BASIC RIGHTS

Subsistence, Affluence, ond

U.5. Foreign Policy

HENRY SHUE

PRINCETON UNIVERSIIY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JER.SEY

-1.
SECURITY AND SUBSISTENCE

fucrrrs
A moral right provides (l) the rational basis for a iustified demand (Z)that the actual enjoyment of a substance be (3)socially guaranteed against standard threats. Since this is a somewhat complicated account of rights, each of its elements deserves a brief introductory explanation. t The significance of the general structure of a moral right is, however, best seen in concrete ceses of rights, to which we rvill quickly turn.2 A right provides the rational'basis for a justified demand. If a person has a particular right the demand that the enioyment of the substance of the right be socially guaranteed is iustified by good reasons, and the guarantees ought, therefore, io be provided. I do not knorv horv to characterize in general and in the abstract what counts as a rational basis or an adequate iustification. I could say that a demand for social guarantees has been iustified when good enough reasons have been given for it, but this simply transfers the focus to rvhat count as good enough reasons. This problem pervades philosophy, and I could not say anything very useful about it without saying a lot. But to have a right is to be in a position to make demands of others, and to be in such a position is, among other things, for one's situation to fall under general principles that are good reasons why one's demands ought to be granted. A person rvho has a right has especially compelling reasons--{specially deep principles-on his or her side. People can of course have rights rvithout being able to explain them-

'13.

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

SECURITY AND SUESISTENCE

rvithout being able to articulate the principles that apply to their as a cases and ,",i" ., the reasons for their demands' This book good enough are that reasons a set of to express intended *t ot. it

to justifu the demands defended here. Ifthe book is adequate, the prin"ipi", it articulates are at least one specific example of how iome particular demands can be iustified' For norv, I think, an example rvould be more useful than an abshact characterization' The significance of being iustified is very clear' Because a right is the bas"is for a iustified demand, people not only may, but ought to, insist. Thosi who deny rights do so at their own peril' This ao.r not mean that effors io secure the fulfillment of the demand constituting a right ought not to observe certain conshaints' It does mean-thatlhose ivho deny rights can have no complaint

circumstances the right-holder can "tirgcntly, peremptorily, or insistently" call for his rights, or assert them authoritatively, confidently, unabashedly. Rights are not mere gifts or favors, motivated by love or pity, for rvhich gratitude is the sole fitting response. A right is something that can be demanded or insisted upon without embarrassment or shame, When that to which one has a right is not forthcoming, the

rvhen their denial, especially if it is part of a systematic pattern of deprivation, is resisted- Exactly which countermeasures are iustified by which sorts of deprivations of rights would require a separate discussion. A right is the rational basis, then, for a iustified demand' Rights do noijustify merely requests, pleas, petitions' It is only because rights may lead to demands and not something weaker that having riifrts is tied as closeiy as it is to human dignity' ]oel Feinberg has pit tf,ir eloquently for the case of legal rights, or, in his Hohfeldian term inology, claim-rights:
L,egal claim-rights are indispensably valuable possessions'

appropriate reaction is indignation; rvhen it is duly given there is no reason for gratitude, since it is simply one's own or one's due that one received. A world rvith claim-rights is one in which all persons, as actual or potential claimants, are digniEed objects ofrespect, both in their orvn eyes and in the vierv o[ others. No amount of lovc and compassion, or obedience to higher authorig, or noblesse oblige, can substitute for those values.3

At

least as much can be said for basic moral rights, including

those that ought to, but do noi yet, have legal protection,

That a right provides the rational basis for a justified demand

for actual enioyment is the most neglected element of many

riglrts. A right does not yield a demand that it should be said that people are entitled to enjoy something, or that people should be promised that they rvill enioy something. A proclamation of a

a woild rviihout claim-rights, no matter how full of benevo-

Ience and devotion to duty, would suffer an immense moral impoverishment. Persons rvould no longer-hope for decent

treatment from others on the ground of desert or righdul claim. Indeed, they would come to think of themselves as having no special claim to kindncss or consideration from others, so that whenever even minimally decent heatment is forthcoming they would think themselves lucky rather than inherently ieserving, and their benefrctors exhaordinarily virtuous and worthy of great gratitude. The harm to individual self-esteem and character development would be incalculable.

A claim-right, on the other hand, can be urged,

pressed,

or rightly demanded

against other persons'

In

appropriate

right is not the fulfillment of a right, any more than an airplane fight. A proclamation may or may not be an initial stcp torvard the fulfillment of the rights listed. It is frequently the substitute of the promise in the place of the fulfillment. The substance of a right is whatever the right is a right to. A right is not a right to enjoy a right-it is a right to enjoy something else, Iike food or liberg. We do sornetirnes speak simply of some^ one's "enjoying a right," but I take this to be an elliptigal way of saying that the person is enioying something or other, rvhich is thc substance ofa right, and, probably, enioying itas a right. Enioying a right to, for example, liberty normally means enioying liberty. It may also mean enioying liberg in the consciousness that liberty is a right. Being a right is a status that various subjects of enjoyment have. Simply to enioy the right itself, the shtus, rather than to cnioy the subieit of the right rvould havc to mcan something like taking satisfaction that there is such a status and
schedule is a
. 15.

i.ir

t,.

t'

:rll

ii,,l

THREE BASTC RIGHTS

SECURITY

AND SUBSISTENCE

when rvc say somethat something has that status' But ordinarily enioying the subis person the .tl"yitig a right, we mean

""" stance of the right'

it

single.most important Being sociailly guaranteed is probably the necessitates ,r*Jo'f r rtrna.rd right, because it is the aspect thatdemand that a Cright is ortlinarilv iustified rvill still one that so arrangemenb ,"rn" r.ople make-some espeif-actually' "ai"t even right of the substance ,if. i" ."i"y the one's own Arify'tf-rtll ti"t rvithin one's orvn porver to arrange on a right to have people ti" ,uirtrr,"" of the- right' Suppose I" choose to hire security. Some of the"m may-nevertheless social guaranto no right had if thev as guards, else is iustified' in and be rvou"ld iustified, S-i,[.y "'eryon" arihat somebody somewhcre make some effective

;ffi;*;
i*

il;r.;

zen is to be fumished a handgun and local neighborhoods are to elect residenb to night patrols, then the right to security has not been socially guaranteed until the handguns have been distributed, thc patrols elected, etc. (The right has still notbeen guaranteed if this arrangement will usually not rvork, as I would certainly assume would be the case.) On the other hand, if the "arrangements" are to have well-trained, tax-supported, professional policc in adequate numbers, thcn the right has not been sociaily guaralteed until the police candidates have in fact been well-trained, enough public funds budgeted to hire an adequate force, etc. . I am not suggesting the absurd standard that a right has been fulfilled oniy if it is impossible for anyone to be deprived of it or only if no one is evcr deprived of it. The standard can only be some reasonable level of guarantee' But if people who rvalk alone after dark are likeiy to be assaulted, or if infant mortality is 60 per

.ii"i ;i;ri";l I;;;;;; il'ric i.*. ;;;eil ;r"g;;ft i"-"Juiiti, and maintain sectrrity'

Whcther the arlocal' non-governmental; or ;ffiIrnena, should be governmental are non-participatory' or participatory *ii""rf, or international; give to able be not all difficult questions to which I may or may it is essential to a right definitive or conclusive answers her"' Bt't it is to specifr tt rt ii it a demand upon others, however dit6cult exactly rvhich othersarrangemenb have l;1 , right has been guaranteed.only when it' ft is not enough U."n *ra."f"r people *'iit' tt" right to enioy the right's violating is one il;i,h. .no*",.,i it happens thlt no of a right fulfillment tlte not is Iust ,;: as a proclamation oi a aright or awav from actuallv toward itep il',;il;;-;i.l*t guarantees for irinffi"g the right, an undertaking to createsocial means itself no by is rights il; .tt"fu"iof urrio',, ''''biectlof But grrarantee-s' to real lead not may and may or iir"

tively, security or subsistence had yet been socially guaranteed. It is for the more precise specification o[the reasonable level of social guarantees that rve need the final element in the gcneral structure of moral rights: the notion of a standard threat. This nobon can be explained satishctorily only after lve look at some
cases

1000

live births, we would hardly say that enioyment o[, respec-

in detail, and I will

take

it up in the final

section of this

chapter.

are in fact in "u.rr*..ing ill-r"tI..n ntfntt"d until arrangements have the"'rrlii olr.I. fo, rrople to cnioy whatever it is to which they form of the take will ffi'ilJrl'i; p"*rpt,'tl't arrangcments other in But ones' moral *"1-l i;;;n.,;ki;;iire ,ighi, itg"l " " serve might taboos' by backed .rr"t t "u''to*', ".r.f,.d laws' "ff-."t unenforced than better befter --ih.than laws---<ertainly rrgr" term "arrangements" is used in order to keep this conhoversial in"troductory .*lfl4"1l neutral on some g.t"rd -qrr.rtio.,, fulfilling' for "arrangements" of interpretation' If the

right involves a rationally iustified demand lor social " against standard threats means, in effect, that the releguarantccs vant other people have a duty to create, ifthey do not exist, or, if they do, to prescrve effective instihrtions for the enioyment o[ rvhat people have rights to enioy.6 From no theory like the present one is it possible to deduce precisely rvhat sort ofinstitutions are needed, and I have no reason to think that the same institutions would be most ellective in all places and at all times. On its face, such universality of social institutions is most improbable, although some threats are indeed standard. What is universal, however, is a duty to make and keep effective arrangements, and my later thteefold analysis of correlative duties will suggest that these auangements must serve at least the functions of avoiding deprivagainst deprivation, and aiding

'fhrt

ing people of the substances of their rights, protecting them thcm if they are nevertheless deprived of rights.T What I am now calling the du$ to develop and .17 ,

i;;;;;r.,
,lir

th" drtv to protect securitv

are to be that every

citi-

THNEE BASIC RIGHTS

SECURTTY

AND SUBSISTENCE

is a preserve effective institutions for the fulfillment of rights olmuch of what is involved in performing all three of righb, but to discuss duties now duties correlative to

I;;;tty

$pical the would be to iumP ahead of the story'

Beslc Rlcsrs misunderstood Nietzsche, who holds shong title to being the most considered century' last of the philJsopher d o[ rights not conceptions morality-and conventionai much of b. ,.t atte-pt by the powerless to restrain. the powerful: ,n .norrnou, net o[ 6ne mCIh |usily woven around the strong by tt"-*rrr"t "fthe weak.8 And he was disgusted by it' as if fleas pat*i"S a magnificent leopard -or ordinary irry rvere weighdssessment lng dotun sJrring oak- In recoiling from Nietzsche's

about how to prevent the rest from sinking lower. It is not clear that rve cannot do both.ro . And it is not surprising that what is in an imporhnt respect the essentially negative goal ofpreventing or alleviating helplessness is a central purpose of something as important as conceptions of basic rights. For everyone healthy adulthood is bordered on each side by helplessness, and it is vulnerable to interruption by helplesness, temporary or permanent, at any timc. And many of

;;;;;i;;d"."t ;;t-i; *.*

" mariy h"re dismissed too quickly his insighdul .i*"t fiE, sewe more than ;til;f -o..liy. Moral systems obviouslv systems serve some

PurPoses one purPose, and different specific himself Niebsche of course as others, thau better ;;;i"it; in genmorality of ,."ognir.d. But one of the chief purposes "1ro

.rf ."*inly of conceptions of righb, -and of basic rights "rrf, .tt, is indeed to provide some minimal protection against "ior" utt , t,.tpt".t"ess to those too weak to protect themselves' Basic atleast some of the ilil ;; -ht.td fot th. defenseless against threats' rvhich inlife's of *?r. J"*tt"ring and more common
;ili;,-"tlu"

,h"all see, Ioss of security andloss of subsistencc' that are a restraint uPon economic and political forces nrri" ,ignt -otherwise social are They resisted' to be too strong be ruould of at least guarantees against actual and lhreatened deprivations

io.n. b.ri" nleds'

illl
i,ll

Basic rights are an aftempt to give to the Power-

Iess a veto over some

of-ihe forces that would otherwise harm

ili
rt,'li

thcm the most. thcline Basi" riglrts are the morali$ of the depths"l'hey specifu part of the is This to sink. beneaih ,^,'hi.h no one is to be allowed Feirlas self-respcct to closely as tied are ,*ron tf,rt basic rights explain to helps this And are'e legaiclaitn-righ$ U"rg irJi.nt t y ..t fJund morrl iight t"pugn-"nt' His cye was on the

the people in the rvorld now have very little control over their fates, even over such urgent matters as whether their own children live through infancy. rr Nor is it surprising that although the goal is negative, the duties conelative to righ* will furn out to include positivc actions. The infant and the agcd do not need to be assaulted in order to be deprivcd of health, life, or the capacity to enioy activc rights. The classic liberal's main prescription for the good life--do not interfere with thy neighbor-is the only poison they need. To be helpless they need only to be left alone. This is rvhy avoiding the infiction of deprivation will turn out in chapter 2 not to be the only kind of duty correlative to basic righb. Basic rights, then, are everyone's minimum reasonable demands upon the rest of humanity.lz "I'hey are the rational basis for iustiEed demands the denial of which no self-respecting person can reasonably be expected to accept. Why should anything be so important? The reason is that rights arc basic in the sense used here only if enjoyment of thcrn is essential to the enjoyment of all other rights. This is rvhat is distinctive about a basic right. When a right is genuinely basic, any attcmpt to enioy any other right by sacrificing the basic right rvould be quite literally selfdefeating, cutting the ground from beneath ibelf. Therefore, if a right is basic, other, non-basic rights may be sacrificed, if necessary, in ordcr to secure the basic right. But the protection of a basic right may not be sacrificed in order to secure the enjoynrent o[ a non-basic right. It may not be sacrificed because it cannot be sacrificcd successfully. Ifthe right sacrificed is indeed basic, then no right for rvhich it might be sacriEced can actually be enjoycd in the abscnce ofthe basic right. Thc sacrifice rvould have proven
self-defeating.
l3

*t f.li"t
f,.igh,t,

" and he wanted

to talk about how far some

mightsoar' not

In practice, what this prioriiy for basic rights usually means

is

ril

.18.

.19.

THREE EASIC RIGHTS

SECURITY

AND SUBSISTNCE

that basic rights need to be established sccurely before other rights can be secured. The point is that people should bc able to enioy, orexeTcise, their other rights. The point is simple but vital. It is not merely that people should "have" their other rights in some merely legalistic or othenvise abshact sense compatible with being unable to make any use o[ the substance of the right. For exam-

explicitly the--presuppositions

police if arrested-ferv, if any, people would be prepared to dcfend in-principle the contention"thai anyon. basic right to phy.lical security. Neverthcless, it

ple, if people have rights to free association, they ought not

merely to "have" the rights to free association but also to enioy their free association itself. Their freedom oF association ought to be provided for by the relevant social institutions. This distinction between merely having a right and actually enioying a right may seem a 6ne point, but it furns out later to be critical. What is not meant by saying that a right is basic is that thc right is more valuable or intrinsically more satisfuing to enioy than somc other rights. For example, I shall soon suggest that rights to physical security, such as thc right not to be assaulted, are basic, and I shall not include the right to publicly supported education as basic. But I do not mean by this to deny that enjoyment of the right to education is mucb greater and richer-more distinctively human, perhaps-than merely going through Iife without ever being assaulted. I mean only that, if a choice must be made, the prevention of assault ought to supersede the provision o[ education. Whether a right is basic is independent of whether its enjoyment is aiso valuable in itself. Inhinsicaliy valuable rights may or may not also be basic rights, but intrinsically valuable rights can be enioyed only rvhen basic rights are enioyed. Clearly fcw righis could be basic in this precise sense.

Iiefs, especially because these presuppositi"rr'*.y'"* out to be general.principles that wir prwide gria"".. ,i'rrer areas rvhere convictions are less firm. precisely b].cause *" f,rr. no real doubt that righb to physical security aie brsi", it c.n-bl ,r.ful to r." rvhy we may properly think so. ra

h;L; l;;offie to formulate "r;on", *orii*ly held of even be-

i,

!
I

i
I

rights to physical security:

tlil fundr.n"ntai conviction, we could in fact give , "h"lli.,ged ,trong-rr!,rr*nt that shows that iflthere are any righh (brsil" o, ,ot brr].i;i;it', ,f,... are basic

to iusti$ our belief.that.people have . a basic right to physical security to some-one *ho

If we. had

y :l: :riftrlly enioy any riglrt that is supposedly protecred Dy soctety tt someone can credibly
beating, etc., rvhen he 1.urde1,.r_ape, alleged right. Such threats to ph_ysical most serious threaten him or her with

l
I

t.l

yolst da3Sers-they wouli .n"o,,r,t.r-;f tccting the rights.

must the absence of physical sccurity people are unable.to use any other righh tt"t *"i.ty ."rfiesaid to be protecting without being liable to encountci many of the

3^,:_!:-:::l",sed. De protected. ln

much of the worldihe most rvide_ spread hindrances to the enioyment of ,iriri if any .ight excepr at grea t risk, physi"aT securi g

and_in

".;;;;;;.nioy r.";;t';;.;,"ong
,",

rhe

the

ri;;#ie

not pro_

SscuruTY

fucsrs

Our first project will be to see why people have a basic right to physical security-a right that is basic not to be subiected to murder, torture, mayhcm, rape, or assault. The purpose in raising the questions why there are rights to physical security and why they

are basic is not that very many people would seriously doubt
eithcr that there are rights to physical security or that they are basic. Although it is not unusual in practice for members of at least one ethnic group in a society to be physically insccure-to be, for example, much more likely than other people to be beaten by the

ment, to interfere with or prevent the actual .i.r.lrJof other rights that wcre supposedly "ny pr"t;.i;.'R;grrale", of rvhcther the enioyment oi ir,yri"rt ,iri'a.ri,nut" tor ils orvn sake, ir is desirabie ,, enilvment or uth.r. right. No rights other tt rn . .ift ito'piyri"rt ,.:::7 in fa_ct be enioyed.if a right to p"t yri.ri...rrity :::,ty ;, ".r" not protectcd. Being physically

the enioyment of it would be i,ore utisfying to someone who.rvas. .,r;oiing .rng" of other rights, but because its absence " il;'rvailable extremely effective means for otherr, in"ludi;;;i" govern_

full physical security bclongs, then, among l."r,lt!,,^I Dasic nghts_not because

the

,l*

;";d

ilii

;;;;;ill; *n;iih;
i,

sec"ure

. n...rrnry

.20.

"onai_ .27 .

THREE BASIC RTGHTS

SECUR]W AND SUBSISTENCE

tionforthcexerciseofanyotherright,andguaranteeing else

ilil;
as a

,."rriry *.,u

be

p"t

of guaranteeing anything

right.

are in a position to consider whether matters other than physical security should; according to the same argumcnt, also be basic rights. It rvill emerge that subsistence, or minimal economic se-

to enioy some other right A person could, of course, always.try In'dt to protect his or her physieven i[ no social provisio" n'"'" the right' S-uppose there is a cal safe$ during attempts to exercise unusual for peaceful asnot is it but

curig, which is morc controversial than physical security,

can also be shorvn to be as well justified for treatment as a basic right as physical security is-and for the same reasons.

't.l'ii^''"r""dl

the participanh-bcaten' .:?oul"t1ru;';il ;; and some ofbroken up depend-s largely is actually ,ot*ilv wi..,h.t ;;i*n (in o' ot't olgovernment) is sufficientlv

ase*blv

By minimal economic security, or subsistence, I mean unpolluted air, unpolluted water, adequate food, adequate clothing, adequate sheltcr, and minimal preventive public health care:

fi;;,h"r,aifo""

"r*t.-Ji"'riio tJ'rrr.-Uf", and they

ililffi*'tU.
-l,.irltt[i,"

tr,.'*""r1 .eri"u, ,nd

as helpless ,"*.i, otrtt"al,ioteitt by other people' Ifthey are tr'" rilht;protected" as thev would

Peo?.le could still trv might iometimes assemble safely'But it in rnitt."fing to say that they are protected of one to ever as ,r'."*Uf. rf-tr'tv Zlt as vulnerable right, the of enioyment to g.n.J threats

"rt. both.' to'arrange an aftack'

*i't.' ;;:i ;i;'j"al thrcats not actually the suppos.d prJtection, socie$ is

have been rvithout assemoty' . protecting their excrcise of the right to '- So ,r,y"or," who is entitled to a'nything as a right must be entitigLt so that threats to his or her tled to physical security as a basic

Many complications about exactly how to specifu the boundaries of rvhat is necessary for subsistence rvould be interesting to explore. But the basic idea is to have available for consumption what is needed for a decent chance at a reasonably healthy and active life of more or less normal length, barring tragic interventions. This central idea is clear enough to work with, even though disputes can occur over exactly where to drarv its outer botrndaries. A right to subsistence would not mcan, at one extreme, that every baby born rvith a need for open-heart surgery has a right to have it, but it also rvould not count as adequate food a diet that produces a life expectancy of 35 years of feverJaden, parasiteridden listlessness. By a "right to subsistence" I shall always mean a right to at least subsistence. People may or may not have economic rights that go beyond subsistence rights, and I do not want to preiudge that question here. But people may have rights to subsistencc even if thcy do not have any shict rights to economic well-being extending beyond subsistence. Subsistence rights and broader economic righb are separate questions, and I rvant to focus here on subsistence.

to"tt'*'* the enioyment of the physical security ".nt'oiit two critical premises' The 6rst is other right. This argument has T!: r:o t, .ntitr.a ,o enioy something as a righr.ls first, is thaieveryone is entitled to

uJ

ffi;;il;

"J, the removal ortr," *ort r"ri*r.rd

conditions that would with ttre exercise of rvhatever righb Drevcnt or severely intelert is tit' second premise to be part of what as a something e1i-oy to eniitled is *..'.,t-i" ..yi"g that everyone op""ing section of.this chapter' Since

,"iri"f,

f".tt.r .*plrir,"the

g.n.rrl

ii:"il';;;;;;Uk' ;il;'; *d.i',,ed in tit ili';;;;;* ,pplit' io t'"ryo'i"' it establishes

universal.

a right that

is

SusstsrENce Rtcrrrs rights' which are not very The main reason for discusing security b1t': assumptions that U-t controvenial, *r, to rntkt e"xplicit are basic rights' security.rights that ;rr"i i"agt*"t that supporb them' rve Now that we have avail"ble an argumcnt

;rr* *

I also do not rvant to preiudge the issue o[ rvhether healthy adults are entitled to be provided with subsistence only if they cannot provide subsistence for themselves. Most of the rvorld's malnourished, for exampie, arc probably also diseased, since malnutrition lowers resistance to disease, and hunger and infestation normally form a tight.vicious circle. Hundreds o[millions of the malnourished are vcry young children. A large percentage of the adults, besides being ill and hungry, are also chronically unemployed, so the issue of policy toward healthy adults who refuse to rvork is largely irrelevant. By a "right to subsistence," then, I .23.

.22.

THREE SASIC RIGHTS

SECURITY

AND SUBSISTENCE

shall mean a right to subsistence that includes the provision of I subsistence at le-ast to those wlro cannot provide for themselves. subreceive to entitled do not assume that'no one else is also

sistence-l simply do not discuss

cases of healthy adults -rvho to do so' If therc is a right to refuse but themselves could support subsisterrce in the sense discussed hcre, at least the people who

execution,

and irreversible brain_damage, for example, can effectively prevent the exercise o[any right requirin! clear thought and may, like brain iniuries caused by aisault,-profoundly"disturb personality. And, obviously, any fatal deficiencies end all posibility of the enioyment of righs as firmly as an arbihary

cannot provide for themselves, including the children, are entitled to receive at least subsistcnce. Nothing follows one way or the
other about anyone else. It makes no difference whether the legally enforced system of proper$ where a given penon lives is private, state, communal, o, or" tf tn. ,n"ny *or. $pical mixtures and varianh' Under all taking even systems of property people'are prohibited from simply

what they n..d to, survival. Wratever the proper$ instihrtions and the economic system are, the question about righb to subsistence remains: if persons are forbidden by law ftom taking what they need to survive and they are unable within existing economic (and the insiitutio.,s and policies to provide for their own survival suwiral ofdependents for rvhose welfare they are responsible), are they entitled, as a last resort, to receive the essentials for suwival iroi the remainder of humanity whose lives are not threatened? The samc considerations that support the conclusion that physical securig is a basic right support the conclusion that subsistcan be ence is a basic right. Sinci the argument is now familiar, it
given fairly briefly. It is quite obvious why, if we still assume that there are some rights that society ought to protect and still mean by this the rem-oval of the most serious and general hindrances to the actual enjoyment of the rights, subsistence ought to be protected as a
basic right:

of deficiencies in the essentials for survival is, if anything, more basic than prevention of violations of physicalsecurig. people rvho Iack protection against vio_ lations of their physical security can, if they are -free, 6ght back against their attackers o, fi.e, but peoile rvho lack"ey se-ntials, such as food, because offorces U"yo"a tfieir control, often can do nothing and are on their orvn uHerly helpless. rd The scope ofsubsistence rights nrust not be taken to be broader than it is. In particular, this stcp of the argument does not make the follorving absurd claim: since death anJ serious illness prevent

Indeed, prevention

No one can fully, if at all, enioy any right that is supposedly protected by society if he or she lacks the essentials for a reasonably t erttf,y and active life. Deficiencies in the means o[ subsistlnce can be iust as fatal, incapacitating, or painful as violations of physical security. The resulting damage or death can at leasi as decisively Prevent the enioyment of any

ofthe supplies of the essentials of life. SJthe argument death and serious illness could be prevented by dlfferent social polic.ies regarding the-essentials oflife, the proteciion ofany human right involves avoidance of fatal or debiiitating de6cien_ cies in thcse essential commodities. And this *erns fulflling sui_ sistcnce rights as basic rights. This is society,s business becauie the problems are serious and general. This is a basic right because failure to deal with it woJrl hinder the enjoyment
nece.ssary,
is: rvhen

production, or import, and the proper distribution of minimal food, clothing, shclter, and elementaiy health care. It is not impractical, in short, to expect effective management, when
adequate

right not to be allowed to die or to be seriously ili. Many causes of death and illness are orrtside the control oi society, ,nd mrrry deaths and illnesses are the resurt ofvery particurar conjunctions ofcircumstances that general social policies cannot conhol. But it is not impractical to expect some level of social organization to protect the minimal cleanliness of air and water and to oversee the

or.interfere with the cnjoyment of rights, everyone has a basic

rights.
are basic

of all other

right as can the effccts of security violations' Any form of malnutrition, or fever due to exposure, that causes severe

Thus, the same considerations that estabiish that security rights for everyone also support the conclusion that subsistence Ilghts arc basic flor everyone. It is not being claimed or assumed

.24.

.25.

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

SECURIIY

AND

SUBSISIENCE

that security and subsistence are parallel

in all' or even very

is

"means" to the enioyment o[ all other rights, The enjoyment of

security and subsistence is an essential part of the enioyment of all other rights. Part of rvhat it means to enloy any other right is to be ablc to exercise that right rvithout, as a consequence, suffering the actual or threatened loss oIone's physical security or one's subsistence. And part ofwhat it means to be able to enioy any other right is not to bc prevented ftom exercising it by lack of security or of subsistence. To claim to guarantee people a right that thcy ate in fact unable to exercisc is fraudulent, like fumishing people with meal tickets but providing no food. What is being described as an "inherent necessity" needs to be distinguished carefully from a mere mcans to an cnd. If A is a means to end B and it is impossible to reach the end B rvithout using the means A, it is perfectly correct to say that A is necessary for B. But when I describe the enioyment of physical security, for example, as necessary for the enioyment of a right to assemble, i do not intend to say merely that enjoying security is a rneans to en joying assembly. I intend to say that part of the meaning of the enjoyment of a right ofassembly is that one can assemb]e in physical security. Being secure is an essential component of enioying a right of assembly, so that there is no such thiog as a situation in rvhich peoplc do havc social guarantees for assembly and do not have social guarantees for security. If they do not have guarantees that they can asemble in sccurity, they have not been provided rvith assembly as a right. They must assemble and merely hope for the best, because a standard threat to assembling securely has not been dealt with. The fundamental argument is that rvhen one fully grasps what an ordinary right is, and espccially rvhich duties are correlative to a right, one can see that the guarantee of certain things (as basic rights) is part of-is a constituent of-is an essential componcnt of-the establishment of the conditions in which the right can actually be enioyed. These conditions include the prevention of the thrvarting of thc enioyment of the right by any "standard threat," at the explanation of rvhich rve must soon look. A final observation about the idea of subsistence rights is, horvever, worth making here: subsistence rights are in no rvay an original, new, or advanced idea.,lfsubsistence rights scem strange, this is more than likely because Western liberalism has had a blind spot for severe economic need. lE Far from being ncw or ad-

*r"y,
as

t"tp."ts. The only parallel being relied upon

that guar-

.nt..t oft"""rity

;i;i1;il

**i"pif.t .q*tly to both case', and other respects in which and subsistence are not parallel are irrelevant' sec,rrity "-ltl;;i.;ugh that people *Lrely happen to be secure or happ.; ; ;;;tirf;r,g- rh.y -ust have a right to security and a rigtrt and the
io subsistence-thi continued enioyment of the security

,..urity

and guatantees ofsubsistence are equally essenli;g for thJactual exercise of anv other rights' As long anisubsistcnce ate parallel in this respect' the argu-

,ubrir*.r.. ;;;Jiiy 6*

person-is must be socially guaranteed' Otherwise a of the threats through to coercion and Intimidation paralyze can threats credible and a-.p.it1",ii, ,fone or the other, as surely as ;;;t;; and prevent the exercise of any-other rightcan' 17 Cred;.fi;i d;.d;,i;"a r"t rt p-t"in/caloriede6ciencies of ibt. tl,r."ts Jrn b" ,.duc"d only by the actual establishment confronted to those assistance bring ;ri;;g.ments that will forces that they themsclves cannot handle' by -'Conr.qrr.ntly ihe guaranteed security and guaranteed subsist"simultaneous ence are rvhat rve might initially be tempted to call must be pres1'hey right. necessities,' for the eiercise of any other or people exercised' to be is right .na ,ny time that any other or "t deprivations by the other enioying from picve.,ted ca., be {ght to think But of subsistence' or t""*ity oi deprivations threatened point' A betin terms of simultanei$ would be largely to miss the For it "inhcrcnt necessities"' be ter label, if any is need'.d, would from beatings, for instance, is separate ftom

;;';;iiil.at;.;rity

to accomfreedom of peaceiul assembly but that it always needs beatings if one chooses to hold a meetfrom Being secure it. frny assemble' i"g lt prtt 6eing free to asemble' I[ one cannot safely "f coerced being conhary, the on is, One o.,"e is^not free to issemble. beatings' the of threat the not to assemble by Tie sa*e is hue i[ taLing part in the meeting would lead.to dir*inri by the only availablcimfloyer when-employment islhe of se;;t t;;t"; of income for the purchase of food' Guarantees above and over advantages no[ added ire curity ,.d subsistence of it' of the right to assemble' They are essential parts or ""i"rt*., security Fo. ihis reason it would be misleading to conshue as right-merely basic ,uu,i,n"...-or the substance of any other

.26.

.27,

THREE BASIC RICHTS

SECURITY

AND SUBSTSTiNCE

vanced, subsistence rights are found

;;il1;;;..i
nrimitive.

tradition-al societies that ge,erallv backward or as societics bv tiodem

in

subsistence rights is

in no

way tied to some utopian fuhrre "ad-

vanced" society, On the contrary, the real question is whether

modern nations can be as humane as, in tftis regard, many traditional villages are, If we manage' rve may to a considerable extent merely have restored something of lulue that has for some time been lost in our theory and our practice. Sr,ri.lpeno THREers Bcfore we turn over the coin of basic rights and consider the side with the duties, we need to establish two interrelated points about the rights side, One point concerns the 6nal element in the accounlofthe generai structure ofall rights, basic and non-basic, rvhich is the notion ofstandard threab as the targets ofthe social guarantees for the enioymcnt of thc substance of a right. The other point specifically concerns basic rights and the question rvhether the reasoning in Favor of treating sccurity and subsistence as the substances of basic rights does not generate an impractically and implausibly long list of things to which people rvill be said to have basic rights. The hvo points are interrelated bccausc the clearest manner by which to establish that the list o[basic rights must, on the contrary, be quite short is to invoke the fact that thc social guarantees required by the structure of a right are guarantees, not against all possible threats, but only against rvhat I will call standard threats. In the end rve will find a supportive coherence between the account of basic righh and ihe account of the general str-ucture of most moral rights. We may begin by revierv-

""ir'*.r-C. ,J*i" ,"rrg"ients in Southeast

Asia that were- in other respects understood by both patrons rvere hiehlv exploitative nevertheless S.ott', terminologv-to include rights to sub' part of patrons not the part of clients and duties on the iro* dep,iuing clients of subsistence but to provide to any clients t'hoiuert for any rcason deprived:

haditional ecoScott has shown that some of the

;ili#:i;ur.
il;:;;; ;;i;;r*. ;;;i1;""

powerful motive If the need for a guaranteed nrinimum is a institutionalized tofiid expect in f."r*t life, Jne would for this provide which pattems in peasant 'n..i. ,Cna, in fact, it"o**unitit' is above all rvithin the village-in the struchrre dailv ;;il;;; "it".ial conhol and reciprocitv -that social expresfinds I"ta".t-*t.re the subsistence ethic a wide array of ;i"* TIr. principle which appears to unifi. guaranteed a f"ir"rt it this: "All village iamilies will be resources conthe as insofar niche subsistence minimal iolled by villagers make this possible'" Village egalitarian-

isminthissenseisconservativenotradical;itclaimsthatall
.-houta

place, a living, rrot that all should be equal' ' -' ' on the F.* ,illrg. studies of Souii'east Asia fail to remark minimal the informal social conhols which act to provide-for poor' The position of the.better-off ap-

tr.r.

"fbe legitimlzed only to the extent thatlheir "."at p."" t"

ur"

the viliage

resources

"*ptoy.iin fare needs of villagers.

ways

which meet the broadly defined rvel-

le

an Asian society' put As Benedict ). Kerkvliet, also writing about

Ing the ,6rron, for taking security and subsistence to be basic rights and considering whether the same reasons would support heating many other things as basic righb. Answering that question rvill lead us to sce the role and importance of a conception of
standard threats.

all-encom' ii, a ti."g'patron-client relationship was a kind of tou"'ngt' although not total and ;;tti;;'iffi;;poli.v 'uhot" family could itn"itZfy reliable,'."r, " to-p'ehensiue as a poor get'"20

Why, then, according to the argtrment so far, are security and

subsistcnce basic rights? Each is essential to a normal healthy life' Because the actual deprivation of either can be so very serious-

of the kind of Many reasons wergh in favor of the elimination have de' Kerkvliet and Scott that priron-.ii..,t relatioi-rships be' could or be' they should that is suggesting one

scribed-no

pt"t1..a' The point ttt it""tfy

that the institutionalization of

potentially incapacitating, crippling, or fatal----even the threatencd deprivation ofeither can be a powerful weaPon against anyone rvhose security or subsistence is not in fact socially guaranteed. People rvho cannot provide for their own securi$ and sub-

.24'

.29.

THR,EE BASIC RIGHTS

SECURITY

AND SUESISTENCE

sistence and who lack social guarantees for both are very weak, and possibly helpless, againstany individual or institution in a position to deprive thcm of anything else they value by means of threatening their security or subsistence. A fundamental purpose of acknowledging any basic rights at all is to prevent, or to eliminate, iqsofar as possible the degree of vulnerability that leaves people at the mercy of others. Social guarantees of security and subsistence would go a long way toward accomplishing this purposc.

plicit implications that people have rights to an unlimited number ofthings, in addition to securig and subsistence, that it is difficult
to believe that people actually could iustifiably demand of others. Norv it is true that we have no reason to believe that securi$ and subsistence are the only basic rights, and chapter 3 is devoted to the question of rvhether some kinds of liberties are also basic righS. But as rve shall see in that chapter, it is quite difficult to extend the list of basic righb, and we face little danger that the catalogue of basic rights will turn out to be excessively long. Beflore it becomes perhaps painfully obvious from the case of liberty, it may be helpful to see why in the abstract the iist of basic rights is sharply limited even if it may have some members not considercd
here.

Security and subsistence are basic righb, then, because of the roles they play in both the enioyment and the protection of all other rights. Other righs could not be enioyed in the absence o[ security or subsistence, even if the other rights were somehow miraculously protected in such a situation. And other rights could in any case not be protected if security or subsistence could credibly be threatened. The enioyment of the other rights requires a certain degree o[ physical integrity, rvhich is temporarily undermined, or eliminated, by deprivations of securi$ or of subsistence. Someone who has suffered exposure or a beating is incapable of enjoying the substances of other righb, although only temporarily, provided he or she receives good enough care to recover the use ofall essential faculties. But as our earlier discussion of helplessnes made clear, either the actual or the credibly threatened loss ofsecurity or subsistence leaves a person vulnerable to any other deprivations the source of

The shucture of the argument that a specific right is basic may be outlined as follows, provided we are careful about rvhat is
meant by "necessary":

l.

2.

Everyone has a right to something. Some other things are necessary for enjoying the 6rst thing as a right, whatever the first thing is. 3. Therefore, everyone also has right to the other things that are necessary for cnioying the first as a right.

the threat has

in mind. Without security or

subsistence

one

is

helpless, and consequently one may also be helpless -to protect ,vhaterer be prolected only at the risk o[ security 3r subsist-

Since this argument abstracts from the substance of the right assumed in the 6rst premise, it is based upon what it normally means for anything to bc a right or, in other rvords, upon the concept of a right. So, if the argument to establish the substances of basic rights is summarized by saying that these substances are the

"rn ence. Therefore, security and subsistence must be socially

guaranteed, if any rights are to be enioyed. This makcs them basic rights. In the construction of any philosophical argument, a principal challenge is to establish what needs to be established without slipping into the assertion of too much. By "too much" I mean a conclusion so inflated that, even ifit is not a reduction to absurdity in the strict sense, it nevertheless shains credulity. The argu' ment for security rights and subsistence rights may seem to suffer

this malady, which might be callcd the weakness of too much strength. Specifically, the argument may be feared to have im-

"othcr things . necessary" for enjoying any other right, it is essential to interpret "necessary" in the restricted sense of "made essential by the very concept of a right." The "other things" include not rvhateverwould be convenient or useful, butonly what is indispensable to anything else's being enioyed as a right. Nothing rvill tum out to be necesury, in this sense, for the inioyment of any right uniess it is also necessary for the enioyment oievery rightand is, for precisely this reason, qualified to'be the substance ofa basic right. Since the concept ofa right is a profoundly Janus-faced conc.e$, lhis conceptual necessity can be cxplained both from the side of the bearer of the righf and, as we will see more fully in
.31 .

.30-

lrlfIrli rHREE BASIC RIGHTS

SECURITY AND SUBS]STTNCE

duties' chaptcr 2, from the side of the bearers of the couelative ofany bearer for the that ofthe basic rights is such ihe

"onte"t of the rfgtttiUrtL or non-basic) tolursue its fulfillment by means and is self-defeating' right basic a of fulfillment the t iJ"-"f

sufi

;;;;.ir;"; *. ;

for the bearer ofduties to claim to be fulfilling the duties that "f to any right in spite of not fulfilling the duties correla; basic right- is fraudulent' But both perspectives can be ly by the notion of comTol, o' ordinary' .rptr*a ,nor" but remediable threats or "standard threatS"' which

;;'J;.;t, *., irtroar".d

.i,.r"t

earlier as the 6nal element in the explanatio-n o[ th. ,i*.tur" of a right.2l Certainly from the viewpoint of the assert that a ;;;; "i. right it Jould be false or misleading tothe substance of enioyment the in unless futnlted fgttr f,.a b""i the threats against protection enioyed also person a rigttt, oiif,ri ordinarily be expected to prevent, or hinder to a malor it "t "oul[ And certainly degree, the enjoymlnt of tire initial right assumed'

i"?" ,fr. viervpoint of the bearers of the correlative duties it would honored unU. irft" or misleading to asert that a right had been prevent the would i*r r".irf grr*nteeJhad been established that hinacutely or prevcnting from .ori .o*rion and serious threats

of J.ring tt . enioyment of the substancc of the right' On the side preventing upon emphasis heavy especially piace, dutiei this 2' is the ioint standard threats, which, as we will see in chapter and duties depriving irr.ii",, of the hrlfillmcnt of duties to avoid
to * protect against dePrivation. by ordiare People not utopian' is threats remediable but nary and serious conceivable every neilhe, entitled to social guarantees against it,r..t, no, entitled to guarantees against ineradicable threats like Another rvay to indieventr-ral serious illness, acciclent, or death. is as follows' The then' argument, the of scope cate thc restricted ,Lurn.nt rests uDon ivhat mighibe called a transitivity principle ii;;".y"". hus , 'i!ht to v, and the eniovment of x is ,,...irry for the enioymeni of y, then everyone also has a right to ,. gut it. necessity'in question is analytic' People also-have to this arglment-only to thc additional sub,igit -r..oraing and its ,tin.es ,rrd" .,.""rsary by ihe paired concepts of a right people are.to if that necessary correlatir,e duties. It is analytically the of substance the of enloyment their a right,

iliih.;.;rur" if ,u...rstul prevention of thwarting

,lr'l r.il,tl,i,l
rll'

il;;ii;,

iifilli
ril,iltt

Ir,it*'

lil'lli

i'iril
ltrtiri

i.'pt*ra.Attith

right must be protected against the typical maior threab. If people are as helpless against ordinary threats as they would be on their own, duties conelative to a right are not being performed. Prccisely what those threats are, and which it is feasible to counter, ar of course largely empirical questions, and the answers to both questions will change as the sifuation changes.22 In the argument for acknowledging security and subsistence as basic rights I have taken it to be fairly evident that the erosion of thc enjoyment of any asumed right by deficiencies in subsistence is as common, as serious, and as remediable at present as the destruction of thc cnjoymcnt of any assumed right by assaults upon security. What is, for example, eradicable changes, of course, over time. Today, we have very littie excuse for allorving so many poor people to die of malaria and more excuse probably for allorving people to die of cancer. Later perhaps we rvill have equally Iittle excuse to allow deaths by many kinds ofcancer, or perhaps not. In any case, the measure is a realistic, not a utopian, one, and rvhat is realistic can change. Chapter 4 returns to the question of whai is realistic now in the realm ofsubsistence, and consideration of this concrete case will probably also provide the clearest understanding ofwhat constitutes an ordinary and serious but remediable threat. We noticed in an earliei section that one fundamental purpose served by acknowledging basic rights at all is, in Camus' phrase, that rve "take the victim's side," and the side of the potential victims, The honoring of basic rights is an active alliance with those rvho would otherwise be helpless against natural and social forces too strong for them. A basic right has, accordingly, not been honored until people have been provided rather firm protectionrvhat I am calling "social guarantees"-for enjoying the substance of their basic rights. What I am now stressing is that this protection need neither be ironclad nor include the prevention of evcry imaginable ihreat. But the opposite exkeme is to offer such rveak social guarantees that people are virtually as vulncrablc rvith thcir basic rights "fulfilled" as they are without them. The social guarantees that are part of any typical right ireed not providc imprcgnablc protcction against every imaginable threat, but they must provide effective defenses against predictable remediable threats. To try to

.33.

il{lL;

THREE BASIC R]GHTS

count a situation ofunrelieved vulnerability to standard threats as the cnioyment of basic rights by their bearers or the fulfillment of these rights by the bearers ofthe conelative duties is to engage in double-speak, or to try to behave as ifconcepts have no boundaries at all. To allorv such practices io continue is to acquiesce in not only the violation of rights but also the destruction of the concept o[ rights. Insofar as it is true that moral rights generally, and not basic rights only, include justified demands for social guarantees
against standard threats, rve havc an interesting theoretical result' The fulfillment of both basic and non-basic moral rights consists

.2CORRETATIVE DUTIES
"NEcATrw" fucHrs euo "Posrtrvr" fucsrs Many Americans would probably be initially inclined to think that rights to subsistence arc at least slightly less imporhnt than rights to physical security, even though subsistence is at lcast as essential to survival as security is and even though questions of security do not even arise when subsistence fails. Much of6cial U.S. governmcnt rhetoric routinely treats all "economic rights," among which basic subsistence rights are buricd arnidst many non-basic rights, as secondary and deferrable, although the fundamental enunciation of policy concerning human right by the then Secrebry of Sbtc did appear to represent an attempt to correct the habifual imbalance.l Now that the same argument in favor of basic rights to both aspects of personal suwival, subsistence and security, is before us, we can examine criticaliy some of the reasons rvhy it sometimes appears that although people have basic securig rights, thc right, ifany, to even the physical necessities of existence like minimal health care, food, clothing, shelter, unpolluted water, and unpolluted air is somehow less urgent or less basic. Frcquently it is asserted or assumed that a highly significant dit ference between rights to physical security and righb to subsistence is that they are respectively "negative" rights and "positive" rights.2 This position, which,l rvill now ky to refute, is considerably more complex than it at first appears. I will sometimes refer to it as the position that subsistence righb are positive and thuefore
.

of effcctive, but not infallible,

social arrangements

to

guard

against standard threats like threats to physical security and threats to economic security or subsistence. One way to characterize the substances ofbasic rights, rvhich ties the account ofbasic rights tightly to the account of the structure of moral rights generaily, is this: the substance of a basic right is something the deprivation of which is one shndard threat to rights generally. The fulfillment of a basic right is a successful defense against a sbndard threat to rights generally. This is precisely rvhy basic rights are basic' That to rvhich tlrey are rights is needed for the fulfillmcnt of all other

rights. Ifthe subsiance ofa basic right is not socially guaranteed, aftempts actually to enioy the substance of other rights remain open to a standard threat like the deprivation ofsecurity or subsistence. The social guarantees against standard threats that are part of moral rights generally are the sdme ds the fulfillment of basic rights.23 This is rvhy giving less priori$ to any basic right than to normal non-basic righs is literally impossible,

35.

THREE BASIC R,IGHTS

of not threatening others, but primarily upon human com*uniti", that can-work cooperatively to design institutions that
i., :
:1

avoid situations in which people are conftonted by subsistence,frr..1*irg forces they "a.rnoithemselves handle' In spite of the first parties sometimes useful terminology of third parties helping the assessing rvhile noting, worth is second parties, etc., ii "g"intt of subsistence duties, that the third-parly bearers of duties U'uta.n ,tto become the Erst-party bearers of rights rvhen situations "rn side o[ change. No one is assu.ed' of iiuing permanently on one the rights/duties coin.

.3.
LIBERTY
Not only is this book not a comprehensive theory of rights, it
also not an exhaustive discussion of basic rights.
is

Is primary pur-

pose is to iry to rescue from systematic neglect within rvealthy North Atlantic nations a kind of right that, as we have already seen, deserves as much priority as any righl rights to subsistence. But it is essential to consider briefly the right conventionally mosi emphatically endorsed in North Atlantic theory: rights to liberties. Some liberties merit our attention for many reasons, not the least ofwhich is a shange convergence between supposed "friends" of liberty in the North Atlantic and rulers in the poorer counkies rvho rvould share my emphasis on the priority o[ subsistence rights. Both groups have converged upon the "kade-off" thesis: subsistence can probably be enioyed in poor countries only by means of "hade-offs" with liberties.l The only discernible difference between these friends of liberty and these particular friends of subsistence is the professed reluctance with which the fricnds of Iiberty advocate that the poor in other people's counhies should be subiected to the "hade-off." The two versions might well be called the theory of rcluctanily repressive development and the theory of not so reluctantly repressive development.

The Shah of Iran and his spokesmen, for example,

were

clumsy advbcates of not so relucbntly repressive development. In an article by the Shah's represbntative at the Intemational Monehry Fund and World Bank published prominently by the New York Times in the Sunday edition of its Op-Ed page we find the necessity of exchanging liberty for subsistence readily assumed: .64

'

.65.

THREE EASIC RIGHTS

I.IBERTY

In the third world countries suffering from poverty, widespread illiteracy and a yawning gap in domestic distribution of incomes and wealth, a constibutionally guaranteed freedom of opposition and dissent may not be as significant as
freedom from deqpair, disease and deprivation. The masses might indeed be much happier if they could put more into their mouths than empty words; if they could have a healthcare center instead of Hyde Park corner; if they rvere assured gainful employment instead of the right to march on the capitol. The trade-offs may be disheartening and obiectionable to a Western purist, but they may be necessary or unavoidable for a majority of nation states.2 The opposite view was put with eloquent clarity by martial-rule opponent and former Senator Diokno of the Philippines:

Trvo justifications for authoritarianism in fuian developing

counhies are currently fashionable. One is that Asian societies are authoritarian and paternalistic and so need govemments that are also authoritarian and paternalistic; that Asia's hungry masses are too concerned with prot iding their families with food, clothing, and shelter, to concem themselves with civil liberties and political freedoms; that the Asian conception of freedom differs from tlrat of the West; that, in short, fuians are not fit for
democracy.

velopment profess, as I do,.a strong commitment to ihe provision of subsistence, those theories of re-pressive a"u"loprn"nt must be sharply distinguished frgthcory of brsic ,ights presented $9 here. One of several maior djfferences is the flace asslgned here to at least some liberties, and.it is the purpose of th;s ihapter to indicate how fundamentally the ,rr. ,rgurn.ni that cstablishes security rights and subsistence rights as b-asic rights also justifies tain freedom of movement as equally basic.
the acknorvlcdgement ofat least c-ertain politicaliilerties and cer_

some civil liberties for somc increase in econoriic *at-f.ing, whole.discussion presupposes that a nation can purchase one at the pnce ot the other.,'a What is the place of Iiberty in a frame_ wo-rk that acknowledges the importance of suiristencer I want to show that although the advocates o[ repressive

times easily assumes both the possibility and the necessity of exchanging-liberty for economic growth. a, nou.rt E. Goodin has noted, "When, as an exception to his g"n.rri .ut", n.*1, lSec 82) allows,thata desperatily poor nati"on mighi lustly sacrifice

it.

de_

I ,l
I I

EN;orrNc LrseRry FoR Irs Oruv Saxe

;l

i
I

Another is that developing countries must sacrifice free-

dom temporarily to achieve the rapid economic development that their exploding populations and rising expectations demand; that, in short, government must be authoritarian to promote development. The first justification is racist nonsense. The second is a

lie: authoritarianism is not needed for developing;

needed to perpetuate the status quo.

it

is

Development is not iust providing people with adequate food, clothing, and shelter; many prisons do as much. Development is also people deciding rvhat food, clothing and
shelter are adcquate, and how they are to be provided.3 Even the theory of iustice of John Rarvls, the depth and sincerity of rvhose commitrnent to liberty is in no rvay in doubt, some-

ourstandard example---enioying not being asaultld ; .;;;_ pi Se enioymenr of anything else, such as i,assembling l._"1 :l tor a. meeting.. Consequently, in this chapter libertie.s that arI candidates for the status of substance of a basic right rvill be exam_ ined solely from the admittedly restricted pri"1;i;;r, of whethcr they are constituints of the enjoym.nt of .*f other right. t *ill section simply,et aside the consideiatlon of any direct l!:r,fttr and rmmediate satisflaction that comes from enioying the liUerfy in itself. But this conscious. omission in no \vay implies any denial of any other value that liberties ;ry h;r;l th'"*relres. And
.67
-

.rrll ch.qpter l, rights are basic..only if enjoyment Lsjndiclted il ot them is essential to the enjoyment of all other rigits,,, i.r"rp*_ tive of rvhether their enioyment is also valuable in ilelf. j A libe;y is usually valuable in itself, and liberties are usually discussed in termsof the satisfaction, if not exhilaration, trrat their exercise can directly and immediately bring. But the suistance of a basic right can have its status only because, and so only if, its enioyment is a constituent part of the enioyment of every other righi,
as_to
use

.66,

USERTY THREE BAS]C RIGHTS

its own sake even the enioyment of liberty for rights' basic conceming implication '-and enioyment &i"inly there are many liberties the exercise reason very that for are .f ;h-i"h;. valuable in thlmselvcs-and are also liberties these valuable indeed, irr.,ptcti'" of whether activity' larger o[ some enioyment the valuable as constifuents of are especially themselves in valuabie are that itt tiU".tl., movement' not being fiorced to

has an important

people who do not in fact exercise their liberties, it must neverdre" less be true that they actually could exercise them. It must not

merely bc the case that they comfortingly believe they could, when they could not if they were to try, because they would be prevented or hindered by common and serious but remediable threats. This provides a connection in one direction rvith the hvo
basic righs already established. People can obtain real satisfaction from false belieB. If I am optimistic about the next few years because I believe that I am essen-

ffi;

,r rivti"al ffi;H;;.;J"* locked in (a common rc# of torture) or being kept

stand still allowed. simply to w.al\ an overcrorvded prison ..it, uut being never been deprived o[ hive who ptopft, around, may strike *ott And to providing i'ihl' *inot satisfaction-bv itself'

tially healthy, my optimism is,no less real if my confidence is misplaced and I har,e undiagnosed cancer. But ihe correct explanation of my confidence, then, is not my health. It is my mistaken belief that I am healthy when I am not. Similarly, people may feel content because they bclieve that opportunities for political participation, for example, are guaranteed to them, rvhen in fact if they try to vote, or vote the "rvrong way," they rvill be beaten up, arrested or Ered. Ifso, they are not deriving satidaction from a liberty they have but are not exercising. They are living in
a fool's paradise quite different from their real situation. Illusions

n,

some degree

p"tt""e of the,liberty but the abof walls and enforceable sence of its deprivation-tf't tUtt""t of
it may not b-tih"
thrcats against

^,

iil*i,

rve value' At leasi the intensity may be much geater than deprived being from iir. aittl?Jfr.,ron But then satisfactiJn from enioying the liberlv. ;i; the satisof intensi$ the for thinss onlv 'alue exhilaratespecially be not may it faction they bring. Ro' tl'ougf tht blueiays are still angry at the irg'irtt i"in.ll"o,rt and very imPortant and satisfvrr"rrir"i ;d-th; ",oottJ Lii, it t'n be (and if one doesn't want mav ktr"t; that if one wants to, one to, one need not). move;ft.sto walk around, one's freedom of physicalvisiting means-of also valuable as a mere o1 "o,rrr.exercise, buying groceries' etc' It is valuable as obtaining fricnds, value,in ibelf' and this a means in addition to itt i"dtpl"aent value' But its diinstrumental its cnlletl value as a means .,n prison' one's friends could rect satisfaction ,"*ai''t it' t t'utnt"t pl'ce or perhapi in the exercise yard' and

*orr*.nJhat

;;;;';il";m"ilv
;;;i; '"?;;; ;;i';

ilililthe

"Jif

it

,]rir,

None of "r. ""rld ,rould ut'noi o"lv suppiitd ah"';;;ri;, ''bt" .but.prepared' simply to go for a

run in

this would lessen the

walk ,"n"" ,"J iirre wishJ' for the sake of the

because one needed to get somewhere'

at'itt U bt

itself and not

-walk

Til;;irnr"v
because one

il;;

lr 'tl :ll lt
ll: ,llr
llrir

,ii" l" -ry

them be constantly-or', -evlr--eT:rcising a libertv can be valuHaving ir tir"y it. But what nr.rr even if o"" ao., not actually.exercise For the important' vitally t.L*i" U., nnt ii'ti""tion here is

not uUJ*itt, of course' that thev are valuable

rr.,,'ittiit **tta'
.

will

but

are not liberties. So, it is hue that people can derive satisfaction from liberties that they do not exercise but could exercise. But in order for it to be correct to athibute their satisfaction to their liberties, not to illusions about liberties, it must be tnre that the liberties can in fact be exercised, if the people try to exercise them, without subiection to standard threats. The belief in the usability of the liberty, on rvhich the peoplc's satisfaction rests, must be correct, if it is to be the liberg that is beneficial to them. Thus, it is fraudulent to comfort people with promises of liberties that they cannot actuhlly enioy because necessa{y constifuenis of the enioyment, Iike protection for physical safety, are lacking. It is fraudulent, in other rvords, to promise liberties in the absence of sccurity, subsistence, and any other basic rights. When arguing against an imbalance in one direction (torvard promised rights to liberties and arvay from needed constituents of the exercise not only of rights to liberties but of all other rights), it is extremely difficult not to strike a position that is unbalanced in the opposite direction.6 Insofar as the enioyment of rights to liberties depends upon the enioyment of securig and subsistence, the

.69.

68.

THREE EASIC RIGHTS

IIBERTY

rights to security and subsistence appear to need to be established first. And it does seem to follow that if there are rights to liberties thet cannot be enioyed in the absence ofsecurity and susbistence, rights to security and rights to subsistence must be more basic than rights to liberties. But this does not foliow. It is also possible-and, i will now try to shorv, is actually the case-that not only does the enioyment of rights to some liberties depend upon the enioyment of security and subsistence, but the enjoyment of rights to security and subsistence depends upon the enjoyment of some libcrties, A mutual dependence holds both between enioyment of rights to some liberties and enjoyment of security and subsistence and, in the other direction, between enioyment of rights to security and subsistence and enioyment of some liberties. And, of course, if the enioyment of security and subsistence is an essential component of enioying liberties as rights, then one has a basic right to the enjoyment o[ security and subsistence, as we have already seen. And as I rvill noiv try to show, the enioyment ofsome liberties is an essential component of enioying securig and subsistence as rights, then one also has equally basic rights to those liberties. An unrvclcome complication, however, is that the dependence is not completely symmetricalr the enioyment of rights to every liberty is dependent upon the enioyment of security and subsistence, but the enioyment of rights to security and rights to subsistence is dependent upon the enioyment of. only some liberties. These are the libertics that, whatever the satisfaction they give in themselves (it may be considerable), are a constitunt part of the enjoyment of other rights. To single out at least some of these liberties as among the basic libcrties, or more properly the liberties that are the substances of basic rights, is the purpose of this chapter. To avoid misunderstanding it is vibl to keep in sharp focus the question to which I am hereafter in this chapter seeking the answer, I am not asking which are the richest or most elevated forms of liberty, iudged by moral ideals of the good life or the good society.7 Undoubtedly there are kinds of liberty that are necessary for, say, the cultural and artistic expression invaluable to the highest forms of society. But if the exercise o[ those liberties is not necessary for the exercise of all rights, those liberties are not basic

n'ghts, however important thgf qe for other reasons. My concern now is to determine not the highest, Urii-lr.r"rt basic, kinds of Iibcrty. I am here, as .ts.,rhe're-l; working on thc foundations,

liberties rvill rurn out to incfude,f,.

Is peRrtcparroN

not thc spircq of th;

;il;;;il, J;'fi.;;'righr.
Drsrnro?

fii._y

The

basic

"iparticipation.

UNIVERSALTy

Much more might

used.

rvell, be.said

it

_oue. fund"mentai structur.s ,nd strategies, influence over impleme"t ti* ;;;;e to little effect. But without infuence or.r.j.trti, offirrl[,,", and operation where one,s own case is affected, *i;;;;;;rer tundamen_ tals may be to litrle effect. On th. to say thar everyone is entitled "ti;;;;;]ltis unreatistic .rhus, to i;Crd;;;;'riidetails. r arrive at the characterization of th" f;*'r-;i;;;ficipation iust given: all the tundamentats

Without genuine influence

here.r Three points, however, are cssentiat to ".n b.-iria i.l"i',rr. -.ntion, focus of the participation I rvill be discussing ir,-ii; fu;d.*cntal choices among thc social institutions .nain. ,".Li *il"i., that conhol securig and subsistence.and, where the pe"rij, ii*"fy affected, the operation of instirutions

concept of participatio-n than

in order to tighten up the

over_

il ,hi;iil;*il,,on

of policy.

and

th;;;;;1, .n5",,r,

one,s orvn

influence ,pon out.or"i. mc.partlcifrU", rn*ir" be merely what Carote pateman tr, il;;il,"r,,and ,.par_ tial participation. "e Obviously-it cannot be ,.qu'ir.a that genuine participation wijt ahvavs yieid the ;ji;;;;: but it is not enough, at the other .*tr.*., that peopie be iJrd but not hs'iljrr,ng tened to. I can combine ti,.r..nrrr ino "0","o that we w_ill be discux ing ffi ctive pa rticip ation,'rn., ning gen u i ne i n fl u_ ence upon the fundamenral choiees r;ililesi"il| institurions and the social policies that control_se"rri; ;;;;sistence and, wherc the person is directty.affecred,;.;;l;;';;d;nce upon the operation o[institutions and thc i",pfI.*t ii"n'iipofi"y. Third, participation as dir"r*;i;;l;;;;;;rr.d in a nar_ rowly political sinse. and the re-

Second, for a right to the libcrty of participation to be of any consequence, the oarticipation must u. .r..ti". ,nd exert some

"rri.ll1ffi

onc,s;"drr;;ilffiil::,
.77 .

I I

t;

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

LIBERTY

mainderofone,sli[e,areatleastasdeeplyin.fluencedbyecoand gar-

irtt a"tt"'tit totpo'"tt oligopolies #;;';il;;,il"t, governments transnational to-tpo*io"t' as bysantuan ';"id;i'",'gt*"ti"'it'

and the. in ipation Whethe r broad Partic :i,.iffi ot way by be must can be direct or constraint of corporate '"tiuity indeeply case any in are political institutions, *'ny of rvhich that can be pursued after settleterhvined, is a question to be considered now'r0 rights ment of the question against the iudgment that Trvo chief conria"r.tioi, ,r. broight tiei't] F'ittt' it is sometirnes noted effective participation it iiterested in participation in fun-

I
I

ffi;;;;;*d"1," i" i"i*t policies' even social institutions or-social

't"" ,i" ii""'i"i"*a tr"i-ptJtip'tion
cannot' therefore'

"i'*t'"t 'u"'i-i"lt ;;ti;

damental choices about is affected' From this observaif the fulfillmcnt of their orvn rights be a

;;"*l-;i;it'

"To be so characCha'les Fr""kel maintained: people everywhere do First, tests, terized a right must -".i *o traditional peasant few a quite In i"t' think of it as a right ' '-' was sharply hierarchical in societies, in fact, the social structrre the maior landlord eaclt communitv, and il;;;;;;;"runity basic right of sethe about even made the fundamental it"itio" at least some of these comin Mo"o"" curitv and subsistence' aid actuallv provide both sesarv to it that his workers curity and subsistence' ii" i""if"'a were content to enioy th-ef and rvere safe from rvant 'na-'tt"tu' to be free ordinarilv of concem and ;.t; il;it;"Jt"utittt*t one can try to imagine a bewith necessary rr,,ngt*tit''r2 And a. modern societv in ,,*;i;"il-;;t.indiltit' aittatorship over protection fails' when or' which people are free n"* a"p1*4on lack oI security.or subsistence; in-

from their masters. They may believe that masters have a right-a duty, even- to "discipline" their slaves. Ifso, the slaves' beliefs are mishken: there is no right to possess, or to violate the physical security of, another human being. Beliefs about righb can be inconect, iust as beliefs about almost all other subiects can.l3 Which righb people have is independent of which righe thcy believe they have. This is a perfectly general point, appiicable to any right. People's rights may be more numerous---{r ferverthan they think. The same is true o[ duties, of course. People do not have only the duties they believe themselves to have. If that rvere ttue, no master rvho belicved otherwise could have a dug not to "punish arrogance" with physical assaults upon his slaves. It is not "OK as long as you are sincere," and nciiher rights nor duties are determined subiectively. Which rights, 6nd conelative dutics, people have is determined by weight of reasons. I[ the reasons for according everyone a particular right are strong enough, everyone has that right, and everyone else and all organizations and institutions ought at least to avoid violating it and some others ought to protect it and to

il#ffi.tt.,"-;;;;ii;;"'il;; "d'

of it. If the reasons for according it are too there is no such general right. In order to decide which rights there are one must assess the quality of reasoning, not measure the quantig of belief. Saying that people can have rights regardless of rvhether they believe they have them, needs to be sharply distinguished from
assist those deprived

rveak,

are assisted

l, ou"r"onritf their entirely by the dicutor and his stitutions and policies "t."a.titr.a rvith as the dictator' are satisfied "cxperts"; and the the results of the anangemcntsi jn. fact not

saying that people must exercise the rights they have regardless of rvhether they want to exercise them. The latter is ridiculous as a general thesis and has no connection with the former. That I have a right to freedom of movement, for instance, docs not mean that i must constantly or, for that matter, ever move, if I do not wish

p"";;;;;;ii
it

to. Probably some rights actually ought to be exercised-for

example, a right to a public education probably ought to be exercised, at least by everyone who cannot afford to pay for a private one that is better than the public one available. Perhaps a right to fteedom of movement ought to be enioyed by anyone able to enioy it, because of some such consideration as the alleged broadening effects oftravel. But any duty, if*rere is one, to take advantage of a right you have would not be a duty conelative to the right, but the quite different kind of duty that flows from a'

usually interested

is even in fundamental choices) universal a be cannot hue, the con"lusion ffiparticipation of somefollow' It is not a necessary condition believed to be a univirsally it it thing's being a iigr's that thev do not know thev rieht. PeoPle can c"dai;i;";"t i''"v expect and accept beatings

But although tr,.

p?"-ir. (that many people are

P;;l;;'

ilb ;;t ;;t

,ni"'oi'igiiti't f*;;Pie'

ffi;. i;;;,i;;",

.73.

THREE BASIC RICHTS tISERTY

moral ideal of a rich or fulElled life. Such ideals and their associated duties may well be irnportant, but they are simply not part of a theory of rights. Whether people ought, as part of an ideally full life, to want to participate in the institutions and policies that conhol the fulfillment of their rights is an important question, But it is a different question from whether they have a basic right to participate if they do want to-and even if they choose not to. Is PaRrrcrpeuoN UNrvERsAr.Lv Nesoeo?

A second consideration against acknowledging effective participation as a basic right is much more difficult to handle than was the fact that some people do not want to participate, and it raises
much more fundamental issues. This second contention is that at ieast some people do not need to participate in order to receive the substance of some of their rights, including even the basic rights already established: security and subsistence. Since, by definition, something can be the substance of a basic right only if enjoymcnt of it is essential to the enjoyment of all other rights, participation cannot be a basic right ifany other rights can be enioyed even in the absence of participation. If even only one other right can be enjoyed in the absence of participation, then the enjoyment of participation is not an essential component of enioying something as a right and does not, strictly speaking, quaiiS to be the substance of a basic right. Some despotisrns, rvhich allorv liftle or no participation, do provide security, srrbsistence, and somc other substances of rights to their populations. Is participation actually necessary, then, for receiving other righh? Does the example of an enlightened despotism that provides security and subsistence not shorv that participation is not shictly necessary? These are hard questions to answer. In order to decide about them rve need a firm and sharply de6ned conception of rvhat it means to enioy a right. Clearly a paternalistic dictatorship can provide both security and subsistence. But can a dictatorship without participation provide for the enioyment of a rigfrt hc security and ol a ight to subsistence? We must recall exactly what some features of a right are, as inhoduced in the first chapter. A right provides (l) the rational basis for a justified demand (2) that the achral enjoyment ofa substancc be (3) socially guaranteed

il;;;r, of right to genuine influence 6; ;; i;;i."r.nt r choices among institutions and policies
about the --operation of institutions and the "froi"es irnpi.rn*Jtion"oipoli"yz AII things considered, th" rnr*"r'i, somc qualifi_ cations must be added before we are finis'hed. possible to enioy full rights to security or to subsisten".*iatlout also having righh to participate effectivelyth; ,ir..rr,,, and subsistence. A right is the basis ro, , t-iJ oii.*rna, d"_ "..tiin mand
ence and, where the person,is directly

deprivation of the substance of the ,ighi;;;;,re provide, i[ who has neue".rhel"ss Leen depri,ed of ]:,?nro.n: rnc suDstanc_e.oi the right. Enioyment is socially guaranteed, in short, only if the three correlative duties constitrtu" ota right are provided for, as necesary, by-social irrtitrtl-rrr.'A penon is acright *ty ir fu1l.l.r gnioying a among social institutions that are well d.csigned to'pr"u.ni ,ioiaii'o^ of th. ,ight and, where prevention fails, to ,.rtore th. .n;Jiinent of th" .ight insofar as possible. Is it, then, true thrr; in ract errloy, mo.st notably, rights to se_curity ,nd to ,uloirien."'in tr," absence

against standard threats. That the enioyment ought to be socially guaranteed means that arrangements ;;ghf been made by, or with (if partlcipation iJestabtlsheJ"rr', right), others lor situations in rvhich a person otherwise .rot"rrrrng" fo, his or, her own enjoyment o[wh+ "oula a ,ight to enjoy. +; An alleged right that did not include sociat guaran_ tees, in the sense of anangements madc ly, o, *iin , .or. th.e, rest o[ humanig, *oul-d b. , cone]ative duties, Ylh nottrjlg required of others, ,"a *,i, not U. a normal right at all but something more iiL" . *irt, ilrrn, o, a plea. ra Enjoyment of the substance of the ,igl,t l," ,""i.f fy guaranteed, as our analysis of duties in, thepreviols Jf,.pe.,il*.a, only if all social institutions, as welt-as individ;;i depriving people of the substance of the right, sociat institutions (local, national, or int"ematiorrii-prol"t people from

;irr"" i^i.

;;;ia, ,'d.;;;;,

.ighi;t ;; *"Jj

iio,lif

ilil:';void ;;j;;t'tir"me

Il"jiilll_1!

th";.;;il;g

controlling ,".uri,y and subsist_

rf.j.C

fi il;;g;

lrli'r*

i,

;;;;;l

Yl,!:rl -Til,",:::_tt

the fulfillment of which ougr,t to " .d. U. ,iJliy gurrrnt channcls. through *rr"rr"-ii. be made xnown to those who ought,to be guaranteeing

;;;ff';r"

being igiored, o.,"l*noi .r.,?ir. r ne apparent counter_example of the benevolent

its rutfllment,

tt. rigl,t.

,74.

dict"fi i, a

.75.

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

LIBERTY

case of the enioyment only of security and subsistence, not a case of the enioyment of a right to security and a right to subsistence. It is the enioyment of things that are the subsbnces of rights (secu-

needed,.

,t

,l
,l
rl

,l

rl

,l
I

,l tl
rl

rity and subsistence), but notas substances of rights. What is missing that keeps people under the ideally enlightened despot we are imagining from enioying rights, and that would be supplied by righs to participate in the conhol ofthe substances ofother rights, is social institutions for demanding the fulfillment of the correlative duties, especially the duty to provide one vital form of protection: protection against deprivation by the government itself, if it should become less enlightened and less benevolent, in the form of channels for protest, levers for resistance, and other Vpes of protective action by the deprived or potentially deprived themselves. Such action is ofcourse to some degrec self-protection, not protection by others acting out of a dug to protect, but what others rvill have done in fulfillmcnt o[their duties in this casc is to have cooperated in providing and maintaining in advance of the need for them the institutional means of self-protection through effective participation. And participation is a component not only oF the prevention o[ deprivations of rights but also of the arrangements for securing aid rvhen violations have occurred. To see why the benevolent dictator cannot provide rights to security or rights to subsistence rve need to look at the case more closely. The dictator may of course provide securi$, subsistence, or both at any given time, but simply to provide something is not the same as to provide it as a right. T<l provide something as a right means to provide social guarantees for its enioyment against standard threats, and these guarantees must includc adequate arrangements for the effective performance of all three $pes of correlative duties. The case of duties to aid is perhaps thc rveakest, but stili sufficient. Ccrtainly aid might be provided to people deprived of security or subsistence even if the victims had no right to participate in any of the arrangements for security or subsistcnce, including the arrangemenb for aid. Aid might be provided by individuals and by non-governmental institutions, and it might also be provided even by the dictator's govemment itself. One item that would be missing rvithout participation would be one of the best sources of information about rvho needed aid, whiclr kind of aid they

,l
,tl

ll
rl
I I I

,l
I i

il
rl
I

ri ,l
I

I
I

Ii
I
I

il
,I

irtt.i ,r-. l,rr[. d.;d;;; of security or subsistence. But even a dicLtor ,"t oiJi..n s-eH_aisciplined in any one of a number oi obriou, reasons, l|1:::,:,!"-lieht ,ior cnange hrs or her behavior torvard at ]east some subiects. ag.inri deprivation by a previously bgnerolgnt I;",*; ; defense may be possible in the absence of estabtisheJ i;;;;; participation available
to intended victims.
.77 .

protect subiecb &om deprivation by fellow subjects. T"his and order could be.extremely effcctivcly prwidcd by a dictator who *,as not corrupt, t o*.r.i i-iis in fact that a dictator can lor long avoid corruption. Tlr. o.Uf.m is: horv are.people to. be protected from deprivation "rri" bf tm ai"t.tore on. of the critical features of dictatorship p.t."i.l deprivation and potential protection are in the a dictator might choose to be benevolent.by auoidi.,g

b" lupprerr.d ,"lii*iy easily if-ao right to participation "lso was recognized and in_ stitutionalized. And the information *"a" rrrilr'Ute to the despot directly by victims of deprivation .oura prouriiyte secured indi_ rectly if the despot were for some reaso; ,.ii.ilruy dedicated to awate.of people,s needs foruid. ir*.y, coutd be :l?lir,full, regurafly conducted, ctc., howcvcr unlikely it is thai any actual despot rvould be so assiduou, in .olt.iiiifinio.*rtion about expensive assistance needed by people in no"position to demanrl it. The supplying of information, however, is barely, if at all, a _ form oflgenuine participation. A more t*pililt.. thatwourd D mtsslng wlthout guaranteed participation for the intended re_ cipients of the aid woulcl be a poirerful disinc*ri". fo, tt . kind of theft of aid suppties for which th" S";";;;;;l*. in Ni".rrgu, was notorious but which is noi at all unconimon.ri If thelntended bene6ciaries were not treated ,, prrriu", tt.y could do m uch to restrain burea ucraticco.ruption.'Mostimportant, horvever, are the detailed knorvledgc of a Iocal ,na tl. cornnritment to seeing that their area obtains what "r". it needs that Iocal resi_ dents could bring to decision_makirg .bouiiir. ;*pl.r.nt tlon ofgeneral policies. The cases ofduties to avoid and to protect are clearer still. A benevolent dictator certainly might have very .in.i.nt
arrange_

or spontaneously supplied wjthout tJre recognition of

participation, of course, but it.could

and why they needed it. Information could be requested

,igfri to

,-T:lo:Y xrnd ot talv

ur,1f

rl

'l
,I

.76,

THREE BASTC RIGHTS

LISERTY

What the abscncc of provisions for participation that rvould

allorv protest and mobilization o[ opposition against any deprivation undertaken means is, quite simply, that people who did enioy securig and subsistence would be enioying it entirely at the discretion of the dictator. And to enioy something only at the discretion of someone else, especially someone powerful enough to deprive you of it at will, is precisely nof to enioy a n'gl?t to it. In the absencc of participatory instituiions that allow for the forceful raising of protest against the depredations o[ the authorities and allow flor the at least sometimcr successful requesting of assistance in resisting the authorities, the authorities become the authoritative iudge of which rights thcrc arc and rvhat it means to fulfill them, rvhich is to say that there are no rights to anything, only benevolent or malevolent discretion, including the discretion to
decide rvhat counts as benevolcnt.

.
i

OrHnn Lrgenrrcs: Fneeoorvr oF PHysrcAL

Movrvpvr

My discussion has concentrated so far upon a kind of liberty that is normally thought of as an economic and poiitical liberty: participation in the control o[ the economic and political policies and instituiions that determine ihe fulfillment of security, subsistence, and other rights. I have left aside many other liberties, some of which will tum out to be basic rights upon thorough examination. This is not the place for a comprehensive discussion of the varieties ofliberg, important as that task is. But it is worthrvhile for contrast to loo[< briefly at one very different gpe of liberty, freedom of physical movement, rvhich rvas our initial example of a libcrg that is itself very satisfying. Does freedom of physical movement also serve as a component of every other right in a way that would makc it a basic right? Most notably, freedom of physical movement is the abscnce of

after prompt and flair triars. But the use terror,, in the USSR, for example, means,that "r..p;y;t;;;* i#-c;ion of ,.heating psychotics for their orvn "r,* mrrr b. fr."a'i.j *irn care. r 7 And .good', practically. every repressii,e regime in th. ,ro.ld holds that those whose rights to freedom of lhysical .;r;;;;,, among other jhjnes, .it is violating arc common criminals, terrorisb, traitors, subversives, etc. But since. these probl.*, ,r.'*ii.ly ,..ognl"J, I rvill not prrrsue them and wilt,i;piy;r;";;.i., *" have some rough. but workable notion of au. i..o, in ti.lo*rit**nt of the allegedly psychotic or criminar t, rn.rt i'r"ri*r,orr, prisons, or house arrest, r8 Second, the qualification ,.at Ieast within notsim_ p/7 matters offrecdom of physical -or...ri".i'rrould therefore rcquire exten.sive, separate analysis. On" i, ;;;scription, usually of youths, for puUllc service in places they would not them_ selvcs choose to go. Thts ir"lrd;; i,il'rtrc tradirional U.S. system of military conscription that sends youths outside their own cou.ntry to 6!ht ,rd rh. of peacetime that sent yo.uths to ott., ,.jion, *i,t,in

because of "..orroaccepted as "o'nr"n,iorrlfy ffi *l,f fl 'jT,'.p;,Tl"ii j:?:'f :f.jTfi ,,,:ff tr,.;:Jlil,,:,oo iime to take_ effect, and imprisonirg ;;_;;; criminals

F-irst, some qualificatiol iike ,.arbitrary,;1, cases of physical constraint thrt

Of course it is not and I.cannot pursue many of the conrplications herc. But hvo comp)ications netd to
U"

,riJin"a.

,r.

is nceded simply to reserve for oth., dl;;;;;:; two extremely important matters that_th.is is th. onl1foi.,if,.r._or.

regional boundaries,,

il;

II

irr.ii..,

e;;;*"rrri..

":unp ol emigration
status

l1s1iqhon to.serve

right of immigrarion. r

in agriculture, etc. re,t,heithcr _rtt., i, the right and the relatively-negl..t a Urt'n...ssarily

U"i, o*r,
rclated about the

ti

arbitrary conskaints upon parts of one's body, such as ropes, chains, and straitiackets on one's limbs, and the absence of arbitrary conshaints upon the movemcnt from place to place of one's rvhole body, such as imprisonment, house arrest, and passJaws (as in South Africa), at least rvithin regional boundaries.l6 One might have hopcd that something as apparently straighfonvard as physical movement and its prevention by others could be simple.

ll
ll
ri

briefly at the sirnplest case: freedom. of phyricar mo".rr.ri *iarrr, the gen_ eral area in which on" is alreadyitri;s;;;;;;itrarity imposed chains and walls.20 physical movement is so clearly ., Tr....{o* of that it is initially somervhat dif6.rtii;'i;;J, satisfiing in itsclf ,r' ,r,. question rvhether it has the kind of value a, thatqualifies it to be

of these further liberties here,

wt, simply rio;;;;;;;;ions

b;i;ti

iol-t'r..y

";;;;;;iiother r"tirities the,,t;;;;i;ffi;;;il:bb,iously fr.e

.79 .

lj ltirl

-t

LIBERTY

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

part of many- kinds of enterprises' movement has great value as a tt"i - t'"iov*tnt of ireedom of phvsical other'right? t'...,,"y r"t tttt enioyment. o[ every ;;;;; one could evithat rights other of tomind Examples readily come prison' For instance' at least i.tiit".ti", *hil", fo' t*"iplt' in tirev *ere supplied with the .o'ra, p'o'iala t"'' a particularly.valuable other

il,ffi;il;ilv'iir.
;#J #;";;,-'

t"

necessary equipment,

tnioy

and ilffiiifr;ar,'nr*"iy fre"f,om of expression, the length and severity of long'rs Ar *rri."ff"r.r. ffi;iffi; ti the content and style of the the prison sentence *t' u"ttt't"a contacb unavailable ;;;;;ti t.. ,na tlt "o*poscr did not need some have-let their h;;v ;;'"*;;;;; '".i;;;'ld-ind"d' imprisonment'of their bodies' imaginations soar rn spite of the

perhaps create

e-ven if they rvere denied The follorvers of ,t le^st '-ome ieligions' altars' etc')' could(books' haie might p"fo meditate' prav' " rvish' thev "o"io*""a,fl.y as believe ;lle"rrrt;, "fien io-still based upon or a[provided tt''tiitit sentences are not

and sing,

as people are not being tortured' fected by their religion' thev can eniov f6r labor, or o"therwise harrased' be called the solitary rvhat.might quitc a ferv activities,

;;L;c

;;;,;;pilted

dependence, helplessnes in the face of all serious deprivations, are the normal fate of at least the arbitrarily imprisoned,23 The argument here can be telescoped, since the argumcnt about freedom of movement can now be seen to be the same as the argument about participation. Yes, even in the absence of a right to freedom of physical movement, people can enioy the substances of many righh. But they cannot enioy them as rights, only as privileges, discretions, indulgences. Deprivation can occur as readily as provision, and this is not what enioying a right means. A right provides the basis for a demand the fulEllment of which ought to be socially guarantecd, and a right can be enjoyed only rvhere individuals and institutions avoid deprivation, protcct against deprivation, and aid any who are nevertheless deprived. A right can be enioyed only rvhere, to thc extent tlrat individual action will not guarantee the substance of the right, institutions are available to do it. A person is not enjoying a right when he or she is enioying the substance of a right in total dependence upon the arbitrary will of others. To enjoy a right is to exercise it rvithin institutions that effectively protect one against deprivation of it, especially deprivation by those rvith the most porver in the situa-

i !

creativity requiringintellectual liberties, r'ittt- indiuiau'l t*" the individual aspects of religion needs

"tpt"i'tty

only

tion. And effective protection must include channels through

rvhich those whose righful demands have not been satisfied, can in fact repeat and insist upon their demands until they are ful6lled. No one in the state of vulnerability and dependence of the arbitrarily imprisoned is in any position effectively to make even the demands for the things that are rights. The arbitrarily imprisoned are at the mercy of their captors. They cannot fee and they cannot fight, and they certainly cannot make demands. To be deprived of freedom of physical movement is to be deprived of the independence esscntial to the kind of self-protection needed as part of any adequate institutions for performance of the duty to protect. If one is in no position to make demands (deprived of freedom o[ movement) or if one has no channels through which to make dcmands (deprivcd of liberty of participation), one cennot effectively make known--rcr, more important, organize rcsistance to-failurcs in the performance o[ duties to avoid, duties to protect, or duties to aid. Therefore, the freedom of physical move.81
.

*"i.ti '^J.""""rprr,ion.2r ",."tial

ture, much of it

t"lpt}ir,
folklore'22

,rr;

the n"t anJ i-'"t' oi it "ty free in spirit' Indeed' poetry and is a recunent theme of

'na have an entire genre of prison literaWe

tr,*nJi'av

I I

.I

notverycompelling' Certainly Yet, these examples are, I hope' with pen and ink' with a the aspiring .o,npo'"t "'n L suppli"d he or she can as well so ir*lr[i" ,i..a ,""o'd' * ottr"*-Put records'. thc writing hand' ,"" .*ri, U" aeprived ;f1ft* 'it' fht And .i." ,rr",oirri, .r, ar fairly easily be broken. po' be can materials the things:

;J.*.I;il, il;;;;; ";.a ."tu'iti'to break

il

write.nothing and the iri.iy t"*"r.a, tf,. pt"l'-i"ttucted ti can be permitted.and evI{uch shuction enforced, "'"t"t""ty' With contemporary drugs the most .^,lhino .r., be orohibited' and *t''"'ailv be plu''gei into nightmare other people o[ wishes ",t,li thi ;;:. A;J it is all dtp.ndt;1 upon

in'

:,ffi:'ffi

l1

than the prisoner,

'po"

is in power' Vulnerability and

"ho"uer.
.

I
I

80.

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

I.IEERTY

ment, as well as the liberty of economic and political participation, are basic righb, because enioyment of them is an integral
part of the enioyment of anything as a right. PerenNausnc Drgraronsnrp ReFonMnn?

The varieties of liberties are so numerous that an exhaustive consideration of rvhich liberties are basic liberties would require an
extensive and, for my purposes, unnecessary further analysis. My purpose is to explore reasonably fully the skucture of the fundamental argument for any judgment that something is the substance of a basic right and the specific application of that argument to subsistence, which is customarily ignored by theorisb around the North Atlantic. And we have now seen that fundamentally the same argument originaily given to support the judgment that security and subsistence are basic rights also sup-

d;;;;';;,;;f tect and ro aid be p..for*.di. e ,iilil;;"f rs to protect against

deprivauo,
selves, and to aid when protection

that it is preciselv those.who mgst vulnerable to deprivation 3re and are most Dowerless to resist it, lik. th; ;;onscious person. the torture vioim. and, x,l: unborn senera_ tions, for whom it is of th" grcril *0"#"".,frat

tioi..iTJl[
f.if.

duties to prorights, after ail,

them_

to protect

1ff,:#i:",.,.luties

lt iiironical but essentjal that a right provides the'basis 's.o",freti*e, fr; made on behalf o[ and oftcn dd"il no power themir,.$93. selves to press it uDon tle,lLdi.vtd;ri;il1;:t]irtion, who have ro turnrr th;;il,;,1 to

j};il

'if

ffi

ili:,

ignore

and

,.,[".*"iT",?;lil:|ff*':
not need to participate order to be able to cnioy.
?i

oo not need to have obtained the sub-

ports the judgment that liberly of participation and freedom of movement are basic rights as well. Unfortunately, the argument has a rveak spot, rvhen applied to liberties, that it does not havc when applicd to security and strbsistencc. Before we leave the subiect of Iiberty this difficulty ought to be noted, although it is not, I think, in the end fatal, Rights provide the basis for demands, but it is useful to distinguish the content of the demand from the act of demanding, or the making of the demand. One may demand one's righb, but obviously one may in addition, or instead, demand someone else's rights-that is, demand that someone else's rights be fulfilled for him or her. Conversely, and more importantly here, someone else may demand one's own rights on one's behalf. Many a lobbying group acts on behalf of the rights of people who
are not in the group, Now this practice reflects the fact ihat it is not a necessary condition of obtaining fulfiliment of a right that one be in a position oneself to make the demand for the substance of the right. Some controversy exists about whether animals and future generations of human bcings, for example, have rights. If they were to be declared not to have rights, it couid not be for so simple a reason as that they are not able to press on their own behalf the demands for the substance of their rights. On the conhary, wc tend to believe

iilt:?"&HdIlHt\;)",',.1,*.,,;rif i"-"bh;;;;;;:;#;il
it
as a

,,:;r:i1i.,,:f

J'; ;"il ffi tion.tii'i,'n.Hffil:#jJ.",,,ili,Tff l,jiTi:f,":*ti clude the building ancl.ma;ntainl"g ,i'.ri*ti" institutions for sett-protection as the
::,'#:,
ffi

',1ili",::1

themselves in right. The ,"pjv on behalf o[ ac','ilX,,.,,*n u wa s, i n

uhimate
b

;l1.irl',fl:i:
:ier,

tio

in vor ves

philfi .,o,llll, "th

!r.l*? *"riieprivation,
t,

and (2) na por itic, i

t, rz i i,;ffi ;:::H,3J:Hii"iii:, e: Il,s.::,,:,x ilil;,;.;iids on phystcal i{.:r:,: 1*, t"n;;:i;;a'Ii"ur' *r'!' iru"il::|'3'1ii:
tection, or the defense

Unfortunately for the,

;ff

dictator rvho established in.at.least an ombudsman or even ,

protection is ever called to,rorqh. ,"a .if".ifr. that no selG forl ft rnigl,i-b. ;;;il, fior e.xample, that the importance of nreteqlisn i.*fy .rFUfir]*s the need for some ]<ind of svstcm of checks courd be non-participatory. Induleing tr," a"trry i.n"rot.nt ,na uncorrupt dictator a littll

'::l'l'::r "rua.,n..r,,,'ilil,:fl:.",.:i:l1ft,i:J"TiT*lr3*lt make the protection

,".

:ff

*J ;ffi.*'"*I,.n

.82.

judiciiiil;.,,ii; ;;,e
.83 .

"iiil n]rtne.,']. lr"ia'o.rilp, ;*rgin. , partl;;;-J#",",

form either aurhority to

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

LIBERIY

protect people against abuses by the rest of the regime. Our despotic caterpillar is now on the verge of becoming a restrained butterfly, and it is progresively less certain why the government we are imagining should continue to be called a "dictatorship." But leaving aside worries about labeling the example, we can certainly note the abstract possibility o[a rule of larv protecting righb without any genuine influence by those with the rights on fundamental decisions about the institutions embodying the rule of iarv or tlre implementation of the institutions' policies. The quickest way to indicate the practical inadequacy of this

i:il::kl;..f:T";fi I,$: ;,*..,,# at.,lr,^?:rp*r..tt{ti" "Ti"i.r *r,"r,aogs and oichecl<s :*;:X,IXT:?':ff "a u,u,,i.*iriin g",.d [,u. ,
ever, no reason

Ts': *"ii. *,, 's,:,* ;l,.'ffi:,T:F:;ll:?it' ^;?,fi i::;

mation lies with the people..whose righb are the alleged object of

dffi

,..;

enough ro

tory institutions

t..aatu.,rtii,;;i:"ffi$:#J[,i: ji:[:i,:::ff

rights than

rou or,rrlTll-t,lo'-t:'

g that.people c?n

;;,;;;h.;
viora-

model of the non-participatory rule of law is simply to recall, for example, the Vorster regime in South Africa, which used an elaborate and, in many respects, rigorous system of rule of law precisely as an instrument for the deprivation of rights to both security and subsisience of members of the maiority of the population, who could not effectively participate in the federai government.24 It is barely conceivable, it might be conceded, that a paternalistic dictatorship might go so far as to cstablish a genuinely independcnt legal system that could in some respccts reshain even the dictator. But rvhat if, as in South Africa, the legal system is itself careftrlly designed to maintain and protect, not rights, but a systematic pattern of goss violations of security rights and subsistence rights, as weil as rights to liberty? It would appear that, however many levcls of checks and balances are built into a political and legal system, institutions providing for participation are almost invaiuable as the ultimate monitors and brakes upon the substantive results of the procedures. To put the point in its most abstract form, we have no reason to believe that it is possible to design non-participatory procedures that wili guarantee that even basic rights are in substance respected. Consequently, whatever the non-participatory protective procedures, it rvill always be important to have other procedures or institutions that allow the people who have.assessed the
usefulness ofthe protective procedures (and also ofthe participatory procedures themselves, of course) on the basis of lvhether they themselves can in fact exercise their rights, to act upon their assessment in some influential rvay. The "bottom line" is the extent to rvhich people's rights are enioyed, and however many ranks of official rvatchdogs may be established, the crucial infor.84 .

fl"i":ff;il
:ff

shorld,.accordt;;t,;;;J".ral oth., in'iitutr;;; d;ffiiliffi?, at Ieast as ef_ resisting

;:,j#

The lack of any certa.inty that arrangements for participation . in ,,",::;,"Tilfi

mayappear.ouna.,"u."ffi
ing participation as a basic

:i,,,i,i.,.",,,dp;rt;r";;;;;iingsecurityanJ

i?,TJ"JrJ:HJl?;:i .r;[i il;;:;;ft,"rrr,.enr for the :Hffffi{fff;:H}" i* \;; ffir',n,".ir.,." is arrvays

ji,*i:U:

;:*f j*,'fl',".,'-,.,;;,i}:Til!1i.i:lE':1.'"'':T'i's}'ilj r,il*;;rr;fi :ff ,l,il,fi ,T,fi [::X1";]:Tf,"f ,Tlii:i rs even

more obviouslv

,1"#.[!}','$:1.'l;i"fl 1':'o:tr";;;H"*l"l',**mavnot

ly3

of ir..ao.n

oirnjJ.*.n,.

Is it not

outy ot every governmenr not t,

,.|

:r;*#*'lj;#f fl',l}'.#riln1,,ffi il:tl':;i:;.

1,i

participation as I trril ,ig;r;;;;i".",-1of the cxercise o[a basic tigi't ofpa.tiJ r;ffi".d il ;i"t of other righs, iut th;iit necessary. The case 6", ;t ;,llflltl,ite

,tro

;#il1",:'J;H.x[f iji,:','*fl'il:Xil1*'.:4..;;; tt,j5:1,,"r.1# *il";3;;;y#bl:'[ttHfi acknorvledging

pation is

:i:, rights. other The same is kue for

t n;

:liill;| n X*X

m ade-

;;;,* :#;,'$yi:*,)1ffi:;ilff :*:*'tg; rr*-,,lrlillni,,

.85 .

d.p;;;;;;i" jti" rut rar.. or rh is i,.'=; j;; ;ay rvea kened

I,i
l,rr
il

t;

lil

I I

THREE BASIC RIGHTS

LIBERTY

I I

no In general, if more than onc condition is necessary'

one

.oraiiio" "." ,.ryl. O.t

;:;;rA

l
I

I ir

I
:

'lrl
I

'ii

"rtlier the eiercis" of all other rights-and- are therefore for il"rJ-tirfr,r-had already established that no othet condition for con.""fa Uy itselfbe sufficient. ln fact, rve have littlc reason rightbasic these all of enioyment the il;r;;'that even movemcntsubsistence, participation, and freedom-of
securiW,

be sufficient (because something else is also necesargumentsthat security and subsistence are cach

do not have the right to participatc in the arrangements for fulfilling the other rights that ihey are said to if they want to participate.

hr*;;;n

What I am calling the soft spot in the argument at the theoreti_ cal level, then, is the fact-thai it i, thai "",right some set of institutions without a basic "a,EAy'i"conceivable il p;icipation
do. Howcver unlikely ry not evident how to rule out the theoreticj possibility within the terms of the pr.r.nt Roughly the same is true of the right to fre-edom of "rgr*ent. movlment. So_Jre!i,n" that was othenvise marvellously f"n;gn lut jiJ not w"nt its citizens moving about freely might confine everyone to a type of

;;;;i#;, ;;;;i;;;

'tl

.t

,,1

i
I

,rl

rl
i!l

i
f

,ll

il

of anv of thes: basic rishts is sufEof the.enioyment of any thwarting the .i"ii'.,or*rtty to allow is a basic right' these of each why is that o ,igt tt, itt -'-So*itf,ing "nd of a soft spoi, ho*"'et, lem1ins. i1 this argument f", prtti"ipr"tion and in the structuraily identical argument for ire.do* oi movement. At the practical level there is no room of govern;;i;;;".t for doubt that no non-participatory svstcm safety and the o[ ment will ever be so paternalistically solicitous the popuof members that ,r-.nt. of the population under its rule mechasolid very some valuable *.ura .,oi nna extremely

., a r.t, for the eniovment

it rt tr'"
absence

o[anv other rights' But-it

:ff" :I:twe it rs ::, rnrs T rn practrce,

peopte s other rights Is *elias, oi b.tt , th'a'q lilrjir^.;:tcct participato institutions

i.s

might

where-but

house arrest-it might, say, have, p.r..n.niJri.rv rvith the requirement that everyonc be.in his or hcr appointed pl"ce er".y evening at curfcw unless given special pennission to be else-

inii* and nir*, fot participation in the arrangements for their safety by the grace of rvell-nourished and p"ople safe aie Wh.re *"if"t..

The Philippines? it"i, ,Jf_amiplinei and solicitous dictators? Ethiopia? H-aiti? Africa? South Indoncsia? Brazil? iir*p".fr"rZ " that imaginablenevertheless it is level Ai, prt"fy speculative be as

rl
I

Ir

,ll

might somehow somc non-participatory system of protection possible in the same cirsystem participatory bist the as effe"tiu" of Perhapi there couid be something like a system attorney"urrrrtr.t""r. court-appointed a had always aduo"at r, as if everyone to pievent fai]ures in the fulfillment of his or her after by his or h-e-r "u*-bodyg,rard riehts. and each person would be better looked

ll

*"t0".,*. o.t*nal

;I

il;;ii";.'Ne [i*, ;tp"J';iih;

*iii"fr ttt"y

1i

advocate than through any efforts at selfinstituneed not try to design a seeminglv realistic one The abstract' the in clear point is ,ir,". the theoretical ^example that must. be quite definite' hypothetical people happcn not usullorueu"r, is that it is not simply that most for that to arrangemenb t" iJUpate actively in'making do not everywhere people "fly most have righe. Probably

,il !i
t, rl

fulfillment in fact usually partLipate in mating arrangemenb for example is hypothetical the aboui counts rigtrts.^Wtrai oiitt.i.
that, rvhat-ever else
is said

Meanwhile, it ought to. b! emlh.agr.zJi"rr;cl, a hurdle any rvould-be patemalistic dictator rvould be.tt to leap if the dictator tried to meet the.terms of this argument. All that it has bcen necessary to concede is this, ,.Ei*" ,."rffy provided befter protection for everyight, security rightsand. subsistence rights,_cxcept rights like political participation and freedom oJ*ore*."nt, tf,* would teceive if rights to tibe*ies "f and hon_ we;;';k;;;ild;ed ored,.then the regime,s faiture to woutd be permissible, other ihings being equal.2o standard is a higher levet of protictio" Si, n-irry' orn .' l"a" not expect

other than freedom of movement lrnd pa.tl.ip.tion in decisions about whether there should be freedom to which people have rights. Once again, this ao.. "i#r.r""tl noir..* to be unim"g_ inable, although I wil not pause to fiil in a]r the details, ancr, because it appears to be conceivable, it cannot b" iul.d out ,r,-in this sense, possible. These.extraordinr{r lryp"ti;tical examplcs, however, seem to me to give little guija;J-forlra;nr.y ..turl cases. Hence, I belicve the argumenifor treating the hvo liberties I h-ave considered as basic rigf,ts remains;r;;i;'

guarantee to everyone- ttre

erioy*ent of evcrytiing

.;il;;

iil i;;;"i.g;;;;.^. tolbd; *y tfrd.;;h; p;d;;;;i;;;ies ii;;;;;;"*

1]_.,r.to <lrctator

,.:,ruch.a regime, and I certainly *"ould not allorv any

rvith such pretensions the chance io e*periment rvith me, ofthe historjcal .uia.n..igrirri ru"".rr..,
.87 .

ilii'i

about the people's enioying rights' they

given the wcight

'85
It

'