The Poor's Privilege

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Contemporary liberal theories interested in questions of global justice standardly start from the assumption that basic rights such as security and subsistence are—as Henry Shue puts it—“minimum reasonable demands upon the rest of humanity.” From there, they mostly go on to conceptualize the correlative duties that individuals and states therefore have to respect, protect, and aid to the fulfillment of those rights. In this panel we flip this approach and ask: what may an individual or a group of individuals permissibly do for herself and by herself in the face of chronic disrespect, lack of protection, or unfulfillment of her basic rights? The papers in this panel consider what privileges the worst-off may have and how to understand those privileges—for example, are they mere Hohfeldian liberties, or are they also more robust claim-rights that also create duties on others? The papers also relate to how individual and collective rights are connected regarding this issue.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Individual Presentations

• Necessity Knows No Borders - Alejandra Mancilla, University of Oslo

• Resisting Migration Injustice Across Borders - Alexander Sager, Portland State University

• Institutional Anti-poverty Rights - Scott Leigh Wisor, Minerva Schools at KGI

Chair

• Alejandra Mancilla University of Oslo

Discussant

• Javier Hidalgo