Social Human Rights

人权是道德的最低限度。它们确定了我们作为人类彼此应有的最低限度的体面待遇。在过去的二十年里，哲学家、政治理论家和法律理论家都把他们的集体注意力转向了对人权的分析。但是，他们的注意力主要集中在我们的公民和政治权利的一小部分，比如我们参与政治的权利，言论自由的权利，信仰宗教的权利，为政治目的集会的权利，免受酷刑的权利，以及一小部分我们的社会经济福利权利，比如我们免于贫困的权利，健康和受教育的权利。然而，国际协定列举了一系列其他权利，人权理论家对这些权利的分析注意要少得多。在这些列举的权利中，值得注意的是，我们的人际和社会权利，如结婚的权利，在亲子关系中受到保护的权利，以及分享社会科学和文化进步成果的权利。对这些权利的阐述几乎没有提到友谊的好处，也没有提到在家庭单位之外进行持续的、密切的人际接触的更普遍的权利。有迹象表明，政策制定者开始认真对待我们的人际需求。例如，英国政府已作出实质性承诺，通过投资2000万英镑，并任命一位部长（特蕾西·克劳奇）负责执行政府在这些问题上的跨党派工作，打击孤独和社会隔离。这一背景环境为该网络及时开展有影响力的社会人权研究提供了理想的环境。一开始就要提出的一些关键问题是，国际协定中列举的社会权利是否经得起分析审查，以及人权是否提供了一个良好的概念工具，用以界定我们的社会需要并确保这些需要得到满足。其他重要的问题是，在关于人权的法律主义辩论中是否遗漏了任何关键的社会权利，以及社会权利是否需要社会从根本上重新考虑其在刑事司法、卫生和移民等部门的政策，这些部门往往是强制隔离和社会营养不良的场所。通过一系列活动，包括公开会议、研究静修和利益相关者会议，这个由国际知名哲学家、政治理论家、法律理论家和新星组成的网络将调查这些问题和其他问题。网络成员代表了对社会人权状况的一系列相互矛盾的观点。一些人认为，社会需求对我们福祉的中心地位意味着，权利话语所伴随的责任和义务的语言确实是应该采用的正确框架。另一些人则不相信这种方法是可行的，他们认为对社会权利的讨论超越了权利话语所能实现的界限。这些观点的竞争将为项目的编辑收集和网络活动中出现的其他产出提供信息和基础。通过在讨论我们的需要、义务和责任时突出我们的社会性质，无论是在以权利为中心的框架之内还是之外，我们都可以加深我们对塑造我们与其他人关系的政治和法律结构的理解。例如，如果一个人由于他人的自由选择而被系统地排除在与其他人的交往之外，那么社会欠她什么支持，如果有的话？此外，在我们的社会世界中，还有哪些其他过程会导致我们的社会需求得不到满足？正是通过揭示这些问题，并阐明认真对待我们的构成社会本质的后果，这个网络打算留下自己的印记。

Human rights are about the brute moral minimum. They identify the minimum level of decent treatment we owe to each other as human beings. Over the past two decades, philosophers, political theorists, and legal theorists have turned their collective attention to the analysis of human rights. But, they have focused their attention largely on a subset of our civil and political rights, such as our rights to participate politically, to have free expression, to practice a religion, to assemble together for political purposes, and to be safe from torture, as well as on a small set of our socio-economic welfare rights, such as our rights to be free from poverty, to health, and to education. International agreements enumerate a range of other rights, however, which have received considerably less analytic attention from human rights theorists. Among these enumerated rights are, notably, our interpersonal, social rights, such as the rights to marry, to be protected in parent-child relationships, and to share in the benefits of our society's scientific and cultural advancements. The elucidation of these rights makes little mention of either the goods of friendship or more general rights to have ongoing, close human contact beyond the family unit. There are signs that policymakers are beginning to take our interpersonal needs seriously. The UK government, for one, has made a material commitment to combating loneliness and social isolation, through a £20 million investment and the appointment of a Minister (Tracey Crouch) tasked with implementing the government's cross-party work on these issues. This background environment provides an ideal setting for this network to produce timely and impactful research on social human rights. Some key questions to ask at the outset are whether the social rights enumerated in international agreements hold up to analytic scrutiny, and whether human rights offer a good conceptual apparatus with which to frame our social needs and ensure they are met. Other important questions are whether any key social rights have been missed in legalistic debates about human rights, and whether social rights would require society to rethink radically its policies within sectors such as criminal justice, health, and immigration, which are often sites of forced segregation and social malnourishment. Through a programme of activities including an open conference, research retreat, and stakeholder meetings, this network of internationally renowned philosophers, political theorists, legal theorists, and rising stars will investigate these and other questions. Network members represent a range of conflicting views on the status of social human rights. Some hold that the centrality of social needs to our wellbeing means that the language of duties and obligations attendant to rights-discourse is indeed the correct framework to adopt. Others are unconvinced that such an approach is feasible, and argue that discussions of social rights overstep the boundaries of what rights-discourse can hope to achieve. The contest of these perspectives will inform and underpin the project's edited collection and the other outputs that will emerge from the network's activities. By foregrounding our social natures in discussions of our needs, obligations and duties, either within or beyond a rights-centred framework, we can develop our understanding of the political and legal structures that shape our relations with other people. If, for example, a person is systematically excluded from associations with other people as a result of others' free choices, what support, if any, does society owe her? In addition, what other processes within our social world generate situations where our social needs go unmet? It is in opening up these questions, and shedding light on what emerges as a consequence of taking our constitutively social nature seriously, that this network intends to make its mark.