Why universal welfare rights are impossible and what it means

Danny Frederick
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Danny Frederick: 14 Willow Tree Drive, Seaview, Isle of Wight, PO34 5JG, UK, danny.frederick@btinternet.com

Politics, Philosophy & Economics, 2010, vol. 9, issue 4, 428-445

Abstract: Cranston argued that scarcity makes universal welfare rights impossible. After showing that this argument cannot be avoided by denying scarcity, I consider four challenges to the argument which accept the possibility of conflicts between the duties implied by rights. The first denies the agglomeration principle; the second embraces conflicts of duties; the third affirms the violability of all rights-based duties; and the fourth denies that duties to compensate are overriding. I argue that all four challenges to the scarcity argument are unsuccessful. I then discuss Eddy’s recent challenge, which makes welfare rights context dependent, but I argue that this also fails because it makes rights unknowable. I conclude that the scarcity argument, restated in the light of the discussion, shows that universal welfare rights, as ordinarily understood, are impossible and I explain the philosophical and practical significance of this conclusion.

Keywords: conflicts; context-dependent rights; overriding duties; scarcity; welfare rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:pophec:v:9:y:2010:i:4:p:428-445

DOI: 10.1177/1470594X10368267

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