.) However, to be convincing, this new policy
should be part of a package that includes the following two elements. First,
further to support dignity, there should be an effort to change the social norm
that only formal work is a proper source of social esteem and respect. This
should not be hard to do, as it is evident on reflection that many activities of
informal work, such as care for children and the elderly, involve the develop-
ment and exercise of important human capacities, and contribute dramatically
to the well-being of some people, and indirectly to the reproduction and
stability of the society as a whole.
Secondly, there should be a social norm according to which members of
society who receive a basic income have a duty to pursue decent work if they
can (in either the formal or the informal sector). We may or may not make this
social norm also a legal norm.⁴¹ But it seems to me crucial that, insofar as the

³⁸ There is a debate between the view that the market should penetrate these informal spheres
(so that, e.g., most of the work of child-rearing, elderly care, cleaning of homes, and community
activities are done by people receiving a salary) and the view that this would be a bad idea
because it would destroy the spirit of direct, other-oriented care proper of activities not primarily
done for the sake of making money.
³⁹ For a version of this proposal and a survey of the surrounding debates, see Philippe Van
Parijs, “Basic Income: A Simple and Powerful Idea for the Twenty-First Century,” in
B. Ackerman, A. Alstott, and P. Van Parijs, Redesigning Distribution (London: Verso, 2006),
3–42. “A basic income is an income paid by a political community to all its members on an
individual basis, without means test or work requirement” (p. 4). Basic income may be set at
different levels, being sensitive to available resources and conditions of sustainability—including
likelihood that people will continue to work.
⁴⁰ For the emancipatory potentials of the universal basic income policy, see Erik Wright,
“Eroding Capitalism: a Comment on Stuart White’s ‘Basic Capital in the Egalitarian Toolkit’,”
Journal of Applied Philosophy 32 (2015), 432–9. It is important that this potential might depend
on the income being above the subsistence level. For doubts that in its likely feasible incarnation
(which would be at lower levels still pushing people to work to survive) the policy would go
sufficiently far in challenging the domination of workers, see Alex Gourevitch, “Labor Repub-
licanism and the Transformation of Work,” Political Theory 41 (2013), 591–617.
⁴¹ The introduction of the social norm revises the view of basic income as strictly uncondi-
tional. The revision would impose explicit ethical and, perhaps, legal qualifications to the
entitlement to basic income. An example would be the “intermediate proposal” of a “ ‘partici-
pation income’ . . . [that] impose[s] a broad condition of social contribution, which can be
fulfilled by full- or part-time waged employment or self-employment, by education, training or
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Labor Rights 251

background conditions of a society are not severely unjust, we all have a
responsibility to contribute to sustaining the opportunities that we enjoy.
Free riding on the effort of others is wrong. The policy of basic income is a
policy of solidarity, securing for all a floor to stand on to pursue a dignified life.
But solidarity should involve reciprocity.⁴²
It is worth noting that adding reference to a duty to work to the policy of
basic income might not involve radical innovation in human rights practice.
The human rights documents do not mention the existence of a duty to work.
However, several drafters of the Universal Declaration proposed to include
reference to a duty to do socially useful work.⁴³ In the end this reference
was avoided for fear that it would be misused to justify forced labor. Still,
Article 29.1 of the final draft frames human rights claims by imposing on
“everyone . . . duties to the community in which alone the free and full devel-
opment of his personality is possible.” A defense of a duty to work could
plausibly be articulated by reference to it.⁴⁴
A final remark. As the sphere of work reaches beyond the formal sector, the
defense of workers’ rights by unions will lose some (although of course not all)
significance. In response, unions may change to organize people working part-
time or informally. And political activity outside unions through social move-
ments, NGOs, and political parties, will be crucial. This is not a radical break
with the practice of defending LHR, which has always supported political
rights that include but go beyond unions. What is crucial is that workers have
power to shape their working conditions.

active job search, by home care for infant children or frail elderly people, or by regular voluntary
work in a recognized association.” Philippe Van Parijs, “Basic Income,” 13–14.
A common argument against making this social norm a legal one (even if this means that
some undeserving people will be benefitted) is that public mechanisms to identify who fulfills its
conditions may be infeasible, or too costly, or too intrusive.
⁴² See the discussion on solidarity in chapter 7, section 7.2.5. These points seem to have wider
resonance (although this is not a necessary condition for their normative validity). Claus Offe
reports that pairing of the ideas of solidarity and reciprocity seems widespread. Furthermore,
contributing to the well-being of others through work is something people find important and
motivating. “[S]urveys on ‘happiness’ seem to suggest that absence of opportunities to make
oneself useful correlates strongly with a strong feeling of unhappiness.” Offe, “Basic Income and
the Labor Contract,” Analyse & Kritik 1 (2009), 49–79, at 63. Immanuel Kant argued that we owe
it to ourselves to develop our powers and make ourselves “a useful member of the world”—this
“belongs to the worth of humanity in [our] own person, which [we] ought not to degrade”). The
Metaphysics of Morals (in Kant, Practical Philosophy; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), Ak 6:446.
⁴³ Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ch. 5.
⁴⁴ The existence of a moral duty to work, and a further consideration about the importance of
opportunities to develop one’s personality (originally part of the wording surrounding the right
to work but dropped from the last draft given its inclusion in Articles 22 and 29) may be
important ideas giving part of the rationale for the existence of a right to work. See Morsink,
The Universal Declaration, 158–62. I recognize that much more needs to be said to justify a duty
to work.
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252 Human Dignity and Human Rights

9.4.3. Basic and Maximal Dignity

Another challenge to my account of labor rights is that it is unduly modest

because human dignity actually requires far more than what LHR, as present-
ed here, include. Discussing this challenge helps us illuminate the relation
between human rights and ambitious claims of social justice such as those
defended by socialists. In response, I will distinguish between basic dignity
concerning conditions of decency and maximal dignity concerning conditions
of human flourishing, and explore the significance of this distinction for the
articulation of labor rights.
According to some socialists, human dignity requires access to work activ-
ities in which workers are not alienated, exploited, or dominated. A possible
socialist⁴⁵ challenge to advocacy of LHR is this. Either access to work takes
the form it would have in a socialist society or a right to it is merely a right to
be exploited, dominated, and alienated. This is a challenge to LHR because the
LHR commonly claimed in human rights practice (as surveyed in section 9.2)
fall short of what socialists demand. Decent work can still be alienating,
because in it workers may not be able to develop and exercise their productive
abilities very much. It can involve domination, as workers have little decision-
making power over what is produced and how. Finally, exploitation can be
present, as background economic inequality enables capitalists to take advan-
tage of the relative weakness of workers to bargain hard to get them to accept
labor contracts that benefit capitalists disproportionally. Unions and demo-
cratic politics may limit these phenomena but fail to dissolve them. To secure
opportunities for work without alienation, domination, and exploitation, or
with as little of these as is feasible, a socialist would argue that we need the
instauration of a classless socialist society ruled by the principle “From each
according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.” Only in that
society would economic organization fully affirm the dignity of workers,
enabling them (and people generally) to flourish.
Two initial responses to this challenge are (a) to scale down the idea of
human dignity so that it does not yield ambitious socialist claims and (b) to
expand the list of specific current LHR so that the full palette of socialist claims
is included. These options are problematic. I agree that when there is domin-
ation and exploitation, and when opportunities for non-alienated work are
lacking, there is a failure to properly respond to the dignity of workers.
Situations including these wrongs cannot be all that condition-dignity
amounts to.⁴⁶ On the other hand, recommending that human rights practice
incorporate the socialist ideal in full clashes with the widespread assumption
that human rights do not exhaust justice but focus on its most urgent claims.

⁴⁵ Or “neo-Marxist,” as Mundlak calls a version of it—“The Right to Work,” 345–8.

⁴⁶ Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According To Their Abilities, To Each
According To Their Needs’,” Journal of Social Philosophy 46 (2015), 197–225.
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Labor Rights 253

According to this assumption, the condition-dignity tracked by human rights
claims is one that enables people to have a decent or basically good life.⁴⁷ It
identifies the subset of demands of justice comprising the most urgent claims.
It is not so minimal as to exclude social and economic rights such as LHR, but
is unlikely to be as extensive as the socialist view of social rights.
There is ongoing discussion on whether human rights should be seen as
involving only relatively modest demands, and if so to what extent and in what
respects.⁴⁸ We may disagree on where exactly to draw the line between
decency and flourishing. But the distinction is intuitive. My view (which
I develop in chapter 11) is that we might lose the specificity, and especial
political potency, of human rights discourse if we make them coincide with
our most ambitious views about justice. Since we currently disagree profound-
ly in our views of maximal justice, it is a good idea to carve out normative
space for less ambitious, but more urgent, claims of justice we may more easily
come to agree on, and act together to fulfill, fairly soon.
This of course does not mean that we have to give up on the more ambitious
claims. I suggest that we consider three further alternatives. We can have (c)
an inclusive but internally differentiated view of the requirements of human
dignity, taking human rights as a proper subset of them. On this view, we
should accept a spectrum of rights of justice going from less to more ambitious
requirements. In the case of labor rights, human rights focus on decent labor
conditions. Socialism goes further, targeting access to the most extensive equal
conditions of human flourishing in work that are feasible (and compatible
with other sufficiently weighty demands of justice). Notice that although there
is on this view a difference between basic and maximal justice, or between
conditions of decency and flourishing, the former may be quite ambitious.
There already is a discussion about how ambitious LHR in fact are.⁴⁹ In section
9.4.1, I rejected overly minimal construals of decent work.

⁴⁷ See, e.g., Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 36–7, 62, 66. This is not the same as the
ultraminimalist view of human rights as focused only on the conditions for being alive at all (on
which see Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry; Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2000).
⁴⁸ Nickel, “Human Rights,” sect. 1; Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009), sect. 22; Eva Brems, “Human Rights; Minimum and Maximum Per-
spectives,” Human Rights Law Review 9 (2009), 349–72. I agree with Nickel that we do best by
not assuming that minimalism is part of the concept of human rights. I do think (and Nickel
agrees) that high priority is a conceptual component. But what claims have high priority, and
how extensive they are, is a substantive matter.
⁴⁹ E.g., Blackett (“Situated Reflections”) argues that to secure “decent work” we should go
beyond the procedural measures mentioned in the ILO’s Declaration (see note 13 above), and
include “substantive” constraints fostering certain conditions at work. Mantouvalou argues that
human rights doctrine should incorporate constrains on exploitation, and do so in a way that is
less narrow than some existing construals (e.g., in the European Union) which limit the
treatment of exploitation to cover only slavery and servitude, forced and compulsory work.
See Mantouvalou “Exploitation and Workers’ Rights.”
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254 Human Dignity and Human Rights

A fourth possibility is (d) to retain the inclusive and internally differentiated
view of the requirements of human dignity presented by (c) but take human
rights themselves as embracing the whole spectrum of those requirements. On
this view, specifically socialist labor rights would currently be LHR, but—
unlike their status in (b)—they would be less urgent than the LHR focused
only on decent work. This alternative might be in some tension with the
assumption that human rights focus on high-priority claims (as the more we
increase the number of such claims, the less the class of them seems to track
what has high priority). But the former is not strictly inconsistent with the
latter, and it may seem more plausible if we reflect on the fact that some
human rights have higher priority than others (and may outweigh them in
cases of conflict).⁵⁰
A final possibility is (e) to take the distinctively socialist requirements as
future specific human rights, whose implementation will become urgent after
societies change in certain (feasible and foreseeable) ways. As suggested in
section 9.3.1 (see also chapters 2 and 6), although abstract human rights are
quite constant across human history, some specific human rights are fairly
context-specific. Perhaps socialist labor rights are specific LHR that will
become operative when certain conditions of economic development are
achieved. At that point, their fulfillment will have high priority.⁵¹
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to determine which of the last three
possibilities is best. But it does seem to me clear that a distinction should be
made between two (compatible) approaches to condition-dignity in work: a
rather maximal, socialist approach targeting access to human flourishing and a

⁵⁰ E.g., the right to life often outweighs the right to privacy in cases of conflict (Nickel,
“Human Rights”).
⁵¹ The worry about the feasibility of securing opportunities for decent work for all, mentioned
in section 9.4.2, also applies to work involving human flourishing. André Gorz (in his influential
Metamorphoses du Travail; Paris: Galilee, 1988) argues that the syndicalist utopia of a society in
which all can find full-time employment involving high levels of self-realization and autonomy is
not practicable. Due to technological developments (including deepening functional differenti-
ation and integration of economic activities), workers are increasingly divided into a minority
enjoying stable employment, decent pay and benefits, and some say in the organization of
production, and a majority facing instability, low pay, scant benefits, and severely heteronomous
roles in decision-making. Furthermore, unemployment is high and structural. In this context, the
syndicalist utopia cannot be achieved because there are not enough good jobs available for
everyone. Gorz suggests that we drop a view of social justice narrowly focused on achieving
autonomy and well-being in work. Instead, we should reconfigure economic institutions to
dramatically reduce working hours, make more jobs available, and enable people to flourish
outside of work. Now, notice that these considerations do not really defeat the general socialist
ideal of self-realization in work, as it could be achieved through productive activities within or
outside formal employment if the economic system is reorganized and recognizes a wide notion
of work (see section 9.3.2). For reconfigurations of economic activity including high levels of
workers’ self-determination and production primarily oriented to needs-satisfaction, see the
exploration of the “social economy” in Erik Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias (London: Verso,
2010), ch. 7.
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Labor Rights 255

less demanding (although not overly minimalistic) view targeting access to
decency. The claims regarding opportunities for decent labor are patently
more morally urgent than those concerning flourishing labor. We facilitate
agreement and action on the former by singling them out for separate political
treatment.
There is a distinction here, but also continuity. There is a natural escalation
of claims moving from the widely recognized rights of the human rights
practice to the more ambitious ones of humanist socialism. The idea of
human dignity can be used to justify that continuity, as conditions of non-
alienation, non-domination, and non-exploitation can be said to be among the
forms of condition-dignity we ought to help bring about.⁵² Current human
rights practice addresses the most egregious forms of alienation, domination,
and exploitation. But equal concern for the dignity of all arguably requires
aiming at giving all equal opportunities for a flourishing life, not only access to
a decent life.⁵³ We see here at play one of the key roles of the idea of human
dignity identified in chapter 5 (sections 5.2 and 5.3.5), which is to illuminate
the arc of humanist justice.
An interesting historical point in this regard is that socialist ideas were in
fact very important in the formulation of social, economic, and cultural rights
during the drafting of the Universal Declaration (including, of course, LHR).
The delegates from many Latin American countries, and John Humphrey
from Canada, were either socialists or sympathized with socialist commit-
ments, and they pressed hard to shape the Declaration so as to include many
of them.⁵⁴ Thus, for example, the clauses of UDHR demanding decent

⁵² Pablo Gilabert, “Dignity at Work,” in Collins et al., Philosophical Foundations of Labour

Law (forthcoming).
⁵³ We should then challenge views that claim to be equally concerned with everyone’s dignity
but condone great inequalities of income. “When you’re in a world where 40 money managers
make as much as 300,000 high school teachers, it’s just silly to imagine that there will be any
sense, on either side, of equal dignity in work.” Paul Krugman, “Inequality and Indignity,” New
York Times, February 11, 2014.
⁵⁴ Morsink, The Universal Declaration, chs. 4–5. Also significant was the supportive attitude
to social rights in the US during F. D. Roosevelt’s era (and displayed by Eleanor Roosevelt in the
drafting of UDHR). The socialist and workers’ movements are amongst the major sources of the
use of the idea of human dignity in modern politics (other sources are strands in Catholic social
doctrine and interpretations of Immanuel Kant’s idea that humanity has dignity not price—an
intrinsic worth grounding a duty to treat human beings always as ends and never merely as
means). See the historical discussions in Charles Beitz, “Human Dignity in the Theory of Human
Rights: Nothing But a Phrase?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 41 (2013), 259–80; Christopher
McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human Rights,” European Journal
of International Law 19 (2008), 655–724; Christopher McCrudden, ed., Understanding Human
Dignity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); Michael Rosen, Dignity (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard, 2012); Jeremy Waldron, Dignity, Rank and Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2012). For Kant’s formulations, see Kant, Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1996), Ak 4:428–30, 4:434–6, 6:434–6, 6:462. Pablo Gilabert, “Kantian Dignity and
Marxian Socialism,” Kantian Review 22 (2017), 553–77.
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256 Human Dignity and Human Rights

conditions of work were animated by “the socialist thesis that ‘human labour is
not a merchandise’ and that a worker’s dignity and that of his family is not to
be denied or diminished by the bargaining process that usually precedes
employment.”⁵⁵ UDHR constrains the job market by affirming rights to
unionization and by imposing strictures on working conditions and remuner-
ation. These rights shape the market’s bargaining process and outcomes so
that they are not as humiliating to workers’ dignity as they would otherwise be
(in an unregulated capitalist economy).
Of course, unequal bargaining will remain as long as class division persists,
and UDHR does not rule on this issue. Hence, socialists will demand more
than what the doctrine of international human rights currently does. But bases
for continuity are present in the text of the Declaration, especially in the
various references to conditions enabling the free and full development of
human personality (Arts. 22, 26.2, 29.1). Although these claims do not of
course entail a socialist view, they can plausibly be articulated as important
resources for a socialist framework. Historically, those claims partly sprang
from socialist commitments shared by many drafters, which included “the
concept and the right to self-development or self-actualization.”⁵⁶ LHR doc-
trine had a socialist beginning, and could have a socialist continuation.⁵⁷

9.4.4. Dignity, Independence, and Solidarity

The negative duties flowing from respect for the dignity of persons include
letting them be independent in various ways. Thus, we should not choose
other people’s friends for them. We should not interfere with their choice of
sexual partners. It is important to recognize people’s agency, their authorship
of their own lives. In politics, we should recognize people’s capacity for
judgment about public matters, and let them vote, run for office, protest,
and form and join political parties. Regarding LHR, we should not choose

⁵⁵ Morsink, The Universal Declaration, 182.

⁵⁶ Ibid., 188. Interestingly, these commitments help explain the significance of the right to rest
and leisure. On the “socialist view . . . workers do not merely have the right to rest and leisure so
that they can be better and more efficient producers of profit for those who own the modes and
means of production. . . . In the socialist tradition the right to rest and leisure is linked, as is the
right to work itself, to the right to the full development of a person’s mental, spiritual, physical,
and cultural potentialities” (ibid.). Furthermore, LHR form a package with other rights such as
the right to education and to enjoy the scientific and cultural achievement of a society (UDHR,
Arts. 26–7).
⁵⁷ There are other elements in current human rights practice that already point toward more
ambitious requirements. An example is the emergent and quite expansive idea of a right to
human development. See the Declaration on the Right to Development (December 4, 1986). For
a view of human rights including expansive claims of positive liberty (e.g., opportunities for
workplace democracy), see Carol Gould, Interactive Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 2014).
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Labor Rights 257

people’s jobs for them, and we should let them unionize and strike (as these
activities bolster workers’ ability to stand tall rather than be submissive in their
bargaining with management). There clearly is an important connection
between independence, understood as self-determination or autonomy, and
condition-dignity.
It is also common to link dignity with a different understanding of inde-
pendence as self-sufficiency. Now, independence understood in this way
conflicts with solidarity. This conflict appears, for example, in debates about
benefits for the unemployed, or support for the poor regarding health care.
Some politicians in the United States have argued that help of these kinds is
dangerous because it reduces people’s incentive to work, breeding depend-
ency. They propose that we embrace welfare reform, “getting people off of
dependency and on to lives of self-sufficiency.”⁵⁸ This way of thinking makes
solidarity an adversary of dignity.
I have been arguing in this book that we should resist this alleged conflict
between dignity and solidarity by rejecting the ideal of independence as self-
sufficiency. To begin with, the ideal is hardly feasible. The common tendency
to see an individual’s poverty or wealth as the exclusive consequence of their
choices⁵⁹ ignores the extent to which the social environment in which agents
act affects their preferences and their power to fulfill them.⁶⁰ Individuals who
blame themselves for their poverty would benefit from knowing that millions
make the “right choices” and yet remain poor, and that to seriously improve
their personal situation of deprivation they may have to engage in collective
action that changes the institutions shaping it. It is worth noticing that in
history, the introduction of institutions supporting workers’ rights was some-
times backed by empirical work in social science that precisely challenged the
“false premiss . . . that destitution was always and everywhere the result of
personal irresponsibility.”⁶¹

⁵⁸ Arthur Delaney and Michael McAuliff, “Paul Ryan Wants ‘Welfare Reform Round 2’,”
Huffington Post, March 20, 2012.
⁵⁹ In Bait and Switch (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2005), Barbara Ehrenreich reports how
an extreme voluntarism is widespread in American corporate culture. Mike Hernacki, a guru in
the field, claims that “[y]ou must recognize that you alone are the source of all the conditions and
situations in your life. You must recognize that whatever your world looks like right now, you
alone have caused it to look that way. The state of your health, your finances, your personal
relationships, your professional life—all of it is your doing, yours and no one else’s” (The
Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want; New York: Berkley, 2001, 47;
Ehrenreich, 81–2).
⁶⁰ This coincides with what social psychologists call “correspondence bias,” the “tendency to
see people’s behavior as a reflection of their dispositions and beliefs, rather than as influenced by
the situation.” E. Aronson, T. Wilson, and R. Akert, Social Psychology, 6th ed. (New Jersey:
Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), 109.
⁶¹ Simon Deakin, “Social Rights in a Globalized Economy,” in Alston, Labour Rights as
Human Rights, 25–60, at 32. There is a pendular movement in the political history of western
societies, with some periods emphasizing individual character and personality, and others social
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258 Human Dignity and Human Rights

So, first, some degree of social dependence seems unavoidable.⁶² When we
are children, or elderly, or ill, we must rely on the help of others. Our
dependence on others extends to our life as workers: whether we find work,
and whether the work we find is decent rather than humiliating, does not only
turn on our own choices.
Second, reliance on others can take forms that are quite valuable. Human
dignity gives rise to positive besides negative duties. This is captured in Articles
1 and 25 of the Universal Declaration, which invoke the idea of universal
“brotherhood” and recognize a right to assistance for those who cannot fully
support themselves. We should not have to feel shame when we are helped, or
guilt when we help. Supporting the condition-dignity of other human beings is
simply something we owe them. We could change our moral culture to
recognize this. The stigma associated with being helped by others, common
in many contemporary societies, is not a hard constraint but a contingent,
malleable one. In fact, in some non-Western societies people are less prone to
pairing dependence and shame in this way.⁶³ The valid ideas behind the norm
I criticize here are that we should value active agency and engage in fair
reciprocity. But these ideas do not require self-sufficiency or even strict equiva-
lence in mutual exchange. They require that we do our part by contributing to
the economy when we can, and that we respect the self-determination of others
(including giving them a say on whether, and how, they are helped). Now, this
can be done while attending to inevitable interpersonal differences in abilities
and needs with a helping hand. We should shape our societies so that human
solidarity gains proper traction. The important question is not whether we can
avoid interdependence, but what kind of interdependence we should have.⁶⁴
Human rights require solidaristic empowerment.

circumstance, in the explanation of unemployment, poverty, and other economic conditions.

Pierre Rosanvallon, La Société des égaux (Paris: Seuil, 2011), sects. II.2, III.3–4, IV.5.
⁶² The concept of (in)dependence allows for degrees and may have different relational
applications. We may be more or less (in)dependent from different constraints to do or be
different things. Marilyn Friedman, “Independence, Dependence, and the Liberal Subject,” in
D. Archard, M. Deveaux, N. Manson, and D. Weinstock, eds., Reading Onora O’Neill (New York:
Routledge, 2013), 111–29. This is congenial with the scalar accounts of power and feasibility
offered in this book (in chapter 7 and appendix 2).
⁶³ Richard Sennett, Respect in a World of Inequality (New York: Norton, 2003), 113–25;
Aronson et al., Social Psychology, 113.
⁶⁴ The proposal of a universal basic income is sometimes defended by saying that it involves a
“lesser stigma” for the poor, who would receive it just like everyone else, without being singled
out as the needy who cannot fend for themselves (Van Parijs, “Basic Income,” 10). But notice
that stigma will remain if we insist on self-sufficiency, because everyone will know that some are
net contributors and others net drainers regarding the funds backing the institution of basic
income (and notice who is what at the interpersonal level). I think that we should supersede the
moral culture that ties dignity to self-sufficiency rather than continue embracing its unrealistic
and undesirable commands. An important additional consequence of this change is that it would
provide further support for the valorization of care work (formal and informal) advocated in
section 9.4.2 above.
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Labor Rights 259

Solidarity is crucial in the realm of labor. Work often turns out to be
meaningful when it is a form of social contribution that fosters the well-
being of others. Solidaristic cooperation within the workplace also contributes
to making work a fulfilling experience. Further, political solidarity is often
causally relevant for the introduction and maintenance of regulations securing
decent work. The support from other agents in a society, and sometimes from
agents beyond its borders, is needed, and sometimes must come from people
who will not personally benefit from giving it. Consider, for example, the
improvement of labor conditions for workers in garment factories in poor
countries. Safety conditions in sweatshops supplying global brands are often
dismal (as the disaster in Dakar’s garment factories mentioned above shows).
Now, part of the explanation of the problem comes from the competition
among retailers and brands to provide ever newer products at lower prices
within ever narrower time intervals, which in turn creates incentives for
suppliers to cut costs by imposing longer hours on workers, lowering their
wages, and neglecting safety at the workplace. However, if consumers were
willing to pay more for their clothes, if retailers decided to sell merchandise
produced in safe conditions, or/and if governments of rich countries support-
ed effective international regulations, then working conditions for workers
could more easily be improved.⁶⁵ These forms of solidarity would enact the
global concern that LHR require.

9.5. CONCLUSION: DIGNITY AND THE S TRUGGLE

FOR L ABOR HU MAN RIGHTS

This chapter articulated and defended LHR as an important dimension of

what we owe to each other as human beings with dignity. I do not claim that
my arguments conclusively justify LHR. But I hope that they make a strong
case for LHR and advance the philosophical discussion about them. People
have status-dignity whenever they possess the valuable features giving rise to it
(sentience, conscience, rationality, the ability to cooperate and produce, etc.).
Condition-dignity, on the other hand, is rather contingent. People can get it
and lose it as social institutions and practices change. However, workers are
entitled to decent labor conditions whether they already enjoy them or not.

⁶⁵ Workers’ indignities in sweatshops are sometimes rationalized by saying that economic

development is hard and involves tough tradeoffs: workers will just have to deal with non-ideal
working conditions if jobs are to be made available to them. But resourceful agents in richer
countries (and elites in poor countries) often avoidably create, or fail to disable or limit, the
conditions imposing such tradeoffs. See appendix 2, sects. 2–3, for the underlying structure of
this kind of situation.
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260 Human Dignity and Human Rights

They do not lose status-dignity when they face indecent labor conditions, even
if they do not enjoy a dignified condition.
Now, condition-dignity does not only exist when agents already live in
circumstances in which their human rights are fulfilled. As discussed in
chapter 5 (section 5.3.4), there is a form of dignity that concerns how people
react to circumstances in which human rights are under-fulfilled. Even when
workers cannot presently avoid egregious exploitation, domination, and alien-
ation at work, they can respond to these circumstances in dignified ways. They
do so, for example, when they do not lose their self-respect and integrity when
dealing with those in positions of power or economically better off, when they
insist that they are entitled to decent labor conditions, and when they act
politically to overcome the injustice they face. It is an interesting, and import-
ant dimension of human dignity that people achieve a sense of dignity when
they fight for their rights. When they do so, they take themselves seriously as
deserving opportunities to develop and exercise their valuable human capaci-
ties. The relatively poor and weak can gain some dignity in this way.⁶⁶ And the
relatively rich and powerful lose some dignity when they use their superior
resources and power in unjust ways—for example, by undermining or failing
to promote the condition-dignity of others. They thereby fail to show respect
and concern for the status-dignity of others. They also fail to respect them-
selves by neglecting their conscience and sympathy, their capacities for moral
reasoning and human solidarity. A world where LHR are not fulfilled is one in
which there is much indignity. Dignity regarding LHR starts by acknowledg-
ing that LHR exist, and by struggling to make sure that every worker
enjoys them.

⁶⁶ Rosa, a worker at a restaurant in Toronto, displays this dignity. “ ‘We work so hard,’ [Rosa]
said, her frustration bubbling to the surface. ‘The managers are trying to abuse us. They shove us
everywhere. We’re like furniture. That’s how we feel. They give us five-hour shifts. How could we
survive? Myself, I’m really struggling. I’m a single mom.’ After working at a restaurant for twenty
years, though, she didn’t want to quit. ‘I want to fight for my rights. They’re making money.
We’re the backbone of the company, but they treat us like garbage’.” Rosa joined a union and is
an active organizer. Lorinc, “State of the Unions,” 31.
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10

Political Rights

10.1. INTRODUCTION

A protester in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, feeling impatient because the transitional

military government that took power after the demise of Hosni Mubarak was
not taking decisive steps to introduce fair democratic elections, told a reporter
that “the street has woken up” and had this to say to the Supreme Council of
the Armed Forces: “we are the rulers, and you follow our orders—not the
other way around . . . ”¹ Is the idea of popular sovereignty, as expressed by the
democratic ideal of political equality, a human right idea? Core documents
such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are somewhat open to interpretation,
although they seem to lean strongly toward a democratic construal of political
rights. At any rate, there is a growing consensus within the legal and political
practice of human rights that the democratic interpretation should indeed be
favored. However, some philosophers doubt that we should see democracy as
a human right. In this chapter, I respond to those challenges and develop the
view that there is such a human right. As I will show, considerations of human
dignity play an important role in such a view.
More specifically, this chapter continues the development of the practical
implications of the dignitarian approach proposed in this book by addressing
two interconnected questions about human rights and the pursuit of global
justice: Is there a human right to democracy? How does the achievement of
human rights, including the human right to democracy, contribute to the
pursuit of global justice? In section 10.2, the first question is answered in
the affirmative. It identifies three reasons for favoring democracy and explores
the significance of those reasons for defending it as a human right. It answers
important worries that acknowledging a human right to democracy would
lead to intolerance and lack of respect for the self-determination of peoples,

¹ The protester continued, less politely but revealingly: “We are the fucking red line, you do
not cross us.” See “Revolution turns to rancour as Arab spring loses momentum.” Guardian
Weekly, July 22, 2011, 12.
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262 Human Dignity and Human Rights

exaggerate the importance of democracy for securing other rights, generalize
institutional arrangements that only work in some contexts, and tie human
rights to specific ideas of freedom and equality that do not have the same
universal appeal and urgency. Section 10.3 answers the second question. It
distinguishes between basic and non-basic global justice and argues that
democracy is significant for both. It claims that the fulfillment of human
rights constitutes basic global justice, explains how a human right to democ-
racy has significance for the legitimacy of international besides domestic
institutions, and shows how forms of global democracy and the exploration
of cosmopolitan and humanist commitments underlying the dignitarian
approach to human rights may enable and motivate the pursuit of non-basic
demands of global justice (such as those concerning socioeconomic equality).
The key claim in the chapter is that by providing a floor of dignity on which
people can stand in the organization of their social life, the fulfillment of the
moral human right to democratic political empowerment is crucial for the
pursuit of global justice.

10.2. THE HUMAN RIGHT TO DEMOCRACY

10.2.1. General Case for Democracy

A system of political decision-making is democratic when those subject to it

have effective and equal opportunities to participate in it and shape its results.
There are at least three important reasons for favoring democracy over other
ways of organizing decision-making structures that do not involve this idea of
effective political equality. That democracy is preferable on these reasons does
not mean that no democracy ever fails to honor them. Actual democracies can
be better or worse at honoring these concerns; the point is that feasible non-
democratic regimes are likely to do worse. Here are the three reasons, stated as
features of democracy:
(a) Expressive recognition and respect (intrinsic significance): Democracy
involves an expressive recognition of and respect for human beings as
agents with the capacity for political judgment and self-determination.
(b) Strong accountability (instrumental significance 1): Democracy involves
strong mechanisms of accountability of decision-makers to decision-
takers.
(c) Epistemic enhancement (Instrumental significance 2): Democratic
rights, institutions, and practices help political agents to identify and
justify to themselves and to each other what political principles, agen-
das, and policies are appropriate.
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Political Rights 263

The first consideration addresses the intrinsic value of a political decision-
making procedure, and the other two capture its instrumental value: the
former concerns how people treat each other within the practice of decision-
making, and the latter concerns the issue of whether decision-making tracks
the interests or good of those subject to it (or, rather, the interests or goods
which are independent from the procedure of decision making itself). An
underlying principle is, of course, that the worth and interests of all subjects
deserves equal respect and concern within some range. This principle is a
natural upshot of the dignitarian approach as presented in previous chapters
of this book. Other connections will emerge as we proceed.²
The three kinds of considerations (a)–(c) should be familiar, even if
I formulate them in my own words and present them from the perspective
of the dignitarian approach.³ My concern in this chapter will be to show how
they link to the theory and practice of human rights. I think that the three
reasons are very important, even though in the context of human rights the
focus had tended to be on (b). Democracy’s strong accountability certainly is
crucial, as it involves a powerful incentive mechanism for decision-makers to
cater for the interests of decision-takers (they may be sacked if they don’t). But
the other features are important as well. The intrinsic dimension in (a) is
significant: an adult person’s self-respect may be deeply wounded if they are
treated as a second-class citizen, if their public status in their social world is
that of someone who cannot or should not participate on equal terms with
every other adult in the shaping of the coercive rules that frame that world.

² I should comment briefly on the relative significance of the notions of “affecting” and
“subjecting” in the justification of political rights. An agent may be said to have political rights to
participate in shaping a political decision-making process when this process affects or subjects
them. Reference to subjection highlights the importance of autonomy: it is important that the
will of a person is not substituted by the will of others who shape the political process. But it is
also important, more broadly, to consider the well-being of agents. The formulation referring to
“affecting” captures that. It is broader than the formulation referring to “subjecting,” and
includes it, because one of the ways in which a political process may subject an agent is by
affecting the capacity to choose, their will. Well-being and autonomy are interests that may be
affected in ways that merit rights protection.
This issue should be explored further in accounting for democratic rights. No doubt the
“affecting” principle can be too broad. For an analogy, consider that it seems counterintuitive to
say that Sally should have a say as to whether Theresa chooses to marry Peter since Sally loves
Peter and would like to marry him instead. It is not up to Sally whom Theresa marries. It would
be different if Robert were arranging a marriage between Sally and Carlos. Since the will of
Theresa would be substituted by Robert otherwise, Sally must have a say as to whether the
marriage goes through (in addition to Carlos, of course). However, since politics has a significant
impact on both autonomy and well-being, we can justify political rights on both grounds, even if
the well-being based considerations are constrained (which is not the same as exhausted) by
autonomy considerations.
³ Charles Beitz, Political Equality: An Essay in Democratic Theory (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1989); Thomas Christiano, The Constitution of Equality (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2008); Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, MA: The
MIT Press, 1996); and Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor Books, 1999).
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264 Human Dignity and Human Rights

The epistemic dimension in (c) is important (inter alia) because we need
strong political freedoms to gain understanding of the political process via
active experience in it, to deliberate with each other about our political views
so as to make up our minds, reach agreements or narrow disagreement, find
fair compromises, and develop less crude or biased pictures about what we and
others need and are entitled to. Of course, these features interact. For example,
political agents with enhanced political knowledge will have more of the
information they need to hold decision-makers accountable; and the oppor-
tunity to do the latter will be an incentive to seek political information. Agents
who recognize each other as able to make political judgments and as worthy of
political self-determination will treat each other in certain ways—for example,
by pursuing forms of accountability and public debate that involve appropri-
ate levels of civility.

10.2.2. Developing the Case for a Human Right to Democracy

10.2.2.1. Is Democracy a Human Right?

The three reasons for democracy just mentioned support the view that a
society that is democratic is in some respects more just than a society that is
not. But not every right of justice is a human right. In general, a right is a
legitimate claim that one person can make against others.⁴ A right is justified
when the conditions and interests its fulfillment protects or promotes, and
more generally the reasons it is based on, are sufficiently important to warrant
negative or positive duties on the part of certain duty-bearers. Is the right to
democracy also a moral human right? This depends on whether it has the
standard features that characterize moral human rights, such as being univer-
sal, having high normative priority or great normative weight, being primarily
a critical rather than a positive standard, and being often at least in part to be
pursued through political action and institutions. I believe that a right to
democracy has these features. The last two features are obviously held by a
right to democracy: it is a right to be largely articulated institutionally and it
can function as a critical standard for appraising different social structures
even when those structures do not explicitly recognize it and when people do
not currently endorse it. The real difficulty is to show that there is a right to
democracy that has the features of universality and high priority. Is democracy
a right that holds for everyone in the contemporary world? Is its pursuit a
matter of global concern? Does it have the great weight that other, less

⁴ Jeremy Waldron, “Rights,” in R. Goodin, P. Pettit, and T. Pogge, eds., A Companion to

Contemporary Political Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 745–54, at 746.
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Political Rights 265

controversial human rights, such as the civil right to religious freedom or the
socioeconomic right to subsistence, have?⁵
To show that a right to democracy has these features, we do well to defend it
by using the dignitarian approach and the ideal of solidaristic empowerment
proposed in this book. Recall that, according to the ideal of solidaristic em-
powerment, we should strive to create and sustain social orders that support
the human interests linked to the development and exercise of important
human capacities. Those capacities lie at the basis of people’s status-dignity,
and their support furthers people’s achievement of condition-dignity. Now, the
three considerations explored in the justification of democracy can be seen as
catering for interests of the relevant kind. (a) can be seen as tracking crucial
procedure-relative interests in developing and exercising capacities for self-
determination at the most fundamental level of a social life (that is, at the level
of the core political institutions and practices of a society). In turn, consider-
ations (b) and (c) can be seen as tracking procedure-independent interests in
developing and exercising any other capacities whose support is important for
achieving at least a decent life.
In what follows, I will proceed dialectically, by addressing the four most
important recent challenges to the idea that there is a human right to democ-
racy (hereafter HRD). All of these challenges precisely deny that the right to
democracy is both universal and of high priority. Underlying the polemical
engagement with these challenges there is a positive argument for an HRD. It
is in fact quite simple, and can be stated succinctly. The main idea is that we
should accept an HRD because (at least contemporary) social life involves
circumstances that make considerations (a)–(c) (stated in section 10.2.1)
practically relevant in a widespread and urgent way. These common circum-
stances (which, to use an idea introduced in chapter 5, are circumstances of
dignity which make dignitarian norms practically relevant) include some
tendencies to (i) exclude groups of people from political power and other
social advantages, (ii) be self-serving and biased when wielding decision-
making power, (iii) disagree on moral matters, and (iv) have limited know-
ledge of the needs and views of others. These tendencies impose standard
threats: wielders of political power may monopolize control of social regula-
tions, brand some persons as second-class citizens, impose agendas and
policies that fail to take account of the basic needs and the normative views
of others, and render many of those subject to the resulting social order

⁵ In this chapter, I assume that the universality of human rights ranges over all persons in the
contemporary world. A wider scope could be argued for, but I restrict my argument to the
weaker account of universality that most critics of a human right to democracy accept. I also
assume that that the high priority of human rights depends on their ranging over the conditions
enabling a decent or basically dignified life. The focus is on conditions enabling a basically good
life rather than (as arguably wider demands of justice concern themselves with) a fully
flourishing life.
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266 Human Dignity and Human Rights

impotent to evaluate and to change it. The three dimensions of democracy are
essential to respond to these threats. When they are in place, political power
wielders are more likely to guarantee basic conditions of respect and concern
for all persons. To the extent that people are recognized as having irreplaceable
political status as equals, they are able to keep decision-makers in check, and
they have the capability to join the public debate about what is the just way to
arrange their social lives, it is that much harder to block their achievement of a
decent life. Given these threats and the significance of dimensions (a)–(c) to
respond to them, when people can but are not granted democratic political
opportunities they are seriously wronged: they are denied what they are owed
to live a decent life. They are denied the condition-dignity which an appro-
priate response to their status-dignity requires. The remainder of this section
fleshes out this argument.

10.2.2.2. Toleration, Self-Determination, and Intervention

The first challenge says that accepting an HRD would lead to supporting
problematic forms of international intervention. Since a human right merits
global concern and action, pursuing the fulfillment of an HRD would license
forceful international intervention in countries that are not democratic, and
this would involve intolerance toward other forms of political organization
and the violation of the self-determination of peoples. If we value international
toleration and the self-determination of peoples, we should be skeptical about
an HRD.
Each key aspect of this challenge is problematic. Although the ideas of
toleration and the self-determination of peoples are valuable, they do not
support the denial of an HRD, and the pursuit of the latter does not require
the obliteration of the former. Regarding toleration, there is the immediate
worry that in non-democratic countries governments do not tolerate a wide
range of political actions amongst their members. Why accept an entitlement
to toleration for a regime that does not tolerate its own people?⁶ It would not
help to focus on the toleration of peoples as the fundamental concern. Human

⁶ I am not claiming that a non-democratic regime necessarily is intolerant towards its own
people in every important respect. A non-democratic regime could, e.g., tolerate many of its
residents’ exercises of their civil rights (such as their freedom of religion). But toleration with
respect to civil (and other) rights does not entail that intolerance with respect to political
participation does not exist. So the non-democratic regime is still intolerant in an important
respect. Furthermore, one should worry about how secure other rights are when residents do not
have effective power to respond to a regime that changes course and decides to violate them.
A possible difficult question is how to respond to practical circumstances in which the two
immediately feasible options are (a) a democratic regime under which serious underfulfillment
of civil and social rights is likely to occur and (b) a non-democratic regime under which
significantly greater fulfillment of civil and social rights is likely. I tackle this question in
section 10.2.2.4 below.
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Political Rights 267

rights are primarily held by individual human beings, not by peoples, societies,
or states. On the other hand, the ideal of toleration is quite vague. To be made
precise it needs a substantive account of the conditions that must be met for
the conduct of other agents to be permissible even if they are different from
one’s own.⁷ I do not deny the importance of the value of toleration and that it
could be given a reasonable construal. But clearly any plausible account of
what may be tolerated will be constrained by the recognition of the independ-
ent and high-priority rights that people have, and this surely includes their
human rights. One of the key functions of human rights is precisely to set
reasonable limits to claims of toleration. So we should be skeptical about limits
on an account of the content of human rights that draws on toleration; the
direction of limitation is the opposite.
Consider next the idea of a people’s self-determination. First, there is the
obvious but important point that there is no necessary conflict between the
fulfillment of a people’s right to self-determination and the HRD, as a people
can determine itself while being democratically ordered. Second, notice also
that the problem of taking peoples rather than people as the unit of funda-
mental concern applies here as well, and this undermines the force of the
invocation of collective self-determination in the face of violation of an HRD.
If in a certain situation the invocations of the two claims collide, we should
consider whether catering for individuals’ interest in their self-determination
as a group should be qualified, or at least joined by serious attempts to pursue
the honoring of their interest in democratic political opportunities. The
multiple considerations spelled out in this chapter in favor of an HRD also
tell in favor of such combination (which does not automatically ground a
permission for foreign intervention—see two paragraphs down). If the members
of a people are not themselves self-determining, then the self-determination of
the group has less moral standing: there is less self-determination when the
members of a group are blocked from shaping its political life than when they
are allowed to control the group they constitute. This does not entail that there
is no morally relevant way in which a society can be self-determining if it is not
democratic. The point is that an invocation of collective self-determination
cannot mute the concern with democratic freedom.
There is, then, a serious, and internal, problem with bypassing the wills of
the members, as non-democratic regimes do, and then proceeding to claim
that that group’s will (as stated in the will of the rulers) expresses them.⁸ The
rulers of the non-democratic country may object that their subjects themselves

⁷ Rainer Forst, “The Limits of Toleration,” Constellations 11 (2004), 312–25.

⁸ This sentiment may underlie the struggle of some oppressed groups. Consider, e.g., MP
Sophia Abdi’s reaction after the Kenyan government decided to ban female genital mutilation:
“Today is independence day for women. Men got their independence in 1963—but today women
have achieved independence from the cruel hands of society.” Cited in Sarah Boseley, “Kenya
bans mutilation,” Guardian Weekly, September 16, 2011, p. 13.
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268 Human Dignity and Human Rights

accept the non-democratic nature of their government. But this maneuver
would be problematic on several counts. First, how do we know that the
subjects prefer a non-democratic system if they are not allowed to fully
participate in the political process? In the absence of strong accountability,
they may be afraid to express their views fully even if they are allowed to speak
publicly. Second, without experience in wielding political power, how do they
themselves manage to form reflective judgments about political justice? Non-
democratic regimes are epistemically deficient. Third, if the legitimation of the
regime appeals to what the people living under it take to be just, then why
deprive the people of the kind of regime whose procedures and outcomes are
really powered by what the people think (that is, a democracy)?⁹ A view of
collective self-determination that crushes the political self-determination of
the members of the collective does not take seriously the freedom of human
beings.
The worry about forceful international intervention is real, however. Such
interventions often fail to achieve their publicly avowed goals, involve serious
violations of other rights, and cement relations of arrogant patronage. But
these problems do not really show that there is no HRD unless we assume that
if something is a human right then its violation makes international forceful
intervention permissible. And this assumption goes against the grain of the
legal and political practice of human rights and it is in any case morally
unwarranted. Justifiable intolerance toward human rights violation need not
be coupled with international coercion. There are other options.
As many critics have argued in response to Rawls’s narrow construal of
human rights in terms of the conditions for coercive intervention, there are
many ways in which domestic and international action can respond to human
rights violations; “human rights serve many international roles, some of them
unconnected to enforceability.”¹⁰ Forceful intervention is just one kind of
response, which is likely to be warranted only in extreme cases (such as
genocide), and even then only as a result of a delicate balancing of many
considerations. Human rights primarily generate obligatory goals that should
inform various forms of national and international political action. They are
not necessarily triggers of international coercion.

⁹ I thank Carol Gould for discussion on this point. There is the conceptual possibility that a
people democratically choose to become non-democratic. Would this be acceptable or should it
be as problematic as the case of voluntary slavery? My intuitive answer is that the latter is true,
but the issue requires further discussion.
¹⁰ James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 101. For
Rawls’s view, see The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 78–81. An
important function of human rights is that they warrant global concern and action, but the latter
can take many forms. See Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 31–42.
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Political Rights 269

This is as it should be, as human rights are best achieved from the ground
up. Institutional structures that fulfill the HRD are likely to be best generated
primarily domestically, as the achievement of a people’s members’ own
political struggle. This of course does not mean that international solidarity
is not warranted.¹¹ At a minimum, features of the international institutional
order that foreseeably and avoidably create means and incentives for domestic
elites to impose non-democratic regimes on their people should be elimin-
ated.¹² The dilemma between aggressive international interventionism and
international passivity is a spurious one.¹³ We can understand how belief in
something like it may have arisen as a result of the recent history of American
military adventurism, which has sometimes been carried out in the name of
democracy. But we can reject such aggressive adventurism without letting
down fellow human beings in other countries who are fighting for their rights.
Human rights indeed ground global concern. In the case of democracy, such
concern can be expressed in innumerable ways that stop short of intervention.
Several forms are already being explored, from protests and mutual assistance
by pro-democracy social movements in different countries, to attempts at
persuasion in several forums of international civil society, to economic and
political incentives such as making membership in advantageous regional
organizations conditional upon democratic reforms.¹⁴
Before we consider other challenges against an HRD, it is important to
acknowledge that there is indeed a risk that the foreign policy of powerful
states will be dangerously arrogant when it is shaped in the name of fostering
democracy around the world. As discussed in chapter 4, an appropriate
level of humility and sensitivity to diversity is called for. Such humility should
be encouraged by noticing at least the following two points. First, the democ-
racy of many powerful capitalist societies is seriously defective. Economic

¹¹ Democracy most often comes from the streets, not from foreign warships. The recent Arab
Spring (e.g., in Tunisia), like the transition to democracy in Latin America and Eastern Europe
around the 1980s, are possible examples. The achievements of the movements behind these
transitions were supported by various forms of international solidarity, but they were not the
outcome of international coercive intervention.
¹² These include, e.g., the international “resources,” “arms,” and “borrowing” privileges
through which elites in poor countries can sell natural resources, purchase weapons, and
contract debt in their people’s name, which enable them to cement their despotic rule. See
Thomas Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, Polity: 2008).
¹³ A “laudable concern for liberal toleration and peaceful coexistence can also lead to liberal
indifference, and . . . to an unjustified toleration for the world’s repressive regimes such as many
‘decent, hierarchical peoples’ (Rawls) may be and often are.” Seyla Benhabib, Dignity in Adversity
(Cambridge: Polity, 2011), 78.
¹⁴ Roland Rich, “Bringing Democracy into International Law,” Journal of Democracy 12
(2001), 20–34. An important and hopeful recent development in Latin America is the introduc-
tion (in 2010) of the “democratic clause” within the UNASUR (Union de Naciones
Suramericanas—Union of South American Nations). It authorizes coordinated responses to
threats to the democratic institutions of any member state. See http://www.unasursg.org/index.
php?option=com_content&view=article&id=292&Itemid=340.
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270 Human Dignity and Human Rights

inequality often translates into political inequality as the rich control the
finance of electoral campaigns, have overwhelming access to the mass media,
can develop bonds with politicians through lobbying or through promising
them corporate jobs after they leave office, or simply discipline governments by
signaling that they will disinvest in the country if policies that depress their
profits are introduced (thus shrinking the tax base officials need to tap into to
fund a successful administration and get re-elected). Second, it is crucial to note
that democratic politics can be arranged in different ways and evolve over time,
and that any country may have much to learn from experiments in other
countries. Some innovations in participatory democracy introduced in the
global South (such as participatory budgets in Brazil—which feature direct
participation and public deliberation by ordinary citizens in the selection of
policy priorities for city administrations) could provide lessons for improving
the democracy of countries in the global North.¹⁵

10.2.2.3. Instrumental Considerations about the

Protection of Other Rights
One of the strongest defenses of the HRD is that we should accept it because
democracy helps prevent unacceptable outcomes in terms of uncontroversial
human rights, such as famines and brutally oppressive tyrannies. This instru-
mental argument relies on aspects (b) and (c) of democracy: where there is a
functioning democracy, decision-makers tend to avoid engaging in serious
abuses because they anticipate that if they do so it will be known and
discussed, and they will be held accountable. Sen famously argues that because
of incentive mechanisms such as these, there has been no famine in a func-
tioning democracy.¹⁶ So, if we want to avoid the underfulfillment of civil and
socioeconomic human rights, we should accept an HRD. Democracy inherits
the great weight of the rights it protects.
This instrumental argument for an HRD has recently come under fire from
Joshua Cohen.¹⁷ Cohen’s first challenge says that we can imagine a regime that

¹⁵ For a powerful discussion of the democratic deficits of capitalist societies, and an explor-
ation of various proposals to increase democratic empowerment, see Erik Wright, Envisioning
Real Utopias (London: Verso, 2010). For empirical research supporting the claim that there is
disproportionate, oligarchic, influence of business elites on government in the United States, see
Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest
Groups, and Average Citizens,” Perspectives on Politics 12 (2014), 564–81. For experiences in
participatory democracy in the Global South, see Buonaventura de Santos, ed., Democratizing
Democracy: Beyond the Liberal Cannon (London: Verso, 2007). See also Archon Fung and Erik
Wright, eds., Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory
Governance (London: Verso, 2003).
¹⁶ Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), ch. 16.
¹⁷ What follows draws, with revisions, on my more detailed discussion on Cohen’s views
in “Is There a Human Right to Democracy? A Response to Joshua Cohen,” Revista
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Political Rights 271

involves collective self-determination, is not democratic, and protects human
rights. Collective self-determination involves three conditions:
1. “[B]inding collective decisions result from, and are accountable to, a
political process that represents the diverse interests and opinions of
those who are subject to the society’s laws and regulations and expected
to comply with them”
2. “[R]ights to dissent from, and appeal, those collective decisions are
assured for all”
3. “[G]overnment normally provides public explanations for its decisions,
and those explanations—intended to show why decisions are justified—
are founded on a conception of the common good of the whole
society.”¹⁸
These conditions can be fulfilled even if there is political inequality
(for example, if members of a certain ethnic group are denied access to
decision-making positions in government). As long as there are mechanisms
of representation of interests, dissent and appeal, and explanations that track
fundamental interests such as those protected by basic civil and socioeco-
nomic rights, the human rights of those partially excluded are not violated.
They do not have a human right to be treated as political equals.
A concern about this view is whether it is realistic to expect that conditions
1–3 will reliably be satisfied, and lead to the protection of people’s fundamen-
tal interests, without political equality. It is not enough to wonder whether it is
possible for this to happen. For example, an enlightened despot certainly could
exist who satisfies these conditions without democratic accountability. But it
would be irresponsible to determine what political rights to recognize on the
basis of just this possibility. We must also consider the relative probability (and
scalar feasibility)¹⁹ that different political arrangements will protect funda-
mental interests. And it seems that the burden of proof is here on the side of
those who entertain the avoidance of democracy. Given the overwhelming
wealth of historical evidence about the tendency to bias and abuse of political
power, it is imprudent for agents not to favor regimes including mechanisms
of strong accountability through equal rights to affect the political process of
the kind only democracy affords.²⁰ As historical experience concerning manual

Latinoamericana de Filosofia Politica/Latin American Journal of Political Philosophy 1 (2012),

1–37, at 10–13 and 22–3.
¹⁸ Joshua Cohen, The Arc of the Moral Universe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2010), 357–8. See also Rawls, The Law of Peoples, sect. 9.
¹⁹ On scalar feasibility, see appendix 2.
²⁰ “The fundamental interests of adults who are denied opportunities to participate in
governing will not be adequately protected and advanced by those who govern. The historical
evidence on this point is overwhelming.” Robert Dahl, On Democracy (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1998), 77 (see 77–8 and 52–3). According to a report of recent research, the
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272 Human Dignity and Human Rights

workers and women suggests, those who lack equal and effective rights to affect
the political process are more likely to be ignored by decision-makers. Their
interests are less likely to be duly represented, and they are less likely to be
consulted or offered explanations. And to be consulted, allowed to dissent and
appeal, and given explanations is not enough. People also have reason to be
able to sack decision-makers who do not in fact cater to the fundamental
interests they pledge to track. Thus, instrumental considerations regarding the
fulfillment of civil and socioeconomic rights in fact tell in favor of accepting
strong political rights.
Cohen has a second challenge. He worries that “it is not clear how strong a case
we have for the claim that a society that ensured a relatively rich set of human
rights, including conditions of collective self-determination short of democracy,
would nevertheless be so clearly unacceptable as to bear so much argumentative
weight in the case for a human right to democracy.”²¹ The instrumental argu-
ment for democracy discussed here assumes that it is the lack of specifically
democratic rights that is crucial when explaining the occurrence of famine,
tyranny, etc. But, Cohen notes, when these terrible outcomes ensue we often
find other factors that might be explanatorily relevant, such as weak or absent
rule of law, freedom of the press, and collective self-determination.
Does this challenge succeed at overturning the received wisdom that in the
absence of democracy the fundamental interests of all are less likely to be
reliably protected? We cannot answer this question without looking at the
empirical evidence. In a recent paper, Christiano has argued that in fact the
empirical evidence available supports the instrumental case for democracy.
The empirical debate is set to continue.²² I would like to add, however, that we
should not put endorsement of an HRD aside until the empirical dispute is
settled. First, the instrumental argument should not be construed in unduly
strong terms. From a practical standpoint, to support democracy instrumen-
tally we do not need to find that famines and other terrible outcomes can only
occur when and only because democracy is absent. It is enough if the evidence
shows that democracy is an important (even if not the only) relevant con-
tributory factor so that in its absence the likelihood of such conditions

composition of the electorate seriously affects policymaking. “In late-19th century America, for
example, rules barring most blacks in the South from voting seem to have resulted in a much
lower ratio of teachers to children in black schools. Government spending on health, in contrast,
jumped by a third when women got the vote. Health spending also rose by a third in Brazil, when
the introduction of electronic voting made it easier for the less educated to vote.” “Free exchange:
Make me,” The Economist, May 28, 2016, p. 68.
²¹ Cohen, The Arc of the Moral Universe, 371.
²² Thomas Christiano, “An Instrumental Argument for a Human Right to Democracy,”
Philosophy & Public Affairs 39 (2011), 142–76. Christiano’s conclusions are not undisputed.
A worry (discussed in section 10.2.2.4) is that the comparison between democratic and
non-democratic regimes in terms of overall human rights fulfillment may be less favorable to
democratic regimes in very poor societies than in middle- and upper-income ones.
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Political Rights 273

increases significantly. Second, in the face of uncertainty about the precise
composition of the explanatory factors leading to severe underfulfillment of
human rights, and given that so far research appears to show that democracy
is an important factor,²³ it is only prudent to be risk averse and err on the side
of keeping the list of rights ample (including democracy besides the rule of
law, freedom of the press, and the other important factors). It would be a
reckless bet to choose a non-democratic regime before the empirical evidence
develops enough to actually tip the balance away from the received wisdom
that those with less political power are less secure in the enjoyment of their
rights. The likely losers in that risky bet, who fear starvation, torture, and other
human rights violations, can reasonably reject it.²⁴

10.2.2.4. Institutional Specificity and the Problem

of Generalization
Another challenge to an HRD is that it may lack universal application and
high priority because it relies on too specific an account of the institutions of
collective self-determination needed to protect other, uncontroversial human
rights (such as basic civil, socioeconomic, and other political rights). In some,
perhaps most, contexts, democratic institutions will likely do best, but in
certain contexts they may not. Beitz has recently pressed this charge, arguing
that we cannot generalize the instrumental argument discussed in section
10.2.2.3 because there may be cases of non-democratic societies in which
either (i) economic conditions are such that the instauration of democracy
may not lead to a stable regime or might involve lower protection of uncon-
troversial rights than some alternative, feasible regime; or (ii) the political
culture is one in which the strong political equality that HRD involves is
widely rejected, while the less demanding form of collective self-determination
discussed by Cohen enjoys wide allegiance.²⁵ I think that the most serious
worry concerns (i). As stated, the second puzzle risks a conventionalist view of
the validity of human rights that is incompatible with seeing them as critical
standards. The existence of rights does not depend on people believing that
they exist. Slavery would involve a violation of rights even if most people
(including the slaves) did not think there is a right against it. Such beliefs are

²³ For the strong correlation between democratization and support for international human
rights law, see Beth Simmons, Mobilizing for Human Rights: International Law in Domestic
Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 24–7. Simmons does not claim that
democracy causes, but she says that it supports, the legalization of international human rights,
and she explores some possible mechanisms (such as strong accountability) underpinning this
contribution.
²⁴ Recall the contractualist framework discussed in chapter 8, section 8.4, and its significance
for articulating the assessment of human rights norms.
²⁵ Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights, sect. 26.
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274 Human Dignity and Human Rights

relevant for the feasibility of implementing rights in the short term, but that is
a different matter.
Let us grant, for the sake of argument, that in the short term the instaur-
ation of democracy in a certain country would likely lead to higher costs in
terms of other, uncontroversial rights than the instauration of an authoritarian
regime that approximates the features of collective self-determination dis-
cussed in section 10.2.2.3. How could a defender of an HRD respond? The
first thing to say is that the high priority of human rights should not be
interpreted too narrowly, as meaning that to have it, a requirement should
be immediately and fully implementable. Human rights set up a normative
agenda for the political future. What is crucial is that we recognize them as
setting political goals of great importance, which we can achieve some time in
the future and should pursue to the extent that we reasonably can from now
on. When we encounter circumstances in which an obligatory goal cannot be
achieved, we should acknowledge dynamic duties to progressively change
them so that the obligatory goal becomes achievable.²⁶ Cases like the one we
are here granting for the sake of argument can be seen as part of the non-ideal
theory of human rights. Such non-ideal theory would depend on an ideal
theory that sets the optimal feasible targets of long-term reform, and it would
deal with cases of partial compliance and conditions in which the fulfillment of
the ideal demands is not immediately feasible. Given that democratic regimes
are feasible in the long term, and that (as Beitz recognizes) they are more likely
than the alternatives to reliably protect the whole set of other urgent rights
when stable, we should take them as the target for long-term reform. But since
in the case under consideration we face non-ideal circumstances, we should
adopt a transitional standpoint that explores the process rendering the final
target accessible. Such process need not start with an immediate push for
democratic institutions if the likely outcomes are worse on balance.
Second, the long-term view favoring democracy is not idle in the short term.
It would have immediate bite in at least two ways. First, it would impose high
evidentiary standards for choosing non-democratic alternatives in the short
term. The presumption would be that democracy should be pursued unless

²⁶ On the idea of dynamic duties, see chapter 3 and appendix 2. See further Pablo Gilabert,
“Justice and Feasibility: A Dynamic Approach,” in M. Weber and K. Vallier, eds., Political
Utopias: Contemporary Debates (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 95–126. A worry
could be that it is unrealistic to expect that we will know enough about what is likely to happen
in the future for considerations about the long term to affect our current choices. I am not sure
this is always the case. But when it is, we may still have dynamic duties to expand our level of
political knowledge. Second, we must also factor in the undesirability of the status quo. The
worse it is, the less strict we need to be about our foresight of the future to choose to make moves
away from it. Even if the status quo is desirable, notice, third, that if we are unable to foresee the
future, this may include inability to forsee whether the status quo will continue if we don’t choose
to change it, or if we choose to keep it. A radical skepticism about foresight would hamper
any choice.
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Political Rights 275

compelling evidence is given that an alternative regime would be better overall
in the short term. Second, it would demand that among the several feasible
non-democratic regimes that would do better, in the short term, at catering for
other rights, we choose the one that is most likely to ease the transition to
democracy in the future.²⁷ Thus, the goal of achieving democracy plays an
immediate role in determining whether we should favor a non-democratic
regime in the short term, and which one we should favor if we must indeed
favor some.
Third, including democracy in the long-term political agenda of human
rights would not only be reasonable given its likelihood to do better than the
alternatives in the instrumental ways discussed so far once a stable form of it is
achieved. In addition, democracy has intrinsic significance. An account of
collective self-determination that is non-democratic (accepting, for example,
unequal rights to vote or hold public office for people of different ethnic,
religious, or other groups) violates the normative individualism and the
commitment to some forms of equality and liberty that are constitutive of
the human rights perspective. I will explore this point in section 10.2.2.5. But if
this is correct, a consequence for the present discussion is that even if we
construe human rights as making immediate demands of full implementation,
the problem discussed in the hypothetical case would not be whether democ-
racy is a right, but what is its relative weight when other rights (such as certain
civil and socioeconomic rights that would be better served by a non-
democratic regime) conflict with it in practice.²⁸ (It would also not need to
be an issue whether democracy involves a high-priority right: Democracy
could be a member of a package of high-priority rights even if in some
circumstances its implementation has less priority than that of other rights
in the same package.) The loss in terms of the intrinsic value of democracy
leaves a reminder when a different regime is chosen that does better in the
short term with respect to instrumental considerations concerning other
rights. We are here facing a tragic choice rather than a mere tradeoff, and
thus that reminder must be acknowledged. The first and second points
mentioned above then reapply, this time regarding the future satisfaction of
what has been left out in terms of the intrinsic concern.²⁹

²⁷ This example assumes that the feasible non-democratic regimes are roughly equivalent in
terms of catering for the other rights.
²⁸ Christiano (“An Insrumental Argument of a Human Right to Democracy,” 170) also
discusses the potential conflict between an HRD and other strong rights, but my conclusion
differs from his. Since his paper focuses only on the instrumental argument for an HRD, he
concludes that in the circumstances an HRD is defeated rather than merely outweighed (as it
would not serve the purpose that determines its value, which is to protect other strong rights).
²⁹ A possible objection is that since Beitz and Cohen accept that democracy is a demand of
justice, they would also agree that it gives rise to obligatory goals of reform over the long term.
But if the goals are not also seen as responding to human rights (which are a subset of the claims
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276 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Fourth, and finally, there is the issue of institutional specificity. The prob-
lem with the hypothetical case discussed here may be less likely to arise if we
notice that the HRD can be stated at different levels of institutional abstrac-
tion. At the level of principle, HRD can be stated in a relatively general way
that captures the key idea of political equality. The specific institutional form
that political equality should take depends on the characteristics of the context
in hand.³⁰ So if one specific institutional form of democracy (say, a certain
electoral system, or organization of the relation between the legislative, execu-
tive, and judicial branches of government) is not likely to be stable in a certain
context, this does not entail that democracy as such has no immediate stable
application. Perhaps another specific articulation of political equality will be
immediately stable. This argumentative triangulation (responding to the im-
mediate unworkability of a certain institutional implementation by moving up
one level to the relevant animating principle and then envisaging alternative
re-specifications of it to see whether one is workable) must be pursued before
moving to the concessive, non-ideal parts of the exercise discussed above.
When we think about the universality of democracy, we should ask whether
the key principle has general hold, not whether any of its specific incarnations
is generalizable.³¹
The foregoing discussion touches upon a central theoretical point made in
section 8.7 of chapter 8, according to which a fully developed conception of
human rights has three dimensions, including quite general and abstract
human rights (DI), specific rights demanding institutions and practices im-
plementing the more general requirements in certain contexts (DII), and
political strategies of reform leading people from where they are to the
scenarios of implementation they envisage (DIII). In the case of the HRD,
the idea of political equality falls under DI, the various specifications of
democracy and the exercises of argumentative triangulation concern DII,
and the transitional standpoint imagining paths for the introduction of work-
able democratic institutions and practices engages DIII.

of justice), then their great weight will not be recognized: their pursuit will be seen as having a
lower level of priority and will be more easily put aside to attend to other goals.
³⁰ See Dahl’s illuminating general framework, which includes a distinction between demo-
cratic “principles,” “criteria,” and “institutions.” For discussion of specific institutions that are
appropriate in different contexts see Dahl, On Democracy, chs. 8–11. For a distinction between
principles and institutions concerning the HRD, see Allen Buchanan, Justice, Legitimacy and
Self-determination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 145–7. We can also distinguish
between minimal and maximal democratic political equality, seeing only the former as the focus
of an HRD. Christiano (“An Instrumental Argument for a Human Rigth to Democracy,” 146)
suggests that the former demands institutions securing effective and equal voting, equal oppor-
tunity to engage in consequential forms of political organization and action, and a rule of law
supporting independent judicial control over the executive power.
³¹ The Universal Declaration’s Articles 19–21 (which can be interpreted as formulating
specific democratic rights) might be too specific.
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Political Rights 277

10.2.2.5. Intrinsic Considerations of Freedom and Equality

The intrinsic argument for democracy says that democracy is desirable
because it involves an organization of the ultimate political decision-making
structures and practices of society such that through them human persons
express the respect and recognition due to human persons given their capaci-
ties to form political judgments and determine themselves politically. Beings
with these capacities (and most human beings have them to a sufficient
degree—although of course they differ beyond it) are seriously harmed when
they are treated as political puppets or inferiors—as decision-takers who may
not also be decision-makers. This thought involves ideas of political freedom
and equality. Democratic institutions aim at giving the adults subject to the
political system equal political freedoms, which amount to equal and effective
opportunities to participate in shaping the political process and its outcomes.
A political system is procedurally unfair if it gives some of its subjects more
rights of participation than others: all agents with the capacity of political
judgment and self-determination deserve equal rights. Of course those cap-
acities can and should be developed. And democracies will be in one way
better, or deeper, to the extent that they facilitate such development—or so the
ideal of solidaristic empowerment, applied to political institutions and prac-
tices, would give us reason to think.
The intrinsic argument for an HRD is more controversial than the instru-
mental one. To see this, we can address another important recent challenge
posed by Cohen. The worry is that in invoking ideas of freedom and equality,
this defense of an HRD may present an unduly maximalist view of human
rights in which the distinction between human rights and justice is simply
erased. But intuitively we think that such a distinction exists, that human
rights are only a proper subset of what justice demands, and that this distinc-
tion is important for the role of human rights as especially weighty demands of
both domestic and global political action. Ideas of freedom and equality seem
better located at the complement of human rights in the wider set of demands
of liberal-egalitarian justice, which do not so readily seem to have the kind of
global priority that human rights are meant to have. A right to democracy is
then best seen not as a human right, but as a wider (less weighty, and not so
uncontroversially universal) demand of justice.
I discuss the details of Cohen’s challenge elsewhere.³² Here I want to make
three positive, but related, points. The first is that ideas of freedom and
equality are already operative in the most important document of the con-
temporary human rights political practice, the Universal Declaration, and that
it is natural to see them as helping in making the intrinsic argument for an

³² “Is There a Human Right to Democracy? A Response to Joshua Cohen,” sect. 3.2. This
paragraph partly draws on p. 19.
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278 Human Dignity and Human Rights

HRD. Cohen takes political democracy to depend on the following two ideas:
(a) “each member is understood as entitled to be treated with equal respect,
and therefore as entitled to the same basic rights, regardless of social position”;
(b) “the basis of equality lies, in particular, in . . . political capacity: we owe
equal respect to those who have sufficient capacity to understand the require-
ments of mutually beneficial and fair cooperation, grasp their rationale, and
follow them in their conduct.”³³ Now consider the Preamble and Articles 1
and 2 of the Universal Declaration. The Preamble opens by referring to the
“recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of
all members of the human family” as being “the foundation of freedom, justice
and peace in the world.” Article 1 says that “[a]ll human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights,” and “are endowed with reason and con-
science and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood,” and
Article 2 claims that “everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set
forth in this Declaration without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour,
sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
property, birth or other status.” These three framing clauses evidently support
an idea of equal respect of the kind envisaged in (a), according to which all
should be seen as equal in rights regardless of their social position and
background. Article 1’s reference to certain cognitive and volitional endow-
ments, if applied to human adults who are not severely mentally impaired
(that is, those in whom the endowments are clearly present), also identifies
aspects of the idea of political capacity targeted by (b). If all such human adults
are free and equal in dignity and rights, and have reason and conscience, and
can (given that they ought to) act toward each other in a spirit of brotherhood,
then arguably they have enough political capacity to be responsible citizens in
a democratic polity. These points can clearly be used to support the idea that
an HRD has intrinsic significance.
Could the ideas mentioned be reasonably accepted, in global public reason-
ing, by people who disagree in their comprehensive religious, moral, and
philosophical outlooks, and who have also disagreements about what justice
in the wide sense demands? The second point is that the ideas of freedom and
equality just mentioned are relatively thin in two ways that are relevant for
making a case for their universality and high priority. The first way concerns
the levels of depth of ideas and principles in normative argument. The ideas of
freedom and equality mentioned could be intermediate premises by reference
to which we can justify the view that political decision-making should be
democratic. But such intermediate premises can in turn be defended by appeal
to different, and often incompatible, deeper commitments. A Kantian might
say that democratic freedom is derived from the more fundamental idea of

³³ Cohen, The Arc of the Moral Universe, 365.

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autonomy as the source of value and normative validity. Defenders of some
forms of religious morality could say that humans are equal in the eyes of God,
who designed them with certain powers of autonomous political decision-
making that is their duty to respect and use. Agreement on the idea of political
freedom and equality does not require agreement at the level of these deeper
comprehensive doctrines. The second way in which the ideas of political
freedom and equality are relatively thin concerns the relation between political
and other social institutions. Some may challenge the view that people should
be equally free to determine decision-making in every domain of social action.
Some hierarchies may be justifiable in some settings. But this point is not
incompatible with political freedom and equality. What has high priority is
that equal freedom be recognized at the level of the main political institutions.
Why is it crucial that equal freedom exist at that level? Because politics is the
master institutional framework; it sets conditions on every other institution in
a society. This is why agents have very strong reason to be equally free at the
political level. At other levels it is less important, and sometimes not even
desirable, to live in conditions of equal freedom.
A consequence of the previous point is that although the thin ideas of
freedom and equality support an HRD, they do not obliterate the distinction
between human rights and maximalist claims of justice. There clearly are more
demanding views of freedom and equality as matters of justice. The third point
is that in fact equal political freedom helps frame the discussion about
maximal justice in a fair way. Disagreement about justice is an enduring fact
of contemporary social life. People disagree on whether, and how, ideas of
freedom and equality (and other ideas of justice) are to be elaborated in
different spheres of society (including, prominently, the economic one).
Human rights are not meant to settle such disagreements. They can, however,
enable their fair treatment. They do this by securing a floor of dignity on which
disagreeing agents can stand. Such a floor of dignity clearly includes basic civil
and socioeconomic rights such as bodily integrity and subsistence. But it
should also include robust political rights of the kind democracy involves.
Without them, the elaboration of disputes about wider justice would not give
all a fair chance to contribute to the debate and to decide what proposals in it
should be tried out, and later on perhaps repelled or amended, by the coercive
decision-making political institutions. In chapter 11, I will return to the
importance of this floor of dignity in allowing people to fairly process their
disagreements about what is part of human rights and what are requirements
of wider social justice.
At this point the intrinsic argument for democracy joins forces with the
instrumental argument in both its accountability and epistemic dimensions.
We should have democratic forms of egalitarian politics to recognize and
respect, and give full play, to the cognitive and volitional capacities of all
political agents: democracy enables us to learn from each other, and to
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280 Human Dignity and Human Rights

negotiate our disagreements in fair and informed ways. More specifically,
democracy is important in the following ways. First, the intrinsic value
of democracy is evident once we try to explain why of two final outcomes
that are equal in every respect in terms of rights protection (other than
democracy) the one reached through a decision-making process that involves
equal political liberty is better than the other that does not. Being publicly
recognized and empowered as an equal in shaping one’s social world is
something we have reason to care about. Second, equal participation, includ-
ing public deliberation, is of great importance. It helps identify appropriate
(desirable and feasible) specifications of abstract rights for the circumstances
we face. It helps us find appropriate balancing acts if the implementation of
several rights conflict in practice. It enables us to reach fair compromises when
full agreement is not viable. It provides us with a way to learn about the
specific circumstances, beliefs, and needs of others in diverse multicultural
settings in which we cannot simply assume that everyone shares our world-
view. Finally, democratic institutions and practices help cement a public
culture of respect and attention to the interests and voice of each that makes
social cooperation more stable. That public culture helps make cooperation
more dynamic and productive as well. Democratic power not only helps us
protect ourselves from threats by others; it also enables us to join with others
to design and pursue social projects that improve people’s lives in various
ways. These points have general significance for the pursuit of global justice,
the topic to which I now turn.³⁴

³⁴ These claims rely on the phenomenon of linkage relations between various rights. On this
topic, see James Nickel, “Rethinking Indivisibility: Towards a Theory of Supporting Relations
Between Human Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly 30 (2008), 984–1001; and Pablo Gilabert,
“The Importance of Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of Human Rights:
A Response to James Nickel,” Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2010), 425–38. In the latter paper
(at p. 429), I argue that we should expand our understanding of linkage arguments by recog-
nizing that there are in fact different kinds of linkages. We can distinguish between conceptual,
normative, epistemic, and causal forms of support between rights. These involve quite different
patterns of support. Although they all exhibit the general idea that if you have reason to support
the implementation of a right R2, then you have reason to seek the implementation of another
right R1, the connection proceeds along different axes of analysis. An example of conceptual
connection arises when we consider the relation between equality rights (captured by the idea of
equality of fundamental rights and freedoms—UDHR, Art. 2; legal personality and equality
before the law—UDHR, Arts. 6, 7; freedom from discrimination—UDHR, Arts. 2, 7; and equal
pay for equal work, UDHR, Art. 22) and other rights. Human rights that are not implemented
equally are not fully implemented, because no full implementation of a human right is consistent
with viewing some humans as less entitled than others to their object. Examples of normative,
epistemic, and causal support emerge when we consider the relation between political rights and
socioeconomic rights. Although it is not strictly impossible to implement socioeconomic rights
without implementing political rights, there is a clear moral advantage to implementing the
former through processes that involve the implementation of the latter. People not only have
reason to have economic opportunities to avoid destitution. They also have reason to care about
how such opportunities are created. E.g., they have reason to want to be able to be the ones who
frame, collectively, the institutions that get them out of poverty, to be their authors rather than
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Political Rights 281

10.3. HUMAN RIGHTS, DEMOCRACY, AND

THE P URSUIT OF GLOBAL JUSTICE

10.3.1. Basic and Non-basic Global Justice

How does the recognition of an HRD affect the pursuit of global justice? To
answer this question we first need to distinguish between basic and non-basic,
including maximal, global justice. Basic global justice targets the most urgent
global demands concerning the conditions for a decent life for all—that is, the
fulfillment of human rights—whereas non-basic global justice includes but
goes beyond that. Consider economic justice. The universal fulfillment of the
human right to an adequate standard of living including basic levels of
nutrition, education, health care, and housing (stated in Article 25 of the
Universal Declaration) would be an achievement of basic global justice.
Beyond that, we can imagine more demanding claims of global justice. Some
say that we should, as a matter of justice, aim for global equality of access or
opportunity regarding goods such as advanced education and health care,
income, wealth, forms of work involving self-realization, etc. These goods
arguably lie beyond the objects of human rights. If access to them is an
entitlement of global justice, it must be one of non-basic global justice. How
does democracy fit this distinction? First, if it is a human right, democracy is a
matter of basic global justice. As we saw, some critics disagree; they think that
it is not weighty or universal enough to be a human right and that it might
perhaps, at best, be seen instead as a demand of non-basic global justice. The
response to such worries presented in section 10.2 amounts to defending a
right to democracy as a demand of basic global justice. But we still need to
consider what the significance of democracy is for the design of international
institutions, if any. How does an HRD affect the reform and creation of
international institutions? A second question is: how does an HRD affect the
pursuit of non-basic global justice? In what follows, I present a brief explor-
ation of these two questions. Answering them is important for completing the

only their passive recipients. Their active agency in the political process is part of their dignity,
just as the material conditions for pursuing a decent life are, and the latter have a different
normative significance when they are under the political control of those they affect. The same
example concerning the relation between political and socioeconomic rights helps us identify
different, epistemic and causal relations of support. Political participation (e.g., through public
deliberation) helps people identify the kinds of socioeconomic policies that are most relevant for
their circumstances. And political participation also enables people to keep those who wield sate
power accountable, thus increasing the likelihood that they will cater for their socioeconomic
needs. Supporting relations may operate in stronger or weaker forms. But to identify such
degrees of support we need to identify the relevant mechanisms of support. The four types
just mentioned would give us a sense of what we should be looking at. They would guide us in the
identification of relations of interdependence and in the assessment of the quality of implemen-
tation of certain rights.
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282 Human Dignity and Human Rights

defense of an HRD. My remarks are programmatic, but I hope they offer
illuminating hypotheses for future discussion.

10.3.2. The Pursuit of Basic Global Justice

How should we think about international institutions if we aim at the global

fulfillment of human rights? What is the role of an HRD in this exercise?
Consider Article 28 of the Universal Declaration, according to which “Every-
one is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and
freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” From the discus-
sion in section 10.2 we can claim that domestic social orders should be
democratic. We can also claim that a just “international order” would be
one that promotes democracy in domestic settings. These are not minor
results. But should we think of the institutions making up the international
order as themselves bound by democratic norms? If so, how and why?³⁵
Should international institutions such as the World Trade Organization
be democratically organized? In an illuminating article considering this ques-
tion, Thomas Christiano identifies two kinds of answers and important
challenges they face.³⁶ I will reconstruct Christiano’s points and then (in the
next paragraph) offer a critical assessment of them. One option is a revision of
the common “voluntary association model,” which legitimizes international
institutions and their actions on the basis of the consent to them given by
member states. This model seems relatively feasible given the importance of
states for any stable international institution (it would not last without their
cooperation) and desirable given that states may be quite successful at defend-
ing the interests of their subjects. However, the model faces two serious
problems. The “representativeness problem” arises when some of the partici-
pating states are not democratic. The “asymmetric bargaining problem” arises
when states have enormous differences in bargaining power that allow stron-
ger states to dragoon weaker ones into accepting conditions of international
association that are unfair. For example, negotiations in the WTO may yield
exploitative conditions for poorer countries. This model could be revised into
a “fair democratic association” model in which member states are democratic

³⁵ One way to motivate this question is to say that our globalizing world involves a “demo-
cratic deficit,” as decision-makers on issues of great importance (such as environmental protec-
tion and trade) are not democratically accountable to decision-takers. Charles Beitz criticizes this
approach in “Global Political Justice and the ‘Democratic Deficit’,” in R. Jay Wallace, R. Kumar,
and S. Freeman, eds., Reasons and Recognition: Essays on the Philosophy of T. M. Scanlon
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 231–55.
³⁶ Thomas Christiano, “Democratic Legitimacy and International Institutions,” in S. Besson
and J. Tasioulas, eds., The Philosophy of International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2010), 119–37.
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Political Rights 283

and certain institutional restrictions on unfair bargaining are imposed. How-
ever, the accessibility of this model is problematic given the existing global
inequalities in economic and political power. Still, Christiano thinks that it is
overall better to work toward realizing this model than to pursue another,
more ambitious model of “global democracy” calling for the legitimation of
the international global order through a global parliament with representatives
of constituencies of individuals. This model faces insurmountable problems.
The most serious are these. First, democracy is a valid ideal for institutions
only if those bound by them have roughly equal stakes in their decisions. This
condition is met by modern states but not by international institutions. (For
example, some countries are much more involved in international trade than
others.) Second, there is not enough in the way of an international civil society
(in terms of political parties, interests groups, and media outlets) to establish
a sufficiently meaningful communication between global institutions and
individuals across the world. Again, the contrast with the domestic case is
too deep.
I think that Christiano is right that we should pursue some version of the
fair democratic association model (and that we should do it for the reasons he
states). But his rejection of global democracy is too quick. First, the condition
of equal stakes could be met by a global parliament if its remit is properly
circumscribed.³⁷ Importantly for our discussion, it could be focused on legis-
lating on conditions on any other international institution (such as the WTO)
so that its activities are consistent with the promotion and protection of
human rights.³⁸ Everyone has a strong and equal stake in that. And inter-
national institutions directly representing individuals rather than states are
appropriate here because it is the former, not the latter, that have human
rights.
Second, the problem of weak civil society could be progressively resolved
over time. The current process of globalization is already generating many
forms of supranational political action, forums, and organizations. This could

³⁷ Another possible response would rely on a proportionality view of democratic rights.

According to this view, some may be entitled to more say on a certain issue to be decided
upon than others if they have greater stakes in it. Global democratic arrangements giving
different say to different people could then be argued for. On this view, some form of global
democratic governance would be appropriate because some issues importantly affect everyone in
the world, although since some would have greater stakes in some of those issues than others,
rights of political participation in decision-making would not be strictly equal with respect to all
global issues. On the proportionality view, see Harry Brighouse and Marc Fleurbaey, “Democ-
racy and Proportionality,” Journal of Political Philosophy 18 (2010), 137–55. For a response to
Christiano that develops this view, see Laura Valentini, “No Global Demos, No Global Democ-
racy? A Systematization and Critique,” Perspectives on Politics 12 (2014), 789–807, at 795.
³⁸ On the human rights focus for global democratic governance, see also Carol Gould,
Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004),
178, and Habermas, Europe: The Faltering Project (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), ch. 7.
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284 Human Dignity and Human Rights

be accelerated by the creation of a global parliament focused on human rights,
whose presence and action would create an incentive for the creation of
new arenas of international civil society. That parliament could at first be
only deliberative and perform tasks of recommendation, and develop the
power to yield binding regulation only later on, when international civil
society thickens to a sufficient degree. Interestingly, this progressive pursuit
of a circumscribed global parliament might have positive interactions with
the pursuit of the conditions for fair bargaining within the inter-state
association. The former could press for action to remove conditions of
extreme vulnerability, and thus bolster the negotiation power of the excluded
or exploited.
Two key ideas underlying the position I am suggesting concern (a) the
natural duties based on the cosmopolitanism of human rights and (b) the
dynamic and long-term nature of the political practice they ground. Con-
sider (a). If we owe equal moral concern and respect to every human being
(given their status-dignity) at least when it comes to the fulfillment of
their human rights, then the idea of an “international order” invoked in
Article 28 of the Universal Declaration should be interpreted as demanding
not only the reform of existing international institutions but also the
creation of new ones (when this can be done at reasonable cost) which
will respond to the pre-existing equal stake of every person in (either
existing or feasible to create) institutions supporting their achievement of
condition-dignity. Such institutions should be democratic in order to target
that goal—and the three dimensions of democracy discussed in this chapter
point in that direction.
Turn now to (b). Global institutions focused on human rights, if they
include the third, epistemic dimension of democracy, will help us navigate
more lucidly the uncertainties concerning what is the most reasonable way to
protect human rights in the world. Given the first and the second dimensions,
they will also make such protection lose the aura of unilateral imposition that
human rights policies sometimes have in contemporary politics. They would
constitute a form of global egalitarian empowerment through which the
members of the global community of human beings (and there always is
such a community from the moral point of view) pursue, in an autonomous
way, the fulfillment of the human rights of each.

10.3.3. The Pursuit of Non-basic Global Justice

The previous discussion concerns human rights and basic global justice. But
the pursuit of basic global justice affects the pursuit of non-basic global justice
in important ways.
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Political Rights 285

First, the generation of institutions and practices of supranational democ-
racy (of the two kinds discussed) provide a political bridge between the pursuit
of basic and non-basic justice. A world where basic global justice is achieved is
one in which people have a floor of dignity to stand on. That floor is also a
floor of power, as these people are in control of the political shape of their
social world, both domestic and international. That power gives them the
capability to explore together, on fair terms, the issue of whether global justice
involves more than human rights, and if so what. The three aspects of
democratic empowerment are important for this exploration: the exploration
can be undertaken by those who will be subject to its results, whoever makes
decisions on the implementation of emerging proposals will be accountable to
those subjected to them, and everyone will have effective opportunities to
improve through political experience and public deliberation everyone’s epi-
stemic grasp of the practical alternatives and their likely consequences on
agents placed in different circumstances.³⁹
The global fulfillment of human rights, including an HRD, constitutes a
bridge in the movement from basic to non-basic global justice. But secondly,
although human rights are only a proper subset of the demands of global
justice, they rely on ideas that can, and arguably should, be developed further
at the level of non-basic global justice. I conclude by suggesting the importance
of two such ideas: cosmopolitanism and humanism. Both points can be seen as
flowing from one of the key roles of the idea of human dignity identified in
chapter 5, which concerns the universalism of human rights theory and
practice. First, human rights mark the entrance of cosmopolitanism into
domestic and international politics.⁴⁰ This has an important consequence for
the kinds of duties the pursuit of basic justice should involve. Those duties
should be not only agent-relative but also agent-neutral: human rights in the
cosmopolitan sense should be respected and promoted by everyone toward
everyone else. Duty-bearers may have responsibilities to right-holders whether
they are intertwined in certain associative ventures or not. There are pro tanto
duties to promote human rights with strictly universal scope. This prompts the
hypothesis that there are some duties of non-basic global justice that also have

³⁹ For another argument that securing human rights and fair global governance provides an
appropriate starting point for the pursuit of global justice, see Rainer Forst, The Right to
Justification: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2012), ch. 12; and “The Ground and Point of Human Rights: A Kantian Constructivist
View,” in David Held and Pietro Maffetone, eds., Global Political Theory (Cambridge: Polity,
2016), 22–39. My argument is compatible with Forst’s, but it is different because it does not rely
on a constructivist approach to justice. For another important recent discussion about the
significance of an HRD for processing political disagreement in a dynamic way, see John Dryzek,
“Can There be a Human Right to an Essentially Contested Concept?” Journal of Politics 78
(2016), 357–67.
⁴⁰ Cosmopolitanism is the moral view that all individuals are ultimate units of equal moral
concern and respect for everyone. See Pogge, World Poverty and Human Rights, 175.
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286 Human Dignity and Human Rights

a cosmopolitan nature. This point is already part of the practice of global
movements focused on introducing and deepening democracy.⁴¹
Second, and relatedly, the pursuit of non-basic global justice may also
inherit the humanism of human rights (that is, the view that some claims
are based in our shared humanity). Consider global economic justice. It may
be worth entertaining some pro tanto demands of global economic equality in
which certain conditions for human flourishing that all human beings have
reason to value (such as advanced forms of health care and education) are
pursued—whether their promotion occurs amongst those who already share
associative frameworks or not. Once we acknowledge universal socioeconomic
humanist rights with a sufficientarian target, why not acknowledge some
universal egalitarian entitlements?
Of course, I am not here attempting to show that these two suggestions
about how the cosmopolitanism and humanism flowing from the dignitarian
approach to human rights might shape the pursuit of non-basic global justice
are true. The aim is simply to suggest that these are relevant hypotheses to
explore. And the political conditions for such an exploration, as I have argued
in this chapter, are precisely one of the achievements that the fulfillment of an
HRD would deliver for all. The central conclusion is, then, that the fulfillment
of the human right to democratic political empowerment is crucial for the
pursuit of global justice.

⁴¹ E.g., the pursuit of democratic empowerment occurs in countries moving away from non-
democratic rule, as in the recent Arab Spring. It also seeks to deepen democracy in countries that
already have democratic institutions but face the domestication of the political process by the
rich, as illustrated by the recent Occupy movement in the United States. Furthermore, and
interestingly, the Occupy movement campaigned in solidarity with democratic movements in
other countries. These movements converge in calling for democratic governance both at the
domestic and international level. E.g., the manifesto “United for # Global Democracy” said in
2011 that “Undemocratic international institutions are our global Mubarak, our global Assad,
our global Gaddafi. These include: the IMF, the WTO, global markets, multinational banks, the
G8/G20, the European Central Bank and the UN Security Council. Like Mubarak and Assad,
these institutions must not be allowed to run people’s lives without their consent. We are all born
equal, rich or poor, woman or man. Every African and Asian is equal to every European or
American. Our global institutions must reflect this, or be overturned.” See http://www.guardian.
co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/14/manifesto-global-regime-change.
A further clarification: The cosmopolitan duties (and the humanist ones mentioned in the
next paragraph) are pro tanto because they can be limited by considerations of feasibility and
reasonable costs, and because they have to be weighted against agent-relative and associative
duties, which can sometimes (perhaps often) be stronger. (Notice that agent-relative and
associative duties may rely on the generic value of certain special relationships, and be thus
significant even from the cosmopolitan and humanist point of view.) For explorations of
cosmopolitanism and humanism in relation to human rights and egalitarian distributive justice,
see Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012).
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11

Minimalist versus Expansive Views

of Human Rights: Dignity and the
Arc of Humanist Justice

11.1. INTRODUCTION

There is an ongoing debate in the philosophy of human rights about how

minimalist or expansive human rights should be taken to be. Human rights
documents include references to quite ambitious socioeconomic rights (such
as access to high levels of health care and vacations with pay) and quite robust
political rights (including, on some interpretations, a right to democracy). The
documents do not mention any explicit threshold regarding how far human
rights requirements can go. And non-governmental human rights activists
have tended to endorse expansive views. Some philosophers argue, however,
that there should be a threshold that keeps those requirements relatively
minimal. Others think that an expansive outlook is preferable. What explains
this disagreement? What kind of argument (drawing on what aims and criteria)
might settle the dispute? To answer these questions, we need to engage in moral
and philosophical reflection about human rights. It is not enough to merely
describe how the legal and political practice of human rights proceeds. That
practice may be contradictory, including both minimalist and expansive views.
And we do not only seek consistency. We seek a picture of human rights that is
ethically sound and worthy of our practical allegiance. In this final chapter,
I explain how the dignitarian approach can help us develop that picture,
supporting a two-tiered, dynamic humanism that enables us to arbitrate the
debate between minimalist and expansive views of human rights. After a
critical survey of eleven arguments for minimalist accounts of human rights,
the chapter endorses a moderate form of expansivism casting human rights as
basic claims that cover the most urgent requirements of human dignity.
Elements of egalitarianism (in particular regarding political rights) are part of
this picture. However, a wider and more ambitious set of egalitarian demands
of humanist justice that go beyond human rights (such as democratic
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288 Human Dignity and Human Rights

socialism) is also seen as flowing from the dignitarian perspective, and its
significance for the contemporary political context is explored.

11.2. MINIMALISM ABOUT HUMAN RIGHTS:

A CR I T I CAL SU RV E Y

We can begin our philosophical exploration by surveying some arguments

that have been given to embrace minimalism. I will critically assess these
arguments, and, in the process, assemble considerations that will be relevant to
offer my own view (to be stated in section 11.3).¹
(1) Hard feasibility. The first argument against expansive views of rights is
that they defy feasibility. Ambitious statements of rights, especially socio-
economic ones, do not present rights because their associated requirements
cannot be universally fulfilled. Many countries simply lack the necessary
economic resources to provide people with what they require. Rights imply
duties, and the infeasibility of the fulfillment of the latter defeats the existence
of the former. Maurice Cranston provided a version of this challenge, recom-
mending that human rights doctrine concentrate on civil and political rights,
which, he thought, were feasible to implement universally.²

¹ This critical survey does not pretend to exhaust all the possible positions. I should note that
there are different issues regarding which norms could be more or less maximal or minimal.
They concern:
(a) The kinds of object involved in them (e.g., conditions or goods making up basic decency
or flourishing).
(b) The specific objects required within the relevant kinds (e.g., certain economic resources,
civil liberties, political liberties, etc.)
(c) The kind of relation to the objects that the norms would require support for (e.g., formal
opportunity to enjoy them, capability or access to them, etc.)
(d) How much of the selected relation to the objects is supported (e.g., to a sufficient amount
of it, the totality of it that is feasible, etc.).
(e) The distributive structure, identifying a comparative standing of different persons in their
claims to the objects under the implementation of the norm (e.g., an egalitarian scheme
supporting the same access to conditions or goods for each, a prioritarian scheme giving
greater weight to the access by the worse-off, an aggregative scheme maximizing the sum
or average of advantage of all, etc.).
(f) The characterization of the individuals who benefit from the scheme (e.g., as citizens, as
human beings, etc.).
Many of the possibilities envisaged in this list are engaged in the text of this section. But the
exploration could go further (and the list itself could be extended). I hope that my discussion will
be sufficient, however, to motivate the introduction of the position presented in section 11.3.
² Maurice Cranston, “Human Rights, Real and Supposed,” in P. Hayden, ed., The Philosophy
of Human Rights (St. Paul: Paragon House, 2001), 163–73.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 289

There are three problems with the view underlying this challenge. First, it
ignores the importance of international cooperation. In fact, human rights
documents already explicitly require it. Richer countries can help poorer
countries when the latter are not able to fulfill certain rights on their own.
Second, human rights focus not only on the here and now. They also frame
political agendas for the medium and long term. In this way, they justify the
adoption of developmental policies that take the fulfillment of socioeconomic
rights as priorities. If certain rights cannot be fully fulfilled now, this does not
mean that they have no normative traction. If they could be fulfilled in the
future if we take certain steps now to expand our political and economic
capacities, then we may have dynamic duties to engage in such an expansion.
Again, human rights documents can already be interpreted as affirming this
perspective when they invoke the idea of “progressive realization.” Finally, the
massive economic changes that have been taking place over the last few
decades make it less and less credible to say that there are not enough
resources to fulfill expansive socioeconomic rights. Increasingly, the problem
is not so much economic inability as political unwillingness.³ A universalist
agenda of solidaristic empowerment is what is needed.
(2) Soft feasibility. The feasibility challenge can be presented in less stark
terms. Although the fulfillment of some ambitious rights is perhaps not strictly
impossible, it may still be quite improbable. Existing economic, cultural, and
political circumstances may impose serious obstacles that are extremely diffi-
cult to overcome. Expansive views of human rights are thus hopelessly naïve
or utopian, even if what they envision is not impossible.
This challenge is not sufficient to defeat ambitious requirements. Since it is
based on relative improbability rather than strict impossibility, it does not
engage the sharp-edged principle that ought implies can (and thus does
not trigger contrapositive debunking of ought claims). When certain require-
ments are difficult rather than impossible to fulfill, the correct response may
be to try harder rather than to drop them from our political agenda. The idea
of dynamic duties applies here even more pressingly than in the case of hard
but temporary infeasibility mentioned above. In general, scalar, soft feasibility
obstacles are important but insufficiently strong, on their own, to affect the

³ These points are developed in detail in chapter 3 of this book. References to international
cooperation and to “progressive realization” arise in the Preamble and Articles 22 and 28 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), and Articles 2.1, 11.2, 13.2, 14, and 23 of
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). This commit-
ment is also included in the United Nations Charter, which is central to modern international
law. An important additional response is that the alleged contrast between civil and political
rights, on the one hand, and socioeconomic rights, on the other, is artificial. It is not true that the
former rights involve only negative duties that are relatively easy to fulfill. They also involve
positive duties of protection and enablement, which are often quite expensive to implement. See
Henry Shue, Basic Rights, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), ch. 2.
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290 Human Dignity and Human Rights

content and weight of normative proposals.⁴ They make a real difference only
if they are mobilized in tandem with other, evaluative considerations about the
opportunity costs of not pursuing alternative prospects. I will return to the
significance of this kind of combination below.
(3) Non-generalizability. Certain proposed human rights that present
ambitious claims might be rejected by saying that they are not generalizable.
The non-generalizability challenge can take several forms. It could say that the
proposed rights could not generally be implemented. In this version, the
challenge would be a variant of some of the two feasibility worries mentioned
above. The challenge might alternatively say that regardless of whether the
proposed rights could be generally implemented, it would not be advisable to
see their implementation as a right, either because in some contexts this
implementation would impose unacceptable costs on duty-bearers or because
it would not be responding to significant problems that people in those
contexts face. For example, it has been recently proposed that we acknowledge
a human right to legroom in economy seats in airplanes that are not too
constraining.⁵ This may seem to be irrelevant in contexts where airplanes do
not exist (say, in the nineteenth century), or where they exist but are not an
important form of transportation for most people (say, in contemporary
Bolivia as contrasted with the contemporary United States).
To respond to this worry, we should deploy the important distinction
between abstract and specific human rights discussed in chapter 2 of this
book. The former hold in all (or most) contexts of social life, while the latter
need not do so, and the former are important in the justification of the latter.
The access to sufficient legroom in commercial airplanes is a fairly specific
right that is not generalizable across many contexts, but it may be based on
abstract rights that are generalizable. Thus, advocates for the specific right
draw on important abstract rights such as freedom of movement or, more
plausibly in this case, safety (when there is too little space between seats, it is
harder to evacuate an aircraft in an emergency). Similar abstract consider-
ations were successfully used to argue for better travel conditions in ships.
There is a further theoretical question about how “general” rights must be to
be deemed human rights. For example, should they hold in every society
across time and space or only in modern societies including a state? I will
return to this issue below, but for now the important point is that the
consideration of this question must be qualified by distinguishing between
abstract and specific human rights: the latter are derived human rights whose
application may be fairly circumscribed without this counting against them.

⁴ The difference between scalar and binary feasibility is discussed further in appendix 2.
⁵ Christopher Elliott, “Airplanes’ space wars are shifting to the human rights front,” The
Washington Post, September 17, 2015. I thank Adam Etinson for this example (and for
discussion on several issues in this chapter).
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 291

This point allows us to respond to several non-generalizability challenges by
saying that they fail to approach their target appropriately: they judge specific
rights by reference to criteria only applicable to abstract rights.
(4) Rights versus goals. Some alleged rights could be rejected by downgrad-
ing them to the category of goals or ideals. Thus, some statements in human
rights documents—for example, regarding socioeconomic rights—are really
statements of goals. The latter, unlike the former, do not tell us what exactly
is to be done, and who is wronged by whom when what is called for is not done.⁶
As we saw in chapter 3 when discussing an incarnation of this kind of
worry, there are some goals that have the status of obligatory goals, and when
they do they function very much like rights by generating high-priority duties
to fulfill them. Furthermore, some rights behave like goals in being somewhat
indeterminate as to what exactly their realization requires. Second, rights, like
imprecise goals, can be imperfect. To test compliance, we can ask whether
agents are fulfilling any of the options which the imprecise goals or rights
comprise once stated as a disjunctive requirement. For example, a right to
health care against a state (or a state’s goal to deliver it) may, in a certain
context, be specified by stating a disjunction between various health policy
packages the state could feasibly and reasonably implement. Even though state
agents have latitude to choose any of those packages (assuming that not all can
be simultaneously implemented, that they are equivalent in moral significance,
and that they do not go below what is required, all things considered), they
cannot be judged as violating the right (or failing the goal) if they do not
choose this or that package, but they can be so judged if they choose none of
them. Third, while imprecise goals and rights can and often should be made
more precise through institutional articulation, it is sometimes a good idea to
formulate the most general statements of certain goals or rights in a way that
renders them somewhat indeterminate, to allow for various relevant agents to
formulate different implementations that are fitting for their specific contexts.
Ambitious rights are best pursued in this way, giving considerable flexibility in
the policies implementing them. This allows political agents to respond lucidly
to new circumstances, and to navigate disagreement in creative and effective
ways. We should not let settled views about some implementation schemes
blind us to other possible schemes that might cater for the same core concerns
in ways that are more appropriate to new problems, or which may be shared
with other people who have similar core concerns, face similar problems, but
disagree with existing institutional schemes.⁷

⁶ For the objection, see Maurice Cranston, “Human Rights, Real and Supposed,” 172. For a
discussion of its use to downplay the importance of labor rights in national and international
policies, see Alain Supiot, L’Esprit de Philadelphie (Paris: Seuil, 2010), ch. VI.
⁷ For further discussion of how imprecision and imperfection of duties and rights can be
approached, see Pablo Gilabert, “Justice and Beneficence,” Critical Review of International Social
and Political Philosophy 19 (2016), 508–33.
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292 Human Dignity and Human Rights

(5) Principled minimalism 1: libertarianism. Quite independently of
whether some socioeconomic rights can be fulfilled, a challenge to expansive
approaches is that they are morally unjustified. One form of this challenge
relies on the view that the only rights worth recognizing are the negative ones
to avoid interference by others with our freely chosen pursuits and in the use
of our property (so long as that pursuit, and the acquisition of that property,
do not unduly interfere with a similar pursuit of others, or with their own
property rights). There are no fundamental positive rights to assistance,
however minimal or demanding (even if there may of course be derivative
rights to assistance arising from previous promises, contracts, and the due
compensation for the violation of negative rights).⁸ Expansive views of human
rights fail because they typically allege that people have a plethora of positive
rights (to be helped regarding access to employment, health care, and so on).
This challenge is as plausible as the libertarian political philosophy it
depends on. Very powerful objections to that philosophy have been offered.⁹
I think that the objections are decisive, and I will not rehearse them here.¹⁰ So,
although I recognize that there is a substantive debate about its libertarian
premises, for the purposes of my discussion here I will assume that this
objection fails. In any case, I have already argued in this book that the
dignitarian approach generates both negative and positive duties, that we do
not fully respond to the dignity of others if we acknowledge that it is an
injustice to destroy or block the development of the valuable capacities that
give rise to people’s status-dignity but deny that it is also an injustice to be
indifferent and fail to facilitate their unfolding and exercise.
(6) Principled minimalism 2: toleration and national self-determination.
According to another challenge to expansive approaches, we should distin-
guish between human rights proper and liberal aspirations. Some demands,
such as political equality, should not be considered human rights. To regard
those expansive demands as human rights would be to invite interventionist
policies that would threaten the national self-determination of peoples whose
political organization is quite decent even if it is not liberal. Above a certain
minimal set of demands (including, for example, subsistence and basic polit-
ical consultation), different peoples should be internationally tolerated. This
view has been defended by John Rawls, and refined by Joshua Cohen—who
also, usefully, distinguishes this minimalism from an even more modest

⁸ Defenders of this approach include Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (New York:
Basic Books, 1974) and Jan Narveson, The Libertarian Idea (Philadelphia: Temple University
Press, 1988).
⁹ G. A. Cohen, Self-ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1995).
¹⁰ For a development of some of them in the context of socioeconomic human rights, see
Pablo Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality: A Philosophical Exploration (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2012), ch. 3.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 293

position, “ultraminimalism,” which for example takes human rights to only
protect people’s life.¹¹
This challenge relies on a mistaken view of human rights as triggers of
international intervention. As others have shown,¹² this approach leads to
drastic surgery within the set of generally recognized human rights, implying
that many of them (prominently, equality rights protecting women from
discrimination) should be taken out of the human rights agenda. But the
political roles of human rights are much less narrow. For the most part,
human rights link up with forms of political action that fall well short of
foreign intervention. They include domestic protest, strikes, criticism in civil
society, revisions in executive policy, the issuing of new laws, judicial review,
and constitutional reforms. They also include regional and global criticism
and economic and political incentivizing by foreign states and individuals.
Furthermore, and remarkably, the approach implicit in the challenge diverges
strongly from the ongoing practice of human rights, which is far from being
minimalist in this way. This is a serious defect in a philosophical view that
takes pride in building on the practical standpoint of actual agents involved in
human rights politics. Finally, it is problematic to tolerate non-democratic
regimes that do not tolerate, and in fact suppress, the self-determination of
their own members. If what grounds toleration is deference to the liberty of
others to be protagonist of their own social life, then regimes that disenfran-
chise their subjects should be criticized, not given equal status. Criticism need
not lead to military intervention, of course, although it should motivate
proportionate, feasible, and respectful forms of pressure.
Issues regarding soft feasibility become relevant here (but should be distin-
guished from normative challenges alleging the moral defectiveness of certain
principled demands). Some specific requirements of economic justice may be
appropriate for some economies but not for others because of their different
levels of development. Think about rights regarding access to some forms of
technologically advanced health care. Some specific cultural or political rights
might be appropriate for some societies but not for others because of their
diverse historical trajectories and features. Think about the extent to which
national subgroups within a political community should be given institutional
recognition and allowed to structure their legal frameworks independently.
These points may be couched in terms of the importance of general concerns
regarding self-determination and respect for diversity and the exploration of

¹¹ John Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). Joshua
Cohen, The Arc of the Moral Universe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010). For the
ultraminimalist position, see Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and as Idolatry
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
¹² James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 98–103.
I owe special thanks to Jim Nickel for discussion on many of the issues addressed in this chapter.
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294 Human Dignity and Human Rights

feasible ways to cater for them in different contexts. An example is the claims
to self-determination on the part of indigenous peoples in postcolonial
settings.¹³ If they meet some constraints of fairness and respect, they can be
recognized by a conception of human rights that distinguishes between abstract
and specific rights and pays attention to dynamic change in social history. The
approach to human rights developed in this book does these things.
(7) Currency devaluation. This is a popular charge. It raises the worry that
the more we pack into the currency of human rights, the weaker that currency
becomes. Despite its popularity, this challenge is not very powerful. To pursue
the monetary analogy, one may purchase more with a lot of units of a weaker
currency than with very few units of a harder one. Devaluation does not
always dilute purchasing power overall. An economy may become more
competitive (exports-wise) if it devalues its currency. Similarly, more moral
value may be served overall if a more ambitious agenda of rights is pursued.
Even if fewer cases of each requirement that is enshrined in the doctrine are
implemented, the presence of more requirements could lead to more morally
desirable action being undertaken overall. To use another analogy, a coarser
but bigger net may catch more fish than a tighter but smaller one. Further-
more, and importantly, we can make consequential distinctions within the set
of human rights. We can identify stronger, or more urgent, and weaker, or less
urgent, subsets of them. The net may be tighter in some parts, or be tightened
when fishing in some areas.
I think that the devaluation challenge gets whatever plausibility it has from
the ideas that we should not make every morally desirable outcome a subject
of human rights demands, and that we should retain the common view that
human rights are particularly urgent demands.¹⁴ I will in fact develop these
points below. But the challenge based on the currency analogy is just too
unspecific to capture them. It provides no guidelines for determining what
properly belongs in the domain of human rights, and, worse, it generates a
thoughtless tendency to reject proposals of inclusion on a merely quantitative
preference that “less is better.”
(8) Associativism. On some views, we should distinguish between human
rights and social justice in the following way. Requirements of social justice are
triggered only within certain associative settings, in particular those involving

¹³ Interestingly, some uses of the idea of dignity arise precisely in the characterization
of the collective claims to self-government by some groups like indigenous peoples. See
appendix 1, (vii).
¹⁴ The ground for this common view is partly a pragmatic one about how to motivate people
to act to fulfill certain claims. As Julio Montero pointed out to me, “the practical power of human
rights seems to rely in part on the fact that they track—or people think they track—egregious
moral wrongs. If we adopt an extremely wide definition of them and almost every injustice
becomes a human rights violation, the holes in the net may become too big to catch any fish even
if it is wider.”
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 295

a shared economic system or a shared state. Human rights, on the other hand,
apply more broadly, irrespective of such common ties. Now, many ambitious
putative human rights are in fact associative claims that belong only to social
justice, and should thus be excised from human rights discourse. This is
especially the case with some heightened socioeconomic claims that go beyond
subsistence, such as those regarding opportunities for high-quality jobs and to
more or less egalitarian shares in income or wealth.¹⁵
The associativist view of distributive justice can be challenged, and has been.
I (in previous work) as well as other philosophers have defended cosmopolitan
and humanist articulations of some ambitious principles of global distributive
justice that hold independently of associative ties.¹⁶ I will not rehearse the
relevant arguments here, but their upshot for our present discussion would be
that the associativist challenge fails in so far as it is not the case that if a right is
not associative it must be comparatively minimalist. The distinction between
associative and non-associative rights and the distinction between minimalist
and expansive rights are orthogonal to each other. Quick inferences from one
to the other are suspect.
(9) Chastened utopianism. A source of pressure toward minimalism may
come from people for whom human rights are the “last utopia,” the political
outlook to be embraced once more ambitious utopias, such as socialism or
communism, have failed. Some disillusioned leftists have turned to human
rights in this way. The pressure toward minimalism may arise out of an
attempt by these chastened utopians to keep human rights distinct from the
more ambitious, but failed, agendas of deep social change.¹⁷
It is worth noting, however, that chastened utopianism may lead in fact in
the opposite direction, toward expansivism. The disillusioned may try to pack
into the category of human rights as much as they can salvage of the more
ambitious utopias they have given up.
In any case, I am not swayed by this line of thought. I would not attach so
much weight to failed experiments of the kind pursued in the Soviet Union.
I do not see more desirable ambitious utopias such as democratic socialism as
having been defeated. No large-scale attempt to implement them has been
performed. They remain untested. On the other hand, I do not worry very
much about construing human rights in less than fully maximal terms. One
reason for this, which is linked to the current discussion, is that I do not think

¹⁵ Thomas Nagel’s approach to global justice may be interpreted as presenting a view of this
kind. See Nagel, “The Problem of Global Justice,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 32 (2005), 113–47.
¹⁶ See, e.g., Simon Caney, Justice Beyond Borders (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005);
Kok-Chor Tan, Justice Without Borders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004);
Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality.
¹⁷ On the downsizing of leftist agendas to human rights as the “last utopia,” see Samuel Moyn,
The Last Utopia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010).
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296 Human Dignity and Human Rights

that the more maximal demands would have to drop out of view if we adopted
a less than maximal construal. As I see dignitarianism and humanist justice,
they justify maximal requirements regarding the conditions for a flourishing
life. I do not feel the need to pack everything under the category of human
rights as if it were the last utopia. It is not. I have also explored, and will
continue to explore, the broader and more ambitious requirements of socialist
justice as part of what dignity and humanist justice embrace. Socialist uto-
pianism is worth preserving.
So, if we have sympathy for the ambitious ideals of democratic socialism, we
have in fact several options, which include more or less expansive views of
human rights. We could go maximally expansive by seeing human rights as
coextensive with socialism. Alternatively, we could think that the full realiza-
tion of the socialist ideal is not within reach, but that what is reachable should
be couched in terms of a different register of discourse that is more readily
embraced by the masses. This would be a version of the “chastened utopia”
approach, but one that could consistently construe human rights in quite
ambitious terms. Another, likely less expansive, but not strictly minimalist,
attitude is to think that we should not give up the ambitious socialist utopia as
such, but see it as the long-term horizon for progressive political transform-
ation. We could then identify human rights as the subset of this utopia that
includes the most urgent demands for the short to medium term. This leads
me to the next point.
(10) Relative urgency or high priority. Human rights are often seen as a
subset rather than as the whole of justice. What makes human rights distinct-
ive demands of justice is, at least in part, that they are especially urgent or are
relatively high in the order of normative priority.¹⁸ Some ambitious claims
(such as that every person should have equal initial shares in productive
assets) are not urgent in this way. So we should see human rights as relatively
modest in the sense of focusing only on especially urgent claims that have
priority when compared to other, more ambitious requirements.
It is not clear how we should go about identifying a claim as “urgent” or as
having “high priority.” What are the criteria? At first pass, we can intuitively
characterize urgency as a matter of a combination of four considerations. First,
urgent rights support claims of great moral importance. Second, they are
claims whose fulfillment has a relatively high score of scalar feasibility pros-
pects. Third, that fulfillment is one which can be achieved at reasonable cost to
the relevant duty-bearers. And, finally, the fulfillment is time sensitive, in that
it may not be deferred (it must be undertaken now or as soon as possible). So,
for example, securing a right to subsistence or against murder would readily
satisfy these considerations: it is highly morally important, is clearly workable

¹⁸ See, e.g., Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 9–10.

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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 297

in practice, no unreasonable costs would have to be involved, and it must be
achieved as soon as possible.
I endorse a moderate form of non-maximalism or of expansivism that takes
human rights to be urgent in this sense. This view is not maximalist because it
does not collapse human rights into justice (that is, it takes the former to be a
subset of the latter). But this non-maximalism is moderate because it is not
strictly speaking minimalistic. There are three important ways in which it does
not conflict with normative ambition. First, it is straightforwardly compatible
with the view that we could retain rather than drop more ambitious require-
ments of justice (avoiding chastened utopianism). We can, for example,
advocate both human rights and democratic socialism. Second, we could
maintain that what is relatively urgent can change over time. For example,
some specific human rights demands may be unrealistic now because their
general implementation faces serious feasibility obstacles, or imposes overly
onerous burdens on many people, but they could become much more feasible
to fulfill in the future as a result of new technological developments, and
become urgent at that point. In chapter 9, we explored this point as applied to
labor rights. Another example is health care technology. Some medical treat-
ments which are now easily and cheaply applicable to most people who need
them were not so in the past. And this changes continuously. Finally, the
domain of the rights that have high priority could include more than extremely
minimalist claims regarding subsistence and security. As shown in chapters 9
and 10, robust political liberties (including democratic rights) and socioeco-
nomic entitlements (including strong labor rights) could be shown to be fairly
urgent. Given these three considerations, my view can be labelled as moderate
expansivism just as much as it can be labelled moderate non-maximalism.
(11) Perfectionism and particular views of the good. I will outline the
moderate non-maximalist or moderate expansivist position in section 11.3
by linking it to the substantive concerns arising from the dignitarian approach.
But before doing that, let me mention a final challenge to maximalism,
according to which if we focus on a maximal list of goods as objects of
human rights, then we may end up passing quite controversial judgments
about the specific components of a good or flourishing life. People disagree
about what makes for a flourishing life. These disagreements may be reason-
able, and we should let people choose their own paths without invasive public
scrutiny and interference. If we focus on a minimal set of goods, we can justify
them as general purpose means in the pursuit of different particular concep-
tions of the good. We can then require access to these means without having to
enshrine any of the contentious ends.
I think that there is merit to this line of argument. But we should be careful
about its development. According to a version of it, human rights should focus
on securing a minimally decent life, not a flourishing life. This view identifies
a threshold of decency as referring to whatever is necessary for people to
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298 Human Dignity and Human Rights

pursue any goals whatsoever.¹⁹ This is different from being able to actually
succeed in the pursuit of specific goals one chooses. Those specific goals
concern flourishing rather than mere decency, and cannot be specified without
controversial judgments about the good.
This view faces some problems, however. Very few goods can truly be
assumed to be necessary for the pursuit of every goal (or even most of them).
Most goods will at most be strongly contributory to the pursuit of some goals.
Take access to formal education. A person can pursue many significant goals
(concerning, for example, friendship or religion) without going to school. It
will be difficult for this person to achieve some important goods without
education. But this is not the same as saying that it is impossible. Furthermore,
if we want the account of the threshold to yield a list of human rights of the
sort we already accept (and which is affirmed in human rights documents,
more or less), the view under discussion would be problematic in that it will
justify far fewer rights. Finally, it is not clear that we can do without judgments
about the good, even controversial ones. Some goods will be more important
than others, and this will bear on the selection of appropriate means enabling
access to them. It is true that it is useful to make distinctions between goods
that enable the pursuit of various other goods without saying much about the
significance of the latter. We want to be able to distinguish between a good like
food and a good like a plasma TV. Clearly human rights (at least as I write this
paragraph) should include the former, and need not include the latter. But
some other goods such as education seem to lie in between: they are not
strictly necessary for pursuing every other good, and they are not the object of
desires whose satisfaction involve very particular conceptions of a good or
flourishing life. These intermediate goods strongly support agents’ ability to
fulfill many goals, but may not be strictly necessary for achieving many (or
perhaps even any) of them, and they may be irrelevant regarding some other
pursuits. But some of them might be excellent candidates for objects of human
rights norms. Their defense involves potentially controversial claims about the
good. And their specific articulation may involve judgments about the good
which are even more controversial. Think about the question of what items to
include in the curricula of public education.
I think that the kernel of truth in the rationale for minimalism under
discussion is that we should support people’s ability to freely pursue their
good life as they see it (within some constraints of respect and concern for
others). To do this, we do well to enshrine fairly extensive civil and political
liberties, and whatever socioeconomic conditions are strongly contributory to
people’s capability to exercise those liberties in a robust way. The result is a set
of requirements that is not very minimalist. However, it might still fall short of

¹⁹ I thank Massimo Renzo for discussion about this view.

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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 299

systematic public enshrinement of particular and highly controversial judg-
ments about the good life. What is key, here, is to target robust support for
people’s autonomous pursuits—including, crucially, equal political liberties to
process disagreements about the good in a fair way when some judgments
about the good life are unavoidable for public policy (such as those regarding
what opportunities for education, or of labor activities, to secure). Empower-
ment to cement effective freedom to pursue various conceptions of the good
can itself be more or less profound, and this constitutes a space of consider-
ations within which the distinction between human rights and more extensive
requirements of social justice can be developed.

11.3. A TWO-TIERED, D YNAMIC HUMANISM

In this book, I have been suggesting that we should embrace a capacious view
of the demands of humanist justice that includes both human rights and
social justice. We can take human rights as focusing on certain relatively
urgent requirements of humanist justice, and see broader claims of social
justice as capturing the complement. We should also pay attention to the fact
that feasibility parameters can change over time, so that what is not urgent
now may become urgent in the future. In fact, we can make certain practices
and institutions (more) feasible in the future in order to cater for our
ambitious ideals. Certain rights that are now infeasible, or have relatively
low feasibility, can in this way be made feasible, or more feasible to imple-
ment, over time.
To capture these points, I suggest that we adopt a two-tiered, dynamic
humanism. This approach justifies a moderate form of non-maximalism or of
expansivism regarding human rights. It recognizes that human rights are only
a part of humanist justice—viz. the most urgent subset of it. But this self-
limitation is moderate because the approach is attuned to the dynamic nature
of feasibility constraints, and to the continuity between human rights and
more ambitious humanist ideals and rights. It recognizes that the more
ambitious demands might still be demands of justice, and it even has room
for the possibility that some cases of them might become specific human rights
in the future as the feasibility and costs of their implementation change (or are
intentionally changed).
This two-tiered dynamic humanism accommodates some considerations
speaking against expansive views of human rights. Although in section 11.2
I rejected most of those considerations, I acknowledged the significance of
some of them. In particular, I agreed that it is important to single out, as a
subset of principles with universal scope, some requirements which have
especial urgency (given their relative moral importance, feasibility of fulfillment,
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300 Human Dignity and Human Rights

costs of implementation, and time-sensitiveness). I also agreed that it is
important to allow people to chart their own course when it comes to the
understanding and pursuit of their good life. On the other hand, the view I am
proposing also makes contact with some reasons that have been given to
embrace an expansive approach to human rights. Four important reasons of
this kind are the following.
(1) Qualified fidelity to practice: Although in previous chapters I criticized
uncritical acceptance of every aspect of human rights practice, I have
also acknowledged that it is important for a conception of human rights
to relate to what seems ethically correct in it. Now, it is remarkable that
significant discursive instances within the political practice of human
rights do not identify thresholds, and do not appear to be minimalist.²⁰
(2) Linkage arguments: One way to justify some initially controversial
human rights is by showing that they are necessary for, or (more
realistically) strongly contributory to, robustly fulfilling other, non-
controversial rights.²¹ Now, it has indeed been argued that to secure
(or to do all that must be done to support) the fulfillment of basic civil
and socioeconomic rights, some more ambitious rights may have to be
recognized and fulfilled. So, for example, civil and subsistence rights
may not be secure, or as secure as it is reasonable to aim at, unless
democratic rights are also fulfilled.²²
(3) Shaping the long term: The role of human rights discourse is not only to
identify the most immediately urgent requirements of justice, but also
to shape a humanist agenda for the pursuit of global justice from now
on.²³ A striking aspect of the politics of human rights is that it ushers
into political discourse a form of sensibility, reasoning, and action that
is sharply universalistic in orientation. Once an attitude of humanist
solidarity gains traction, it is only natural that it will respond to needs

²⁰ For sympathetic discussion of the lack of strict limits on human rights expansionism, see
Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009), 141–4; Eva
Brems, “Human Rights: Minimum and Maximum Perspectives,” Human Rights Law Review 9
(2009), 349–72.
²¹ Henry Shue, Basic Rights; James Nickel, “Rethinking Indivisibility: Towards a Theory of
Supporting Relations between Human Rights,” Human Rights Quarterly 30 (2008), 984–1001;
Pablo Gilabert, “The Importance of Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of Human
Rights: A Response to James Nickel,” Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2010), 425–38; James Nickel,
“Indivisibility and Linkage Arguments: A Reply to Gilabert,” Human Rights Quarterly 32 (2010),
439–46.
²² See, respectively, Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, MA: The MIT
Press, 1996) and Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2009). See further chapter 10 of this book.
²³ Gilabert, From Global Poverty to Global Equality, Part II.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 301

and interests of human beings that go beyond the avoidance of the
worst forms of disadvantage.²⁴
(4) Dignitarian egalitarianism: Finally, as I will explore more fully in the
rest of this chapter, human dignity, which is a key ethical idea of human
rights discourse, has an egalitarian dimension that includes but also
reaches beyond minimal requirements.
We can retain what is appealing in these considerations without losing touch
with the important concerns about relative urgency that justify the kind of
moderate non-maximalism or expansivism I endorsed above.
To articulate the substantive difference, and continuity, between the two
components of the two-tiered humanism, we can concentrate on the idea of
human dignity as developed in this book. Recall that, according to the
dignitarian approach, we have reason to organize social life in such a way
that we respond appropriately to the valuable features of human beings that
give rise to their dignity. That dignity is a deontic status in accordance to
which people are owed certain forms of respect and concern. The relevant
forms of respect and concern are stated by various norms, including human
rights and requirements of social justice. These dignitarian norms can be
articulated as specifying an ideal of solidaristic empowerment, according to
which we should support everyone’s pursuit of a flourishing life by affirming
both negative duties not to destroy their valuable human capacities and
positive duties to protect and enable their development and exercise.
Now, the distinction between basic and maximal rights is at once intuitive
and obscure in its details.²⁵ We can say that the basic rights, which human
rights affirm with global standing, are those the fulfillment of which provide
reasonable and feasible support for people’s access to conditions in which they
lead decent lives, and these include, importantly, access to effective power (and
an equal formal—e.g., legal—entitlement to it) to shape the terms on which
their social life is structured. A decent social life is one in which you enjoy
certain civil, social, and political rights: to pursue your conception of a good
life, to basic material resources to effectively do so, and to participate in
politics as a law-maker besides a law-taker. “Decency” is here a place-holder
for the level of support for human capacities that constitutes the forms of
condition-dignity that are most urgent.²⁶ We could also say that basic justice

²⁴ See the discussion of the phenomenon of “dignitarian overflow” in chapter 6 (section 6.7)
of this book, and the exploration of global egalitarianism in Gilabert, From Global Poverty to
Global Equality, Part II.
²⁵ Stuart White, “Social Minimum,” in Edward N. Zalta, ed., Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy (Winter 2015).
²⁶ James Nickel says that the demands of decency comprise four urgent claims: to have a life,
to lead one’s life, to avoid severely cruel or degrading treatment, and to avoid severely unfair
treatment. See Making Sense of Human Rights, 61–6. These sound points can be articulated
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302 Human Dignity and Human Rights

tracks the conditions that must be in place for a social order to be legitimate.
When those conditions are met, the members have content-independent
reason to obey the order’s rules.
But decency, and with it legitimacy, only identify a subset of what social
justice requires. People may accept the authority of a social order while
thinking that some of its rules are unjust and should be changed. Maximal
justice can in turn be seen as also covering the further rules that the social
order must generate if its structuring of the lives of its members is to be fully
just besides legitimate. For example, basic justice might require that workers
have access to freely chosen jobs that allow them to contribute to society,
socialize in ways that are not humiliating, and meet their subsistence needs,
while also having political rights to form workers’ associations and more
broadly act as citizens. They could then use these rights to seek more extensive
changes in the organization of production in order to gain effective oppor-
tunities for work that involves not only decency but also deep human flour-
ishing (that is, the elimination or minimization of alienation, exploitation, and
domination). Both forms of justice can be seen to implement the solidaristic
empowerment that human dignity calls for. Basic justice supports certain
thresholds of development and exercise of valuable human capacities, while
maximal justice unleashes the highest levels of development and exercise
attainable in the relevant social contexts.²⁷

within the dignitarian approach. The solidaristic empowerment that is most urgent is one that
targets people’s survival, affirms the especial significance of the development and exercise of their
extremely important capacities for moral and prudential self-determination, blocks destructive
relations in which these and other valuable capacities at the basis of their status-dignity are
viciously attacked, and counters the treatment of people as less than equal bearers of moral status
with the specific rights that this involves.
²⁷ In identifying what goods or conditions are the proper objects of human rights we may
have to do more than say that they are necessary for, or strongly contributory to, the ability to
achieve a decent or basically good life. As an analogy, consider Rawls’s account of social primary
goods. These are more than merely something that it is rational for people to desire. They are
something that they would desire as free and equal, rational and reasonable members of a society
as a fair system of social cooperation. (See John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement;
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001, 57–8.) The ideas captured in italics constrain,
and orient, the inquiry into what goods (and rights supporting access to them) a theory of social
justice should pursue. What might be the analogue in the case of human rights?
A possibility is to say that they support the access to a basically good or decent life, or some
basic goods or conditions, in the context of a modern state. See Julio Montero, “Do Human Rights
Derive from Natural Rights? The State of Nature, Political Authority, and the Natural Right to
Independence,” Philosophical Forum 47 (2016), 151–69. But this may be too narrow, as we could
think of some (even quite specific) human rights as holding in pre-modern conditions, in a
utopian (anarchist or Marxian) society that might be created in the future in which the modern
state as we know it will have withered away, or in some future context in which there is only one
global state (a situation in which the modern state, which is presumed to be one among several,
would no longer exist).
Another possibility, which I prefer, is to continue with the exploration of the dignitarian
approach, saying that human rights concern the required support regarding conditions and
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 303

I acknowledge that the distinction and continuity between basic and max-
imal requirements of human dignity and humanist justice require further
investigation. And I will say more about this in a moment. But someone
may ask, “Why not collapse them into one uniform set? Why take human
rights as only a proper subset of the full sweep of humanist, dignitarian
justice?” The answer is that it makes good moral sense to mark out a
normative territory of claims tracking the most urgent requirements. Histor-
ically, the human rights movement represents a valuable alliance between
several sectors of the political spectrum to engage in shared political, legal,
and cultural action to intervene with respect to extremely important, relatively
feasible, reasonably implementable, and intensely pressing concerns about
what human dignity requires. It is worth affirming this landmark, and I do
so here while also providing an independent normative rationale for it—which
does not, however, hamper the obligatory pursuit of even more demanding
moral requirements of humanist justice.
I will now focus on developing the idea of dignitarian egalitarianism, and
explore how it generates both modest and expansive requirements of basic and
maximal dignity. The former comprises the more morally urgent require-
ments. I will emphasize the importance of basic economic rights and political
empowerment, and show how they belong to the set of moderately non-
maximal or expansive claims that human rights state while also cementing
the appropriate conditions for the pursuit of more ambitious claims of
humanist social justice.

11.4. HUMAN RIGHTS AND E QUALITY

What is the relation between human rights and equality? On the one hand, it
seems that human rights are not egalitarian in that their point is to secure that
everyone achieves a certain threshold of decency. Human rights are rights to
goods and conditions that are important for a basically good or decent life, not

goods that allow people to enjoy basic (condition-) dignity in their social life. The reference to
social life is broader than the reference to the modern state. There was social life before the
modern state and there could be social life after it dissolves, if it does. Furthermore, there are
issues of social life in societies including a modern state which engage human rights but need not
involve state action or regulation (such as issues about respect in interpersonal, day-to-day
relationships of the kind that many feminists focus on). This focus is also different from the
Rawlsian one in two ways. Crucially, it illuminates the claims of human persons who might not
be “cooperators” in the full sense Rawls has in mind (e.g., they might be people totally unable to
work, or to participate as active citizens in the political process). Furthermore, the focus would
not be on what maximal justice requires, but only on its most urgent requirements. (Of course,
dignitarian justice can—and, in my view, does—go beyond basic justice and human rights; and it
is an important task to figure out what the reminder includes.)
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304 Human Dignity and Human Rights

also to the remaining ones supporting a flourishing one. It is not a problem,
from the point of view of standard human rights doctrine, when a person has
more income or wealth than another if both are above the threshold of a
decent standard of living (and thus have access to housing, nutrition, health
care, etc.). In contrast, egalitarian views of justice normally worry about how
people’s levels of advantage compare above any threshold of sufficiency.
On the other hand, there seem to be egalitarian elements in human rights
doctrine. This is unsurprising if, as argued in chapter 5, human rights are
grounded in status-dignity, and the latter is a deontic status equally held by all
human persons. Two egalitarian elements are these. First, egalitarianism
operates as a qualifier of the way in which human rights are to be respected,
protected, and fulfilled. There is a problem when some get more support than
others. The rights of all have equal importance. This point applies to how the
threshold of decency mentioned above is pursued. For example, it would be
wrong for a state to protect the physical security of men but not that of
women, or to protect the security of the former more than that of the latter.
In addition to this idea of adverbial or procedural equality, as we might call it,
there is another which is adjectival or substantive. The substance or content of
some human rights norms includes explicit reference to equality. Civil and
political liberties are supposed to be such that everyone must enjoy equal levels
of them. It is in principle problematic, from the point of view of standard
human rights doctrine, when some have freedom of speech and others do not
(or have less of it), when some religions are restricted but others are not (or are
less restricted), and so on. Another example is the right to equal pay for equal
work. In these cases, human rights norms demand equal access to the relevant
goods or conditions for all, not merely a threshold of sufficiency.²⁸
Do the egalitarian elements just mentioned imply that it is a mistake to take
human rights as only focused on prescriptions regarding the conditions of a
basically good or decent life? One possibility is to say that the egalitarian
elements are part of what is demanded by the norms of decency. On this
interpretation, to have a basically good or decent life each person has to get
equal support from the relevant duty-bearers in their access to certain thresh-
old goods. But this captures an adverbial or procedural egalitarian element
without also capturing some of the adjectival or substantive ones (concerning,
say, equal citizenship rights, or equality before the law). A better interpretation
is to view human rights as including a combination of sufficientarian and
egalitarian demands. The latter are both procedural and substantive.

²⁸ See the idea of “equality rights” targeting equal citizenship, equality before the law, and
non-discrimination in Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, 11, 94. The adverbial use of
equality in human rights (extending Nickel’s idea of equality rights) is suggested in Pablo
Gilabert, “The Importance of Linkage Arguments for the Theory and Practice of Human Rights:
A Response to James Nickel,” 429. Allen Buchanan explores the “status egalitarian function” of
human rights in The Heart of Human Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 28–31.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 305

Notice, however, that there still remains a difference between human rights
and full-blown egalitarian agendas of justice. The latter include the egalitarian-
ism of the former but add further substantive egalitarian demands. For example,
when it comes to economic rights, a full egalitarianism would demand access
to the conditions for leading a flourishing life. This might involve equal access
to the highest opportunities that circumstances make feasible. It would not be
enough to implement a sufficientarian scheme under which nobody suffers
extreme poverty but there is great inequality of income and wealth, or great
inequalities in access to leisure time, high-quality education, satisfying jobs,
sophisticated consumption goods, etc.
Before proceeding with the discussion about dignity and equality, let me
clarify further the important distinction between the two different ways in
which a conception of rights may be egalitarian. The first (E1) concerns the
possession, or ascription, of rights, and the second (E2) their content or object.
(We have labeled them adverbial or procedural and adjectival or substantive
types of egalitarianism or equality.) The difference can be captured through
the following schemas:
(E1) Individuals A and B equally have a right to some good or condition O.
(E2) Individuals A and B have a right to equal amounts or extents of the
good or condition O.
A conception of rights may be egalitarian in sense E1 but not in sense E2.
Thus, for example, a polity may be egalitarian in sense E1 by giving every adult
member a right to vote, but inegalitarian in sense E2 by taking the vote of some
to count for more than the vote of others. Alternatively, the polity could be
egalitarian in sense E2 by counting the vote of all those who vote as having
equal weight, but inegalitarian in sense E1 by excluding some members (such
as property-less workers, women, or immigrants) from voting at all. This
egalitarianism regarding E2 would only be partial, however—benefitting
only the subset of members of the polity who enjoy political entitlements.
Of course, a polity may be egalitarian in both senses, but the point of the
distinction is to notice that we cannot simply infer one form of egalitarianism
from the other.
Now, when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that all human
persons are equal in dignity and rights (Art. 1) irrespective of their class or
nationality (Art. 2), does it make an egalitarian claim of type E1, E2, or both?
This statement is most safely interpreted as making an egalitarian claim of
type E1. But it is interesting to consider whether other statements in human
rights doctrine are egalitarian in the sense of E2. Equality rights such as those
concerning freedom from discrimination (Arts. 2, 7), equal rights in marriage
and family (Art. 16), equal pay for equal work (Art. 22), equal social protection
for children born out of wedlock (Art. 25.2), equal access to public service
(Art. 21.2), and universal and equal suffrage (Art. 21.3), seem to be egalitarian
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306 Human Dignity and Human Rights

in sense E2 (although some—such as freedom from discrimination—also
belong in E1).²⁹
So, arguably, the political rights stated in human rights doctrine are egali-
tarian in sense E2 besides E1. For example, the vote of no voter is to count for
more than that of others. This is different from saying that every adult in a
polity equally has a right to vote. This last claim is of type E1, and it contrasts
with exclusion from voting, while the former is of type E2, and focuses on the
comparative political standing of those included. Human rights campaigners
can focus, and have focused, on both, but they involve different objectives.
Another example concerns rights to work in the sense of being allowed to
enter the labor market. Access to work and economic resources like income
might be construed in sufficientarian rather than egalitarian terms by saying
that all the adults in the relevant context who have rights regarding work and
income are entitled to have a job and have an income that is satisfactory (that
is, work and income that provides enough with respect to some threshold of
decency) (see Art. 23.1 and 23.3), but are not thereby entitled to jobs that pay
the same salary or support equal levels of human development. This suffi-
cientarian view is not egalitarian in sense E2. Egalitarian campaigning regard-
ing workers’ rights concerning type E2 claims would go further. For example,
it could require, as mentioned above, equal pay for equal work, or go even
further and require equalization in property titles or in management powers
regarding the productive resources workers use when they work. Again, notice
that this is different from egalitarian claims of type E1. Thus, focusing on E1,
campaigners could also urge that refugees be given access to the labor market
in the country in which they are refugees, or fight for the removal of explicit or
implicit discriminatory schemes that exclude women from some jobs.
A question to consider now is whether, and if so in what ways, human
dignity and inequality are compatible with each other. Three (often related)
dimensions of this question need to be identified:
(a) Regarding the basis of dignity: Different individuals may be unequal
with respect to the features (such as the capacities) making up the basis
of dignity. Some may have more of these features than others, and some
may lack some of the features altogether.
(b) Regarding the currency or metric in terms of which their rights and
duties are articulated: Some individuals may have stronger claims to
certain distributed objects and conditions than others, and some may
have no claim to certain objects and conditions at all.

²⁹ I draw here on the helpful list in the category of “equality rights” articulated by Nickel in
Making Sense of Human Rights, 11 (although Nickel does not distinguish between senses E1 and
E2, and I add reference to equal political rights).
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 307

(c) Regarding the nature of the distributive exercise: Some individuals may
have the same rights as human rights holders, or as co-members of
some political community, but have unequal claims as performers of
different roles within certain specific associations, or when compared
to those who are not members of those associations. Consider, for
example, the contrast between the questions of who should have the
right to vote in a certain polis and who deserves to be selected as a
Supreme Court judge, or between the questions of who has a right to
enter the labor market and who should get a particular job.
It is helpful here to engage Ian Carter’s recent challenges and re-
characterization of the Rawlsian account of the basis of equality.³⁰ Carter
asks the question of the basis of equality: In virtue of what features of them
are people entitled to equal distributions of some goods or conditions?
A problem for egalitarians is that, for any feature that is said to be in the
basis of equality, some people will have more of it than others. If some people
have greater powers of practical reasoning than others, for example, why aren’t
they entitled to more extensive rights and resources related to the use of those
powers? Shouldn’t the vote of judicious people count for more than the vote of
worse political reasoners? Rawls responded to this kind of worry by saying that
when we justify egalitarian distributions we should focus on certain “range
properties” of people. To be entitled to equal distributions, it is enough that
people have the features of the basis of equality to a sufficient degree—that is,
within a certain range. The fact that people differ above the threshold is
irrelevant. Thus, people have a certain (binary) status property so long as
they have enough of other (scalar) properties. For example, in the case of
Rawls’s account: people have moral personality and are entitled to make
claims at the bar of justice as fairness if they have enough of the capacities
to form, revise, and pursue a conception of the good and a conception of
justice.³¹ Carter thinks that this account is on the right track but is insufficient.
We need to complete it by providing an independent reason (one that does not
already draw on the idea of equal respect and concern) for focusing on range
properties and not directly on the features they supervene upon. Carter offers
what he takes to be an appropriate candidate for an independent reason by
elaborating on the idea of respect for human dignity. His point is that to
respect people’s dignity, we have to treat them with “opacity respect.” We do
this by refraining from making comparative judgments about the extent to
which different people display the agential capacities above whatever thresh-
old of them is sufficient to mark the presence of the relevant range properties.

³⁰ Ian Carter, “Respect and the Basis of Equality,” Ethics 121 (2011), 538–71.
³¹ John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, rev. ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999),
sect. 77.
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308 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Such judgments would be an affront to their dignity because they would
involve treating some persons as non-agents. An egalitarian distributive atti-
tude is thus justified by an independent requirement of respect for people’s
dignity as agents.
Carter does an excellent job of unpacking the question of the basis of
equality. But his positive proposal does not succeed at providing an independ-
ent rationale for equal respect. Carter says that equal respect is grounded in
opacity respect. He explains opacity respect as a matter of a proper response to
people’s dignity as agents. But why would making comparative judgments
about the degrees of agential capacities above the relevant threshold involve an
affront to people’s dignity as agents? Since they focus on degrees of agency
above the threshold of agency, such judgments would not deny the agency of
agents.
The dignitarian harm that Carter seems to be concerned about cannot exist
unless there is an equal normative status shared by all the people who have
agential capacities within the relevant range. People are justifiably offended by
public comparative judgments if they can justifiably claim to have equal public
standing. But (and this is my second worry about Carter’s account) this
explanation presupposes the kind of egalitarianism it is meant to justify.
Opacity respect is a behavioral constraint on how people, as agents, may
legitimately treat each other in public (especially when it comes to their
relationship as co-members of political institutions). Since opacity respect
simply is an expressive case of equal respect for agents, the former cannot be
an independent ground for the latter. Carter’s proposal is illuminating, but
does not provide a justification of equal respect. Instead, it provides a speci-
fication of what such equal respect requires in some public contexts.
Carter’s account of opacity respect helps us to notice that there is a specific
form of equal respect that responds to the interest of most people in having an
equal public standing in their social life (that is, to avoid being the target of
disparaging, downgrading, or humiliating public judgments that ascribe to
them lower social status). The presence of this very strong interest also gives us
reason to prefer to arrange public discourse (especially discourse of state
institutions) so that we place the burden of argument on those who want to
make comparative judgments and allocate goods unequally. Above certain
uncontroversial thresholds (assuming they exist), it is often better to adopt the
policy of treating all as equals unless there is some especially weighty reason
not to do so. But (and this is my third point) sometimes there is compelling
reason to make comparative judgments. This is clearly the case, for example,
when it comes to institutions and practices of health care. These often focus on
helping people facing challenges in the development or exercise of their
agential capacities. For example, providing this help involves explicit consid-
erations about how depression or traumatic experiences hamper people’s
abilities to make prudential or moral judgments in certain circumstances.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 309

So, at least sometimes, we cannot give each other’s dignity its due by helping
each other appropriately unless we are ready to make, and accept that others
make, judgments about agential variation. We should of course approach
these practices in careful and tactful ways. But we should not assume that
they involve dignitarian harm. An appropriate political culture of dignity
should have room for solidarity (rather than see it as humiliating). Standing
as equals does not imply viewing each other as self-sufficient, or as strictly
equally capable, people. It is better to orient ourselves by the slogan “from each
according to their abilities, to each according to their needs,” which couples a
general idea of equal standing with the recognition of individual differences in
capacities to act and in needs for support.³²
An important question for future inquiry then is this: When is it a good idea
to talk about range properties without saying anything about the extent to
which the people we are considering are above the relevant threshold, and
when is it a good idea to talk about the degrees to which people have the
capacities above (or even below) the range? To answer this question, we need
to pay attention to the nature of the normative exercise we are engaging in. To
determine whether Pedro and Maria may vote, it is enough to focus on range
properties regarding practical judgment. To determine who should be chosen
as a member of the Supreme Court, we should also want to know (among
other things) who has the most extensive abilities for impartial reasoning.

1 1 . 5. H U M A N DI G N I T Y A N D TH E A R C
OF HUMANIST J USTICE

I have claimed that although not strictly minimalist, human rights are only a
proper subset of the requirements of justice. I have distinguished between
access to a decent life (which is the focus of human rights), and access to a
flourishing life (which is the wider focus of social justice as conceived by some
democratic socialists and liberal egalitarians). I have claimed that human
dignity requires support regarding both. In my view, there is then both
difference and continuity between the norms of basic and maximal dignity.
This generates a two-tiered political horizon: human rights are the most
urgent requirements of human dignity, but humanist social justice can, and

³² See section 11.5 and Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According To
Their Abilities, To Each According To Their Needs’,” Journal of Social Philosophy 46 (2015),
197–225. For further discussion of Carter’s views, see Richard Arneson, “Basic Equality: Neither
Acceptable nor Rejectable,” in Uwe Steinhoff, ed., Basic Equality (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2014), 30–52; Gabriel Wollner, “Basic Equality and the Currency of Egalitarian Justice,” in
A. Kaufman, ed., Distributive Justice and Access to Advantage (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2015), 180–223.
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310 Human Dignity and Human Rights

(in a world of growing avoidable inequality it certainly) should, demand more.
This approach to the arc of humanist justice not only differs from other views
about the reach of human rights and humanist principles. It also differs from
other views of the reach of dignitarian obligations. In the account offered in
this book, these obligations not only target sufficientarian requirements cen-
tered on securing that everyone has enough to be able to stand as equals in
important social relations,³³ but also target, directly, certain requirements of
distributive equality that call us to redress unfair disparities in people’s access
to the conditions of their human flourishing. After we have secured basic civil
and political rights, and the socioeconomic conditions for their effective
enjoyment, we can and should go further. Solidaristic empowerment takes
the dignity of people to call for more than merely sufficientarian schemes. It
matters that people have access to the highest levels of human flourishing that
can feasibly (and reasonably) be made available, and that no one has less
access than others through no choice or fault of their own. There are import-
ant connections between the triad of ideas including the basis of dignity,
dignitarian concern and respect, and dignitarian norms, and the triad includ-
ing the basis of equality, equal concern and respect, and egalitarian norms.
I recognize that the foregoing claims are controversial. Partly because of
that, I have highlighted in this book the significance of political empowerment
as a pivotal demand of human dignity. This is partly why I devoted chapter 10
to a defense of the view of strong, democratic political rights as human rights.
These rights constitute a key demand when it comes to the issue of reasonable
disagreement about how expansive requirements regarding maximal (or even
basic) justice should be taken to be. When they are empowered as political
agents, people reach a floor of dignity on which they can stand as they press
their claims on each other. They can process their reasonable disagreements
over time in an epistemically open and in a procedurally fair way.
We can see solidaristic empowerment as generating requirements of
autonomy and well-being that compose a hierarchical set, so that the former
must typically be implemented before the latter.³⁴ We first establish a system
of individual and collective autonomy and then use the freedoms acquired to

³³ For a sufficientarian construal of dignitarian requirements of this kind, see Elizabeth

Anderson, “What is the Point of Equality?” Ethics 109 (1999), 287–337, at 320–1 (see also
306–7, 326, 330). I do not think that comparative distributive requirements must be motivated
by envy and condescending or contemptuous pity. They can be based instead on a morally sound
sense of fairness and a solidaristic concern for the well-being of others. From the point of view of
egalitarian justice, it is problematic if some have greater chances to develop and exercise their
valuable capacities than others (even if that would not generate relational patterns of social or
political domination).
³⁴ This formulation can be revised if we prefer to see autonomy as part of well-being, by
saying that this part typically has greater weight than the other parts.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 311

figure out how to cater for well-being.³⁵ So my view is quite maximalist when it
comes to political human rights. But I recognize that when it comes to other
rights, a cut between basic human rights and maximal requirements of social
justice that is somewhat less expansive about the territory covered by the
former is appropriate. It makes sense to carve out a set of normative require-
ments that are especially urgent, and to create political alliances to make their
fulfillment happen in the real world as soon as possible.³⁶ The leading example
about this point that I have explored concerns labor rights. I identified (in
chapter 9) robust labor human rights to freely chosen employment, to decent
working conditions and remuneration, and to form and join unions. As
I indicated, these rights are different from more expansive requirements of
social justice which call for the prevention of (less intense forms of) exploitation,
domination, and alienation at work. Still, as we gain political empowerment,
I think that we should seek the implementation of those expansive requirements
of social justice. Human dignity calls for a deeper challenge to contemporary
capitalist societies than human rights doctrine normally calls for.³⁷
A promising inquiry, I think, would be to explore how a specific view of
social justice, such as socialism, might be articulated in dignitarian terms.
Although a historically important tradition, socialism has been neglected in
contemporary normative political philosophy. Two common worries about it
are the following. First, socialism has failed to pay proper attention to civil and
political liberties. It has concentrated on demands about economic organiza-
tion without doing enough to address the importance of freedom of religion,
freedom of the press, the right to form multiple political associations and
parties, and other aspects of a pluralist environment for political participation.
A second complaint is that socialists have relied on an expectation of dramatic
technological development that involves unrealistic hopes for an end to

³⁵ This is not the same as saying that well-being principles are constituted and explained by
whatever people choose freely to go for. People can get it wrong. The point is that self-
determination has a certain significance which is intrinsic (in terms of the expressive value of
recognizing each person’s capacities for practical judgment) and instrumental (in terms of
epistemic and accountability advantages). Furthermore, it is important for people to think
now about well-being principles. This is so for various reasons. First, of course, there is
intellectual curiosity. Second, sometimes some people may have to make a choice that will affect
other people when it is impossible to make that choice collectively. Having some grasp of well-
being principles might help the decision-makers make a better choice. Third, as we join each
other in the public forum, we will have to come up with proposals for well-being principles (or
other normative principles) and arguments for them. We cannot simply say “Oh! Let’s just go for
the principles we all go for.” We are trying to figure out, individually and collectively, what
principles to go for, not to report what we are going for.
³⁶ This has the significant consequence that when some people in the world are suffering
human rights deprivations, capable agents are required to tackle them first before moving on to
wider justice matters (if a conflict is unavoidable). See further chapter 4, section 4.2.2.4;
chapter 9, section 9.4.3.
³⁷ Pablo Gilabert, “Dignity at Work,” in H. Collins, G. Lester, and V. Mantouvalou, eds.,
Philosophical Foundations of Labour Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
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312 Human Dignity and Human Rights

material scarcity and the need for distributive arrangements. Relatedly, social-
ists have held a potentially dangerous and disrespectful view of the relations
between human beings and the rest of nature. It is naïve to expect that we will
not have to make hard choices about how to distribute scarce resources, and
we should not approach non-human animals as having only instrumental
value, merely as resources for satisfying human beings’ desires.
The socialist tradition is very complex. It would be a mistake to think that
all of these worries apply to every strand in it, or that when they apply they do
so in the same way. But I think that the worries identify important concerns,
and I am interested (in my future work) in developing a positive view of the
socialist approach to social justice that helps take into account the values
animating these worries. A successful answer to them would make socialism a
more appealing ideal. And developing this ideal is a worthy endeavor because
it already encodes quite compelling insights about what would make an
economic system just. They concern the importance of positive duties of
solidarity, fair reciprocity, responsiveness to individual differences, and mean-
ingful work. Elsewhere, I have proposed the rudiments of an interpretation of
the socialist principle “from each according to their abilities, to each according
to their needs” (which I call the Abilities/Needs Principle) that develops these
insights.³⁸ This principle responds to important dignitarian features of people
as singular and autonomous agents capable of meaningful and cooperative
production and consumption. It relies on a rich view of the basis of dignity
that goes beyond a narrow focus on rational agency, including also human
beings’ capacities for aesthetic enjoyment, creative work, and sociality.
Socialism makes distinctive contributions to our understanding of human
dignity. Furthermore, once we construe socialism within a dignitarian frame-
work, we can address more lucidly the worries mentioned above. Civil and
political liberties support important forms of condition-dignity. They involve
an appropriate response to people’s status-dignity as agents that can, and
standardly care about being able to pursue their own good as they see it, and
to partake as equals in the main decision-making institutions of their society.
The dignitarian norms of economic cooperation that socialism proposes have
to be articulated in conjunction with dignitarian norms of civil and political
liberty, and the relations between these norms have to be assessed explicitly
and systematically. In addition, the dignity of non-human animals must be
acknowledged, since they have various important capacities—such as sen-
tience and initiative—that make them deserve respect and concern. The
socialist view of economic life must, and can, be developed in a way that
enacts an appropriate response to intrinsic value in non-human nature.

³⁸ Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According To Their Abilities, To Each
According To Their Needs’.” For a lucid overview of socialist arguments in normative political
philosophy, see Samuel Arnold, “Socialism,” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016).
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 313

So, a development of the socialist ideal within a dignitarian framework
would achieve three important objectives. First, it would help articulate
socialists’ insights about a just economy, which already rely on identifying
certain important human capacities and calling for their support. Second, it
would illuminate the relations between economic rights, on the one hand, and
civil and political rights, on the other. Finally, it would show that the claims of
human dignity have to be limited by, or weighted against, dignitarian norms
concerning the proper treatment of non-human entities.
There is a fourth way in which a dignitarian articulation of socialism would be
appealing: it involves continuity with human rights theory and practice. Social-
ism is more demanding than human rights by calling for access to a flourishing
life, not only a decent one. But socialism can be seen as a natural continuation of
the humanist project within which human rights is the first step. As I see it, the
key element of continuity is this: like human rights, socialism builds its principles
on the idea of responding to valuable general features of human beings. Hu-
manist socialism simply extends the response by articulating principles support-
ing human flourishing besides decency. This continuity would make socialism
easier to entertain for those who already embrace human rights discourse. Once
we accept the humanist dignitarianism of human rights, and think that we
should support people in their attempts to reach certain basic thresholds of
development and exercise of their valuable capacities, we would find it natural to
wonder whether we should also support people in their attempts to reach higher
levels of development and exercise of such capacities. To repeat a point made in
chapter 5 (section 5.3.5), the value of human capacities, and the resulting
normative status of the people who have them, is more thoroughly reflected in
principles that require support for human flourishing. Once we accept that the
autonomy and well-being of other human beings is non-instrumentally valuable,
we will feel inclined to explore the questions of whether, and how, we might
support their blossoming. A merely decent life is not enough.
The link with human rights makes socialism more appealing by easing our
reflective (and motivational) endorsement of the latter given our endorsement
of the former. In addition, it helps respond further to the worries mentioned
above. Since human rights involve very strong protections of civil and political
liberties, an account of socialism that includes and builds on a commitment to
human rights would naturally acknowledge (and indeed develop further)
strong protections of such liberties. The relation between the human rights
project and the socialist tradition already has historical roots. Socialists
were decisive in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.³⁹

³⁹ John Humphrey from Canada, and several other socialists from Latin America were the
drafters of UDHR who pressed most strongly for the inclusion of social and economic rights,
including labor rights. See Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Origins, Drafting and Intent (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), ch. 5.
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314 Human Dignity and Human Rights

The socialist tradition is also one of the main sources of the introduction of the
idea of human dignity in politics.⁴⁰ This historical link can be developed further
in the future.
A significant contribution of socialism to dignitarian theory and practice
that I would like to highlight in closing is its emphasis on the importance of
solidarity. The following passage from an early writing by Marx conveys a
stinging critique of the separation of dignity from mutual support:
The only comprehensible language we have is the language our possessions use
together. We would not understand a human language and it would remain
ineffectual. From the one side, such a language would be felt to be begging,
imploring and hence humiliating. It could be used only with feelings of shame
and debasement. From the other side, it would be received as impertinence or
insanity and so rejected. We are so estranged from our human essence that the
direct language of man strikes us as an offence against the dignity of man, whereas
the estranged language of [commodity, economic] objective values appears as the
justified, self-confident and self-acknowledged dignity of man incarnate.⁴¹
Marx may be read here as calling for a practical combination of the ideas of
dignity and solidaristic support.⁴² His critique of their separation is still
relevant. Too much in contemporary moral and political philosophy consists
in variations on the theme of giving theoretical articulation to the sentiment
captured in utterances like “Get off my back!” “Mind your own business!” or

⁴⁰ See Christopher McCrudden, “Human Dignity and Judicial Interpretation of Human

Rights,” European Journal of International Law 19 (2008), 655–724, at 661, 664, 673. See also
Georg Lohmann, “Human Dignity and Socialism,” in M. Düwell, J. Braarvig, R. Brownsword,
and D. Mieth, eds., The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2014), 126–34. Karl Marx’s views on morality and justice are notoriously
complex, and subject to much controversy. For a lucid analysis of the primary texts and the
debates about them, see Norman Geras, “The Controversy about Marx and Justice,” New Left
Review I/150 (1985), 47–85. For the view that the idea of human dignity is significant in Marx’s
thought, see Rodney Peffer, Marxism, Morality, and Social Justice (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1990), 118–23. For some steps to articulate a dignitarian approach to socialism, see
Pablo Gilabert, “The Socialist Principle ‘From Each According to Their Abilities, to Each
According to their Needs’ ”; and “Kantian Dignity and Marxian Socialism,” Kantian Review 22
(2017), 553–77.
⁴¹ “Excerpts from Mill’s Elements on Political Economy,” in Karl Marx, Early Writings
(London: Penguin, 1992), 259–78, at 276.
⁴² A classical, and related, move in Marx’s work is to criticize views which fail to capture
the extent to which people are socially dependent on each other. E.g., Marx argued that
“[i]ndividuals producing in society—hence socially determined individual production—is . . . the
point of departure” and that the “independent, autonomous subjects” of many eighteenth-
century theories are “Robinsonades,” “illusions.” “The human being is in the most literal sense
a [political animal], not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself
only in the midst of society. Production by an isolated individual outside society—a rare
exception which may well occur when a civilized person in whom the social forces are already
dynamically present is cast by accident into the wilderness—is as much of an absurdity as is the
development of language without individuals living together and talking to each other.”
Karl Marx, Grundrisse (London: Penguin, 1973), 83–4.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 315

“You are not the boss of me!” I do not deny that underlying these utterances
there are deep and important ideas about liberty that should be theoretically
articulated. Philosophy should do that. But these ideas are only centered on
negative duties and rights. We also need to explore positive duties and rights.
A moral and political philosophy that ignores positive requirements is unduly
mean-spirited.
Appropriately to respond to the dignity of human beings involves not only
respect, but also concern, for them. We show proper appreciation for the
worth of human beings when we do not trample on their autonomy by
destroying or blocking the development and exercise of their capacity for
self-determination. But we owe human beings more than respect. We could
fulfill duties of respect while remaining perfectly indifferent to whether other
human beings are able to develop and exercise their various capacities for
autonomy, if we do not protect them from disrespect by others, and if we do
not help them in their efforts to achieve flourishing lives. That would be a
callous attitude. We also owe human beings positive concern.
After all, the same valuable capacities and features that give rise to the
demands of respect give rise to the demands of concern. If a person’s capacity
for self-determination gives you reason not to enslave or dominate them,
doesn’t it also give you reason to protect them when others try to enslave
them or dominate them? If a person’s various capacities to pursue a life
including love, friendship, knowledge, productive work, etc., give you reason
not to block that pursuit when they engage in it, don’t they also give you
reason to support that pursuit by making it more likely to succeed? Reasons
for positive concern (for protection and aid) are grounded in the same facts
that ground reasons for negative respect (for harm avoidance). I am not saying
that these reasons have always the same weight. The relative weight of positive
and negative normative considerations is a separate, and important, issue. But
it would not even be noticed if we held a narrow view that only recognizes
negative considerations. The claim here is simply that the positive consider-
ations also hold as pro tanto sources for moral and political reasoning. That
reasoning gets started in the wrong way if the platform of reasons it recognizes
does not include the full palette of responses to what is valuable in people. The
dignity of persons, which is based on those facts about value, would not be
given proper recognition.
I should add that it is important to avoid the mistake of downplaying the
significance of positive duties by drawing on the distinction between perfect
and imperfect duties. It is true that many positive duties are imperfect while
many negative duties are perfect. However, first, not all positive duties are
imperfect. Cases of easy rescue in which an agent can save the life of another at
little cost (when no other agent can do so) are a typical example.
Second, some negative duties might turn out to be imperfect. Sometimes an
agent may have some latitude when choosing between two negative duties
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316 Human Dignity and Human Rights

when both apply, pro tanto, but cannot both be fulfilled. For example, I may
have to fulfill a duty not to lie to my friend but also a duty not to offend them.
Furthermore, in given circumstances a positive duty may be weightier than a
negative duty with which it conflicts, as when you can only take a dying person
to the hospital by temporarily stealing someone else’s car.⁴³
Third, the considerations that give rise to perfect negative duties also give
rise to imperfect positive duties. The perfect negative duty not to assault others
is, unfortunately, often violated. The risk, in any case, is always there. So we
think that we have a positive duty to protect others from assault (when this can
be done at reasonable cost). This is a positive duty. It is also imperfect, as each
has some latitude in choosing whom to protect and how (except in cases that
are akin to the easy rescue type mentioned above). Of course, the duty of
protection can be rendered less imperfect through the introduction of insti-
tutions such as criminal law, the police, etc. I will say more about this
institutionalization scheme in a moment. But notice that even then the duty
will remain somewhat imperfect. We have competing moral goals, and we may
be unable to devote all the energy and resources to protection that would make
it a matter of specific perfect rights in every case. A government, for example,
has also to attend to other demands. When resources are limited, officials
and citizens will have to make choices, and have some latitude regarding
their details.
Finally, we can, through social practices and institutions, articulate various
practical schemes which render positive duties perfect (or much less imper-
fect). As a result, we can develop more fully determined rights (that is, rights
with clearly identified objects, right-holders, correlated duties, and duty-
bearers). In fact, once we acknowledge the independent, important reasons
for the significance of positive duties (such as the fact that they constitute
appropriate responses to the dignity of human beings), then we must recog-
nize that we have strong reason to engage in this articulation of them. We
could even say that imperfect duties have correlative imperfect rights, and that
both can, to some extent (in some circumstances, in some respects) be
specified in such a way that derived perfect duties and rights arise with clarity.
To see this, think about solidarity, or aid, before and after the formation of
welfare states. The latter came to specify, or render perfect (or less imperfect),
rights and duties that predated the new institutions.
The last point helps counter another typical motive in bourgeois thinking,
captured in utterances like “Get your hands off my things!” What is to count

⁴³ For further critical discussion of views of justice narrowly focused on negative and perfect
duties, see Elizabeth Ashford, “The Alleged Dichotomy Between Positive and Negative Rights
and Duties,” in R. Beitz and R. Goodin, eds., Basic Global Rights (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 92–112; and Pablo Gilabert, “Kant and the Claims of the Poor,” Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research 81 (2010), 382–418.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 317

as “mine” and “yours” partly depends on how we could best organize our
social life in such a way that proper concern for others is given its due.
Institutions establishing property rights are conventions, and they must be
subject to normative assessment. If that assessment includes an ideal of
solidaristic empowerment, then it will not permit forms of property that
allow some human beings to be totally indifferent to the needs of others.
The socialist adds to (and thereby qualifies) liberal considerations regarding
negative duties the motto: “Let us help each other live flourishing lives!” There
is some intuitive pressure to class positive duties as a matter of beneficence but
not as a matter of rights and justice. I think that it is better to use a wider
concept of rights and justice that does not assume that only negative and
perfect duties are essential. Sure, one could shift the label for the broader
normative territory covered by talking about “social ethics” rather than about
“social justice.” But I do not think one should give the term “justice” away so
readily.⁴⁴ The socialist tradition, and various strands within feminism, have
fought hard to develop a wider view of justice that includes solidarity. This has
been an invaluable contribution. Given the prestige and salience of the term
“justice” in political philosophy and in actual social and political practice, if
the concerns of feminists and socialist are to be given proper attention, it is
wise to make sure that the conceptual territory of “justice” is ample enough to
allow for their presence. In any case, as this book has argued, human dignity
calls for solidaristic empowerment—for a form of engagement amongst
human beings in which they seriously entertain helping each other live decent
and flourishing lives. We are all in this together.

11.6. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Let me close this book by returning to the proximate practical context in which
the penultimate draft of this book was produced (see chapter 1, section 1.4).
These final remarks link the previous discussion of the arc of humanist justice
with my personal reaction to current politics.
After Trump’s electoral victory in the United States (and other similar
developments), and in view of what it seemed to indicate, I think that it is
time to focus on a sharp articulation of the perspective of a Left that gathers
under its banner the ideals of socioeconomic equality, democracy, and civil
liberties, and welcomes every human being under it, as their human dignity
requires. The neo-fascist incarnation of capitalism that Trump seems to

⁴⁴ Pablo Gilabert, “Justice and Beneficence.”

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318 Human Dignity and Human Rights

represent mobilizes the anger and disappointment of some sectors of the
working class who have been left worse off by the neoliberal phase of
capitalism, while neutralizing any serious systemic challenge: they will likely
receive some concessions and be diverted into hatred for and scapegoating of
racial, ethnic, religious, and other minorities. Alternatively, a democratic
socialist Left could cover the whole territory of the (at least modern) ideals
and overcome the alleged dichotomy between neo-fascist and neoliberal
forms of capitalism. Dominant forms of liberalism and social democracy
have timidly fail to go far enough. They have condoned the deep inequality
that led to the disintegration neo-fascism tries to stitch together to avoid the
return of a more serious systemic challenge from the Left (which Bernie
Sanders seemed to represent in embryonic form). It may very well be
socialism or barbarism as Cornelius Castoriadis once put it. Fortunately,
leftists today can breathe freely without the pressure from the authoritarian
strands of socialism of the kind exemplified by the Soviet Union. The Left
can straightforwardly present itself as taking the torch of human progress
towards a domestic and global order of civil and political freedom, economic
and social equality, and universal human solidarity. This would be a digni-
tarian socialism.
So, the slogan might well be “Turn left or face barbarism.” The Left can
appropriately be characterized as the strand within the political spectrum that
is ready to complete and extend universally the progression that, quite roughly
and unevenly, has been taking place in the last few hundred years. This
progression has included the pursuit of the fulfillment of civil rights (such as
those to free religious practice, bodily integrity, and movement), political
rights (to speak up, associate, strike, protest, vote, run for office), and social
rights (to food, shelter, education, work, and other material contributors to a
decent and flourishing life). The Left has always pushed for ambitious inter-
pretations of these rights. It has called, for example, for forms of democratic
politics that include direct participation besides representation, and for polit-
ical regulations that deepen the application of ideals of freedom, equality, and
solidarity to the organization of economic life rather than condone asymmet-
ric power relations otherwise operating in it. The Left has also always called for
extending the enjoyment of civil, political, and social rights to every human
person. Leftist activists have been at the forefront of the struggle for securing
access to education, jobs, and political participation for women, ethnic and
racial minorities, property-less workers, and immigrants. The Left has also
been at the forefront of new waves of justice championing the rights of
LGBTQ people, seeing globalization as an opportunity for achieving global
prosperity and fairness rather than as an occasion for devising new forms of
plunder and imperialism. The Left is also committed to the exploration of new
ways of shaping the relations between human beings and the rest of nature
that are less irresponsible and predatory.
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Minimalist versus Expansive Views of Human Rights 319

Of course, this optimistic picture of social progress is quite stylized and
aspirational. The various waves of rights have not been pursued continuously.
In fact, as pointed out, we face today a situation in which they are all being
rolled back by an ugly, angry form of neo-fascist capitalism resurfacing across
the world. In a way, it is understandable that this is happening. After thirty
years of global neoliberalism in which economic inequality has increased
exponentially and the condition of the majority of working people has not
got any better, people are disappointed and upset. They see their salaries
stagnate or retreat. Or they lose their jobs with little hope of getting similar
or better jobs in the future. New forms of automation, labor deregulation, and
cross-border mobility of capital are generating unemployment, or precarious
employment. Climate change is also creating various challenges and harms
which will likely increase. And traditional political parties, including those on
the center-left, have done little to respond to these tendencies in decisive and
creative ways. The political process has been colonized by economic elites
(which control funding of political campaigns, own large chunks of mass
media, effectively lobby politicians, and generally discipline governments by
threatening to disinvest or move their capital abroad if their short-term wishes
are not catered for). People see this landscape and feel deep concern. This
legitimate concern could be channeled into a relaunching of the Left that leads
to the resolute and simultaneous pursuit of the various strands of justice just
mentioned. This Left could shore up labor rights, introduce an unconditional
basic income for all to put a floor of dignity on which people can stand to
access subsistence, and engage in experimental forms of economic activity that
give them fair chances to flourish. This Left could keep intensifying the
recognition of the claims of minorities and explore ways of making globaliza-
tion a genuine project of global cooperation and solidarity. Failing that,
neoliberal capitalism will be followed by other frameworks that will not pursue
the full palette of progressive ideals but will instead pick out some, interpret
them less ambitiously, and use them as a cover to trample on the others. Even
some advances that were achieved in the last few decades (regarding the
inclusion of LGBTQ people and racial and religious minorities) will be cast
as undesirable, and some of their beneficiaries turned into scapegoats. We can
already see the beginnings of a new form of capitalism that manipulates
people’s anger in odious ways, by turning it against ethnic and cultural
minorities. This may perhaps even include throwing people into the battlefield
of new imperial wars. These operations would create new forms of social
cohesion and reactivate sectors of the economy, as similar maneuvers did in
the past. But just as it happened before, these adventures would likely also lead
to sinister outcomes. To avoid them, we should turn left.⁴⁵

⁴⁵ The following popular articles help focus on the right questions. George Monbiot,
“Trump’s Climate Denial is Just One of the Forces That Points Towards War,” Guardian,
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320 Human Dignity and Human Rights

Or, at a minimum, we should hold fast to the pillars of the human rights
movement. After all, the somber world situation we are contemplating seems
worrisomely similar to the one that led to the catastrophes the human rights
movement responded to at the end of World War II. This movement has
rallied around a set of basic civil, political, and social rights, and has clearly
articulated them as the entitlements that everyone around the world has in
virtue of their human dignity. As world politics turns darker, this is where we
need to start. The arc of humanist justice, of dignitarian respect and concern
for every human person, starts with affirming everyone’s human rights. And it
concludes with the horizon of democratic socialism, which would pursue the
most ambitious implementation of those ideas that is reasonably feasible.
This, I think, is a worthy agenda of ideals and principles of justice that
philosophers and other intellectuals could fruitfully contribute to clarify and
defend as part of a broader effort in civil society to contest barbarism and
regain hope in human progress.
In sum, as I see the current situation, we either turn left decisively, extend-
ing the progressive project of universalist egalitarianism by introducing deep
fulfillments of social rights, or we face the very real prospect that a neo-fascist
form of capitalism will roll back several achievements regarding social rights
(even though some partial gains may also be introduced in contrast with
neoliberal capitalism), reduce previously achieved levels of fulfillment of civil
and political rights, and shatter the gains in terms of universalist political
conscience. In the face of the barbarism the second horn of this dilemma
involves, we should at the very least find a way to resolutely put humanity first
and rally around the banner of human rights, which defend a basic but crucial
set of civil, political, and social requirements for everyone. To repeat, we are all
in this together.

November 23, 2016. Erik Wright, “How to Be an Anticapitalist Today,” Jacobin, December 2, 2015.
Available here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/12/erik-olin-wright-real-utopias-anticapitalism-
democracy/. Erik Wright, “How to Think About (And Win) Socialism,” Jacobin, April 27, 2016.
Available here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/erik-olin-wright-real-utopias-capitalism-so
cialism/. Monbiot warns about the worst tendencies in the current conjuncture, and Erik Wright
devices some hopeful paths for a democratic Left. An initial mapping of current worrisome trends of
increasing xenophobic nationalism is provided in the report “League of Nationalists,” The Econo-
mist, November 19, 2016.
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APPENDIX 1

Survey of Uses of “Human Dignity”

in Major Human Rights Documents

An inspection of the main human rights documents reveals at least eleven points about
the use of the idea human dignity.
(i) Some utterances seem to refer to human dignity as an inherent property of
human beings, a status they constantly have rather than one they can achieve.
(a) The first sentence of the Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights (UDHR) refers to the “inherent dignity . . . of all the members of the
human family.” (b) The fifth sentence expresses “faith . . . in the dignity and
worth of the human person.” (c) Article 1 says that “[a]ll human beings are
born free and equal in dignity and rights.” (d) The second and third sentences
of the Preambles of both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Polit-
ical Rights (ICCPR) also refer to human persons’ “inherent dignity.” The
expression also occurs in the first clause of Article 10 of ICCPR and in the
first sentence of Article 20 of the Vienna Declaration.
(ii) A statement appears to tell us something about the features in virtue of which
human persons have human dignity in the sense referred to in (i): “All human
beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood” (UDHR, Art. 1).
(iii) We are told that human rights are “derived” from human dignity. (a) The third
sentence of the Preamble of both ICCPR and ICESCR refer to the recognition
“that these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person.”
(b) The third sentence of the Preamble of the Vienna Declaration claims that
“all human rights derive from the dignity and worth inherent in the human
person.”
(iv) Some statements appear to refer to dignity as a more contingent condition or
state that human beings may come to enjoy (and this includes certain treat-
ment of them by others). This sense is different from the one considered so far.
Examples include reference (a) to “economic, social and cultural rights as
indispensable for [persons’] dignity and the free development of [their] per-
sonality” (UDHR, Art. 22); (b) to “just and favourable remuneration” from
work “ensuring for [the worker and their] family an existence worthy of
human dignity” (UDHR, Art. 23, third clause); (c) to education as being
“directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of
its dignity” (ICESCR, Art. 13, first clause); and (d) to seeking a treatment of
refugees that involves “durable solutions, primarily through the preferred
solution of dignified and safe voluntary repatriation” (Vienna Declaration,
Art. 23, third paragraph).
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322 Appendix 1
(v) Some references to dignity seem ambiguous between the senses mentioned in
(i) and (iv). An example is the claim that “one of the most atrocious violations
against human dignity is the act of torture, the result of which destroys the
dignity and impairs the capability of victims to continue their lives and their
abilities” (Vienna Declaration, Art. 55).
(vi) Some statements intimate a connection between dignity, rights, and social
and political power:
(a) “[A]ll human rights derive from the dignity and worth inherent in the
human person, and . . . the human person is the central subject of human
rights and fundamental freedoms, and consequently should be the prin-
cipal beneficiary and should participate actively in the realization of these
rights and freedoms” (Vienna Declaration, Preamble, third sentence).
(b) “[E]xtreme poverty and social exclusion constitute a violation of human
dignity and . . . urgent steps are necessary to achieve better knowledge of
extreme poverty and its causes, including those related to the problem of
development, in order to promote the human rights of the poorest, and to
put an end to extreme poverty and social exclusion and to promote the
enjoyment of the fruits of social progress. It is essential for States to foster
participation by the poorest people in the decision-making process by the
community in which they live, the promotion of human rights and the
efforts to combat extreme poverty” (Vienna Declaration, Art. 25).
(c) “Men and women have the right to live their lives and raise their children
in dignity, free from hunger and from the fear of violence, oppression and
injustice. Democratic participatory governance based on the will of the
people best assures these rights” (UN Millennium Declaration, Art. 6).
(vii) Dignity seems in most cases to be primarily a predicate that applies to
individuals (see, for example, (vi)(a) above). However, it occasionally appears
to apply to collectives. An example is indigenous people in Article 20 of the
Vienna Declaration.
(viii) Some statements emphasize the global scope of the duties to respond to
human rights deprivations. Thus (a) the UN Millennium Declaration, in its
Article 2, says that “in addition to our separate responsibilities to our indi-
vidual societies, we have a collective responsibility to uphold the principles of
human dignity, equality, and equity at the global level.” (b) The global scope
of duties correlative to human rights (and thus to human dignity) is a clear
corollary of Article 28 of UDHR, according to which “[e]veryone is entitled to
a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in
this Declaration can be fully realized.”
(ix) Not only are some duties correlative to human rights (and thus to human
dignity) global in scope (as mentioned in (viii)). Some human rights docu-
ments emphasize that also the site of action and responsibility is quite wide,
including not only state institutions. (a) A striking example is the Convention
for the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women
(CEDAW), whose claims range over “the political, economic, cultural, civil
or any other field” (Art. 1). (b) Rene Cassin, one the drafters of the UDHR,
insisted that the duties of individuals and institutions below and above the
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Appendix 1 323
state are crucial.¹ (c) In its Preamble, the UDHR’s is presented as “a common
standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every
individual and every organ of society . . . shall strive by teaching and education
to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures,
national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition
and observance.”
(x) “Children” are said to be within the scope of dignitarian principles. The text
cited in (viii)(a) continues: “[W]e have a duty . . . to all of the world’s people,
especially to the most vulnerable and, in particular, the children of the world.”
(xi) It is important, when we think about human dignity as a status in the sense
mentioned in (i), that this status differs from other, specific social statuses.
“Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration
without distinctions of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
status” (UDHR, Art. 2).

¹ See Mary Glendon, A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights (New York: Random House, 2001), 93, 113–14. This is why Cassin proposed, just
before its adoption, that the title of the Declaration be changed to “Universal Declaration of
Human Rights” from “International Declaration of Human Rights.” Glendon explains: “The title
‘Universal’ [Cassin . . . ] later wrote, meant that the Declaration was morally binding on everyone,
not only on the governments that voted for its adoption. The Universal Declaration . . . was not
an ‘international’ or ‘intergovernmental’ document; it was addressed to all humanity and
founded on a unified conception of the human being” (161).
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APPENDIX 2

Scalar Feasibility, Dynamic Power,

and Solidarity

I presented in chapter 3 an exploration of the concept of feasibility and of its

significance for understanding the content and defense of human rights. In this
appendix, I develop a point which was made in that chapter only in passing,¹ viz.
that feasibility is often a matter of degree. This point turns out to be crucial for the ideal
of solidaristic empowerment presented in chapters 7 and 8. Duties of solidaristic
empowerment are contingent upon considerations of scalar feasibility.
It is important to construe feasibility, and with it power, so that it has a scalar
dimension. That is, we should not only make binary judgments about what an agent
can or cannot do, about what they do or do not have the power to achieve. Feasibility
(and with it power) allows for degrees. We use this scalar dimension, for example, to
characterize the feasibility (and with it the power) of an agent A bringing about a
certain outcome O in certain circumstances C as a matter of the probability P with
which O would occur if A tries to bring it about in C (provided A can try). O can be
characterized in a more or less fine-grained way, depending on the inquiry we are
engaged in. A wide notion of scalar feasibility illuminates the complexity of O. For
example, O could include A’s forming an intention to do something, A’s actually doing
it, and A’s action causing the result A was aiming at. The psychological mechanisms
that go into determining feasibility degrees regarding the first two components may be
quite important in political practice. By paying attention to them, when we deploy the
wide scalar notion of feasibility we can make better political choices than when we use
only a binary feasibility approach. Let me explain.

A2.1. Illuminating Difficult Choices and Avoiding Unduly

Harsh Judgments
Degree of feasibility matters when we judge other people. This is clearly so when they
face psychologically difficult choices. Consider a political prisoner who is tortured to
extract from them information about the whereabouts of comrades who are fighting a
dictatorial regime. The prisoner under torture may be able to withhold the informa-
tion, but we should not judge them in the same way in which we would judge a
prisoner who is not undergoing torture. It is much harder to remain loyal when facing

¹ See chapter 3, section 3.3.3. For recent accounts of feasibility and its significance for political
philosophy, see Pablo Gilabert and Holly Lawford-Smith, “Political Feasibility: A Conceptual
Exploration,” Political Studies 60 (2012), 809–25; Holly Lawford-Smith, “Understanding Polit-
ical Feasibility,” Journal of Political Philosophy 21 (2013), 243–59; David Wiens, “Political Ideals
and the Feasibility Frontier,” Economics and Philosophy 31 (2015), 447–77; and Pablo Gilabert,
“Justice and Feasibility: A Dynamic Approach,” in Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 95–126.
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326 Appendix 2
the intense physical and psychological harms that torture involves. Paying attention to
degrees of feasibility allows us to avoid being unduly harsh in our appraisals of people’s
choices and actions.
Being conscious of degrees of feasibility is also important to approach difficult
choices of our own. During the Argentine military dictatorship of 1976–83, some
activists resisting the regime carried poison pills to have the option of committing
suicide if they were captured by the secret military service (and thus avoid torture and
the prospect of betraying their comrades). Sometimes talented political leaders choose
to step down after a long tenure at the helm of their party to avoid becoming corrupted
and failing to faithfully pursue their goals as decisively as they ideally should.
These cases involve difficult choices because, in them, although agents are able to do
what is ideally best they justifiably worry that the feasibility of their succeeding is low.
We would not understand their predicament without using a wide scalar notion of
feasibility.

A2.2. Understanding Social Power and the Injustices Related to It

Using a wide scalar notion of feasibility, and the cognate idea of degrees of power, can
help us understand how social power works and notice some injustices related to it.
This becomes clear when we consider how the expected costs of doing something
affect the feasibility of doing it, or the power to do it, on the part of some agents.
It is sometimes said that the degree of power that an agent A has with respect to an
outcome O is affected by the expected cost to A of pursuing O. The higher the expected
cost, the lower, in one respect, is the power.² Consider two scenarios, one in which you
tell me that you will beat me up unless I give you my wallet and another in which
you just ask me to give you my wallet without any threats. In a binary sense of
feasibility, I am able to refuse in both cases. But the costs involved in the threat
make me less likely to refuse in the first scenario. In that scenario, I face opportunity
costs that I do not face in the other (I have to choose between keeping my money and
keeping my bodily integrity).³
Now, notice that expected costs affect the formation of agents’ intentions, which is
different from their ability to do something once they have formed the intention to do
it. In the two scenarios discussed above it would be quite easy to say “No” to your
request for my wallet if I chose to do so. But it would be harder for me to form the
intention to say “No” in the first scenario than in the second. Expected costs may affect
scalar feasibility by affecting the degree of agents’ ability to form certain intentions.
The foregoing remarks help us understand features of social power, which includes
the ability of some agents to get other agents to do certain things. Consider the case of

² See, e.g., Alvin Goldman, “Toward a Theory of Social Power,” Philosophical Studies 23
(1972), 221–68, sects. IV–V. Goldman argues that an agent’s power with respect to an outcome is
inversely proportional to the cost of obtaining it. My account goes further by illuminating the
issue of the formation and maintenance of intentions, which helps understand how costs bear on
power to obtain an outcome through intentional actions.
³ Notice that using a wide scalar notion of feasibility that considers costs does not conflate
feasibility with desirability. The point is to foreground the issue that the extent to which
something is desired or undesired by an agent may affect the extent to which the agent is able
(in a psychological sense) to pursue it. The point concerns what is (un)desired, not what is
(un)desirable. It is about perceived costs, not about costs that should count objectively.
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Appendix 2 327
sweatshops, in which wealthy employers exploit impoverished workers. If they have to
choose between working in a sweatshop, facing all the humiliations and toil that this
work involves, and the prospect of extreme poverty and even starvation that would
await them if they do not take up the job, the workers are more likely to choose the
former. They can choose either outcome, but it is psychologically harder to choose
the latter given the greater costs involved. This is why the bargaining power of the
capitalists setting up the sweatshops (when it comes to fixing salaries, working hours,
workplace safety, etc.) is so high. If the workers had other options available, their intra-
personal power (to form decisions regarding whether to accept employment) and
inter-personal power (to secure certain outcomes in bargaining over labor conditions
with employers) would be greater.
We thus have reason to see costs as affecting feasibility and this helps us understand
social power. When applied to social processes, scalar feasibility concerns “soft
constraints” (such as cultural or economic patterns). These, unlike “hard constraints”
(such as the laws of logic or physics) are not inviolable, but affect the probability of
success of paths of action that collide with them. Now, these constraints normally work
through psychological mechanisms in which the weighing of costs by agents is
essential.⁴
Some might prefer to use a notion of feasibility that is independent of costs to avoid
a morally inappropriate capitulation in the face of an unjust status quo which, for
example, lets off the hook those who say that it is not “feasible” for them to do what
goes against their culture, religion, pecuniary interests, etc. But this insight can be
maintained when costs are brought into the discussion of feasibility. This is so because
expected costs do not normally entail strict (binary) limits, but just lower degree of
(scalar) feasibility regarding some psychological processes in the agent. There still is
room for pressing the agent with moral arguments, as it is not unachievable (in terms
of any hard constraints) for them to do what we think they ought to do (see section
A2.4 below).
Furthermore, failing to acknowledge that expected costs affect feasibility and social
power may unwittingly hamper our ability to criticize some injustices. When coun-
tering criticisms that certain social relations and institutions involve injustice, it is a
common maneuver to say that the agents who engage in them do so as equals, out of
free choice. Consider again the case of sweatshops. A defender might say that the
workers choose freely to work in sweatshops (the employers do not relate to them
like slave-owners to slaves, forcibly putting them to work against their will). But free
choice disables condemnation at the bar of justice only if all the choosers involved have
decent alternative options to choose from. This is not true in the sweatshop case, in
which only employers have decent alternatives. Impoverished people choose the
humiliating and toilsome activities that work in the sweatshop involves because of
the even greater hardships they would endure if they didn’t. The alternatives faced by
workers normally involve enormous costs, such as not providing food and housing for
themselves and their family. These costs affect workers’ power when they negotiate
labor conditions, depressing their ability to achieve terms that are more beneficial,
because they limit the likelihood that they will not settle for terms that are worse. The
latter are however the terms that are better for their wealthy employers, who, not

⁴ On the importance of psychological mechanisms in social life, see Jon Elster, Explaining
Social Behavior (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
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328 Appendix 2
facing similar costs in case of disagreement, have more power in the negotiation.
It is because they face odious options rather than genuine, decent alternatives that
impoverished people can be steered by sweatshop owners into choosing to work for
them on terms that are crushing. The injustice lies in the fact that wealthy employers
unduly profit from the relative weakness of impoverished workers, imposing on them
hardships that could be avoided without unreasonable cost.⁵
Thus, to understand why the status quo is unjust we often need to see that people’s
ability to act in various ways varies in degree as a result of the costs they face. In
general, without reference to expected costs, and their impact on scalar feasibility, we
would fail to understand many relations of social power, and some injustices occurring
in them. Those relations very often work through threats and incentives, which exploit
prospective costs disproportionally faced by the weaker party (the costs that the
fulfillment of the threat would bring about, and the costs of not going along the
incentivized path).

A2.3. Enhancing Solidarity

According to the account of feasibility defended here, there is a dimension of feasibility
that is scalar rather than binary and, when we consider the feasibility of some practical
processes, we should consider not only whether the agents would succeed in producing
the final result they are aiming at if they choose to pursue it but also the psychological
processes that may lead them to form the intention to act, and sustain the action, that
would produce the results. Now, using this account can enhance our ability to identify
solidaristic duties to help. It makes us pay attention to the frailties, vulnerabilities, and
limitations in people’s psychological life. Low degrees of feasibility, as opposed to
binary infeasibility, of success in forming and fulfilling plans do not dissolve an agent’s
prudential reason to pursue a good, or their obligation to fulfill a putative duty, but
they might support the judgment that they should be helped by other agents.
Thus, if we use the wide scalar sense of feasibility, we may notice that we have
specific reasons to help certain people that we would not have if their ability to achieve
certain results, or their willpower to seek them, were stronger. The force of the duty to
help people in need increases when the degree of their ability to give to themselves
what they need decreases. It could be that certain people’s degree of ability to get what
they need without help is very low even if they still could, in the binary sense, get it by
themselves. If we do not illuminate the scalar sense of feasibility, we will be less
sensitive to the importance of helping. The same could happen if we focus only on
the probability of success of certain actions without considering the probability that
people would succeed in forming the intention to act in those ways. The former may be
very high while the latter may be very low. We have reason to consider psychological
tendencies that weaken people’s willpower. They do not impose unsurpassable limits

⁵ I should qualify this point. Individual capitalists have limited power, on their own, to shape
the conditions of their economic activity, as they face competitive pressures to lower costs and
maximize profit to attract investment and stay in business. But they still can choose to limit their
personal gains and, individually and through their corporations and associations, they have
significant influence on political process establishing the rules under which they operate,
domestically and internationally. Ordinarily, they have much more power to do so than the
workers they exploit.
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Appendix 2 329
on agents’ will. But they might make it hard for them to succeed without help. Noticing
this situation, we might think about ways of helping them do what they have reason to
do, and strengthen their will. An example is policies including public funding for
psychological counseling to assist people facing very difficult tasks such as fighting
addictions or managing depression, or simply dealing with common but serious crises
such as a separation.
The foregoing remarks also affect cases in which we should help some people help
other people. If some rich people are unlikely, because of certain psychological
tendencies, to form an intention to help the poor, we may get them to contribute by
generating circumstances that add new prudential reasons to the normative ones they
already have. A typical example is to get the rich to pay taxes on pain of financial
penalties, and then use the proceedings for (publicly avowed) redistributive purposes.
The issues addressed here are controversial because we seem to have colliding
intuitions about the importance of respecting others’ independence and the import-
ance of responding to their vulnerability with solidarity. The former often leads us to
leave other people alone, and the latter often leads us to reach out to them. We then
wonder how can we show respect without being indifferent and how can we be
solidaristic without causing humiliation. This question is pressing once we notice
that a normative ideal of radical independence as self-reliance is hardly feasible or
desirable. The human condition is one of social interdependence. Each of us can
achieve very little without help from others, and is vulnerable to harm from them.
The issue then is what forms of help we have reason to offer each other, and what
forms of freedom each of us should enjoy to determine whether and how we are
helped. We think more lucidly about this when we use a scalar notion of feasibility,
including an analysis of degrees of power asymmetries.⁶

A2.4. Bolstering the Accessibility of Desirable Social Arrangements

In section A2.2, I argued that to explain why a status quo is unjust we sometimes need
to use a wide scalar notion of feasibility to see how agents may be more or less able to
act in certain ways. Now, this point also helps us think about how to change the unjust
status quo.
To change an unjust status quo, we need to engage people’s power to modify the
way they act. Binary infeasibility in the present does not necessarily block the way for
change in the future. Although something may be infeasible in current circumstances,
it may become feasible in the longer term if agents take steps to change their
circumstances, developing abilities they currently lack. So I may be unable to sing a
certain opera aria now. If I try to sing it, I will fail. But I can take singing lessons to
develop my singing talents and may eventually be able to sing the aria in a few years.⁷

⁶ See chapter 7, section 7.2.3.

⁷ We can make this point by using Philip Pettit’s useful distinction between “actual” and
“virtual capacities” (where the former are more or less ready to be exercised, while the latter still
need to be developed). See Pettit, Republicanism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 54.
The dynamic duties I proceed to mention target the generation of abilities that are actual
capacities in Pettit’s sense. An agent might now lack the actual capacity to sing the aria, but
they can develop their virtual capacity and eventually have the actual capacity to sing it. Notice
that the difference between the present and the future scenario is not just temporal; it involves a
change in the circumstances (that is, in relevant features of the agent or their environment).
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330 Appendix 2
In politics, this indirect access is also common. Before getting the franchise, workers
were quite unable to campaign effectively for robust legal social rights. But by
successfully campaigning for getting the vote they made themselves able to press for
and achieve new legal entitlements. I call demands to undertake these developments of
agents’ ability to achieve social justice dynamic duties.⁸ Dynamic duties differ from
normal duties in that they focus not merely on achieving certain desirable outcomes in
given circumstances, but also on changing these circumstances so that certain desir-
able outcomes that are not immediately accessible now become immediately accessible
in the future. This point is strengthened if we use the scalar notion of feasibility. Often
certain reforms are not strictly infeasible now. But their pursuit may be made to have a
significantly higher probability of success if some circumstances are changed first. If we
want to make responsible choices in which we are both ethically ambitious (and thus
seek to reform the status quo) and realistic (and thus pay attention to the obstacles and
risks we face), then we should pay serious attention to this possibility of scalar
development of our political abilities.
Interestingly, the ideas of dynamic duties and changes in (scalar) feasibility have a
companion idea of dynamic power, which we can add to the characterization of power
given in chapter 7 (section 7.2(iii)):
A has dynamic power over A’s power with respect to whether some outcome or state
of affairs O occurs to the extent that A can, in current circumstances C1, voluntarily
determine whether C1 change into different circumstances C2 so that A becomes
more, or less, able to voluntarily determine whether O occurs.⁹
The wide scalar notion of feasibility, and the idea of dynamic power, are important
when thinking about how to enhance the feasibility of certain projects of justice. I have
talked about developing one’s own feasible sets. But there is also the issue of changing
the feasibility sets of others. There may be important dynamic duties in that respect as
well. An example of this phenomenon emerges if we consider G. A. Cohen’s critical
discussion of the “incentives argument for inequality.”¹⁰ According to this argument,
some unequal distributions are justified if they operate as incentives for highly talented
people to use their talents more fully. By working harder, the highly talented help
increase the resources available for distribution: both they and the less talented (who
receive less than the highly talented under the inegalitarian scheme) get more than
under an alternative egalitarian scheme. Cohen rightly presses the question whether it
is really impossible for the highly talented to work harder under an egalitarian scheme.
It turns out that in most cases there is no strict incapacity. They could work harder,
and thus make available for the less talented a better standard of living than would be
available under an inequality favoring the highly talented. The highly talented simply
choose to block that option by signaling that they will not work harder unless they get

⁸ See chapter 3, section 3.5.1.

⁹ Or, adapting the definition more fully to the schema used in chapter 7, section 7.2.3: A has
dynamic power over A’s power relations with S with respect to O to the extent that A can, in
current circumstances C1, voluntarily determine whether C1 change into different circum-
stances C2 so that A becomes more, or less, powerful to determine how S turns out to be or
behave with respect to O. We can also add time indices to make the account of power more
explicit.
¹⁰ G. A. Cohen, Rescuing Justice and Equality (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2009), chs. 1–2.
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Appendix 2 331
paid more than others. If it now turns out to be infeasible, or less feasible, for the less
talented to get what they would get under a more productive egalitarian scheme, it is
the highly talented, acting as self-seeking high-flyers, who make it infeasible, or less
feasible, for them.
Cohen identifies a case in which agents acting greedily shrink the feasible set of
other agents. Now, we can identify the opposite case, in which agents acting solidar-
istically expand the feasible set of other people. When the highly talented choose to
exercise their talents to increase production without demanding lower taxes to do so,
they make more resources available for egalitarian distribution. They thus increase the
extent to which a higher standard of living is feasible for others. While the greedy
choices of some may depress others’ feasible sets, alternative, solidaristic choices may
expand them. A key dimension of political transformation consists in the pursuit of
changes of cultural norms so that solidaristic choices become more likely than they
currently are. As these cultural changes take hold, redistributive policies become
more feasible.
To conclude, since these changes in motivational patterns proceed above binary
thresholds of ability, we will not be alive to their significance unless we use a wide
scalar notion of feasibility. To understand and enhance the prospects of social change
it is crucial to pay attention to psychological mechanisms affecting people’s behavior.
This includes, interestingly, people’s willpower to act in various ways. Willpower is
variable. It can be reduced or expanded over time. Think about the effects of encour-
agement on the willpower of children, students, and friends. Much in politics turns
on influencing the willpower of others and one’s own. Think about the depression
of willpower that results from the public disparaging and stereotyping treatment of
members of certain minority groups, and the enhancement of their willpower that
results from public acts of recognition and in processes of self-empowerment in which
the members of those groups cast themselves in a new, self-affirming light.
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Index

Ashford, Elizabeth 72, 315 duties

dynamic duties 31, 55, 65–6, 79–80,
Barry, Christian 242–3 82–4, 106, 110, 138–9, 171–2, 184–5,
Beitz, Charfles 2–3, 29–30, 60, 85–6, 90–3, 197–8, 221–2, 233, 242–3, 274, 289–90,
97, 116–17, 125–6, 129–31, 139, 158–9, 329–31
198–9, 253, 255–6, 263–4, 268, 273–5, perfect and imperfect duties 30, 48–50,
282, 300 72–3, 192, 209–10, 291, 315–16
Benhabib, Seyla 219–20, 243–4, 269 positive and negative duties 3–4, 8–9,
Buchanan, Allen 2–3, 13, 15, 29–30, 33–4, 40–1, 47–8, 70, 72–3, 120, 138–9, 146–7,
45–6, 56–7, 69, 74, 90–1, 97, 104, 139, 152, 161, 163–4, 172–6, 190, 194–5, 197,
143–4, 150–3, 156–8, 196–7, 220, 235, 205, 209–10, 230–1, 256–8, 264–5, 292,
276, 304 301, 312, 314–17
Düwell, Marcus 2–3, 162–3
Caney, Simon 33–4, 81, 292, 295
capability approach 183–4 ethical pluralism 215–18
Christiano, Thomas 263–4, 272–3, 275–6, equality and inequality 101–2, 104, 124,
282–3 139–40, 154–5, 186–8, 232, 242–3, 245,
Cohen, G. A. 69, 171, 292, 330–1 262, 269–74, 276–7, 279–82, 286, 292–3,
Cohen, Joshua 29–30, 38, 40, 42–3, 301, 303–10, 317–19
45–6, 56–7, 139, 270–5, 277–8, Etinson, Adam 85–6, 89–90, 290
292–3
contractualism 20, 22, 159, 208–9, 214–17, Feasibility (see also dynamic duties;
219–20, 272–3 power)
Cranston, Maurice 38, 40, 47–8, 61, 83, 139, feasibility and human rights 19, 53,
238–9, 288, 291 55, 61, 83, 136, 208–9, 225, 249–50,
critical theory 217–24 254, 271–2, 288–90, 293–4, 299–300
Cruft, Rowan 1, 78, 143, 153–4, 193–4, 203, scalar feasibility 70–1, 168, 184–5, 258,
219–20 271–2, 289–90, 296–7, 325–9
Forst, Rainer 122, 169, 243–4, 266–7, 285
Dahl, Robert 92–3, 271–2, 276
deliberative interpretive proposal 22, 117–19, global justice
159–60, 189 basic and maximal global justice 2–5,
deliberative reflective equilibrium 22, 40–1, 78–9, 139, 166–7, 261–2, 281–2, 284, 286,
54–5, 118–19, 204, 226 301–3
democracy: Goodin, Robert 175
democracy as a human right 38, 40, 92–3, Gould, Carol 2–3, 38, 40, 56–7, 139, 183–4,
109, 261, 286 256, 267–8, 283
justification of democracy 261–4 Gramsci, Antonio 94–5, 171
Dignity (see also human dignity) Griffin, James 2–3, 29–30, 33–5, 56–7, 65,
conceptual network of dignity 3, 8–9, 127, 139, 201–2, 240
113–14, 121–2, 148
dignitarianism 21, 190–9 Habermas, Juergen 2–3, 21–2, 82, 114–15,
dignitarian forum 144–5 157, 169, 219–20, 263–4, 283, 300
dignitarian program 224, 226 hegemony 23, 94–5, 97, 162
dignity of non-human animals human dignity: (see also dignity)
148–50, 156, 163–4, 191, 201–2 basic and maximal dignity 4–5, 8–9,
Diversity 30, 44–7, 103, 152–5, 212, 219–20, 139–40, 166–7, 252, 256, 279, 302–3,
269–70, 292–4 309–10, 317
OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/9/2018, SPi

348 Index
human dignity: (cont.) Kant, Immanuel 15, 67, 75–6, 122–3, 138,
basis of dignity 126, 131, 149, 162–3, 184, 142–3, 165–6, 176, 210–11, 215–16, 220,
192–3, 195–6, 199, 204, 206, 215–16, 224, 250–1, 255–6
244–5, 306, 312 Kittay, Eva 136
condition-dignity 3, 17–18, 122, 125–6,
142, 166–7, 185–7, 192–6, 211, 243–4 labor rights 229–39
circumstances of dignity 131–2, 137, decent labor conditions 232–4
184–5, 189, 193, 197–8, 207, 222–4, maximal labor rights 252–6
265–6 strikes 234, 241, 256–7, 293, 318
dignitarian norms 21–2, 122, 129, 162–4, unions 135, 140, 169, 186, 222–3, 234,
192, 205, 207, 224–5 241–2, 251
dignitarian overflow 156 Lafont, Cristina 38–40
dignitarian virtue 137–9, 204, 223–5 Lawford-Smith, Holly 70–1, 325
endowment-based and achievement-based Liao, Matthew 2–3, 189
dignity 137–9, 143
human dignity and human interests 20, McCrudden, Christopher 2–3, 114–16,
33–4, 120, 127, 129, 131, 148, 199, 204–6, 152–3, 255–6, 313–14
208–9, 211, 215–16, 244–5, 265 Mantouvalou, Virginia 245–6, 253
objections to the use of idea of dignity 141, Marx, Karl 99–106, 183–4, 221,
160 313–15
schema for dignitarian justification 20, Marxism 99–106, 171, 183–4, 221, 252, 302
208–9, 213–14 Montero, Julio 294, 302
situations of dignity 133, 193, 199–200, 223 Morsink, Johannes 116, 230–1, 234, 251,
status-dignity 3, 17, 122, 125–6, 142–3, 255–6, 313–14
166–7, 184–5, 192, 195–6, 198, 243–4
uses and roles of concept 114–21, 143–5, Nickel, James 2–3, 11, 16–17, 33–4, 38,
148, 193–4 40, 47–8, 56–7, 60, 76–8, 91–3, 127,
human rights: 132–3, 137, 139, 148, 208–9, 236–9,
abstract and specific rights 6–7, 12, 15, 252–4, 268, 279–80, 293, 296, 300–2,
17–19, 33–4, 36–7, 41, 46–7, 53–4, 58, 304–6
60, 76–7, 103–4, 132–4, 155–6, 180–1, Nozick, Robert 21, 191, 292
192–3, 212, 225–6, 236–7, 254, 276, Nussbaum, Martha 29–30, 33–5, 56–7, 67–8,
279–80, 290–1, 293–4 82, 127, 150–1, 183–5, 188–9, 203
bridge principle 130, 206, 208, 244–5
concept and conception 11, 23 Parfit, Derek 89–90, 148, 210–11, 216–18
general schema for justifying rights Pogge, Thomas 2–3, 38, 40, 74, 79, 105–6,
19–20, 211–12 269, 285–6
humanist and political perspectives 7, 27, Power (see also solidaristic empowerment;
60, 155, 158–60 labor rights; democracy)
linkage arguments for human rights 6–7, analytic grid for inquiry on power 171–2
13, 15, 208–9, 240, 279–80, 300 broad agential account of power 167,
minimalist and expansive accounts 171–2
287–8, 303 dynamic power 171–2, 184, 197–8, 330–1
moral and legal rights 13, 16 power and rights 84–110, 181–8, 193,
Humanism (see human rights: humanist and 197–8
political perspectives)
arc of humanist justice 4–5, 8–9, 121, Rawls, John 2–3, 11, 22, 29–30, 38, 40, 45–6,
139–40, 309–10, 320 54–7, 126, 139, 158–9, 184, 240, 268–9,
humanity first 1, 23, 25, 122, 320 271, 292–3, 302, 307–8
humiliation 97–9, 115–16, 175, 188, 247–8, Raz, Joseph 11, 29–30, 56–7, 129
326–7, 329 Renzo, Massimo 203, 241, 297–8
rights 11 (see also human rights)
ideology 82, 99–100, 221–3 Robeyns, Ingrid 67–8, 183–4
independence 8, 99, 101–2, 136–7, 175–6, Rosen, Michael 2–3, 114–15, 122–3, 141–5,
187, 204, 222–3, 256–8, 329 154, 156–7, 159–60, 221–2, 255–6
 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 29/9/2018, SPi

Index 349
Scanlon, T. M. 20, 22, 40–1, 72, 118–19, solidaristic empowerment 3–4, 17, 175–6,
210–14, 217–18, 225 180–1, 205, 208–10, 222–3, 225, 244–5,
self-determination 17, 21, 30, 45–7, 265, 277, 289, 301–2, 309–11, 316–17, 325
59, 93, 107, 109–10, 120, 134–6,
147–8, 186, 188, 195–7, 204, Talbott, William 56–7
207–8, 222–3, 246, 254, 256–8, Tan, Kok-Chor 10
261–6, 269–73, 292–4, Tasioulas, John 2–3, 13–15, 56–7, 77, 122–3,
310–11, 315 127, 130–1
Sen, Amartya 33–4, 38, 40, 62–3, 67–8,
71–2, 74–5, 82, 92–3, 169, 209–10, utopianism 295–7
263–4, 270, 300
Shue, Henry 2–3, 38, 40, 62, 72–3, Valentini, Laura 106, 122, 283
107, 240, 289, 300
Socialism 4–5, 96–7, 99–101, 105–7, Waldron, Jeremy 2–3, 114–15, 122–3, 154,
121, 139–40, 157, 166–7, 188, 156–8, 181–2, 255–6, 264–5
252, 256, 287–8, 295–7, work
311–12, 320 definition 237
solidarity 8, 98–9, 120, 165–6, 175–81, 188, value of work 239–41, 244–5
312, 314–16, 328–9 (see also duties: Wright, Erik 101, 170–1, 250, 254,
positive and negative) 269–70, 319