| Abstract: | Many of the debates concerning the existence of economic rights obfuscate the meaning of the possession of a right to an economic good. In order to provide clarification, several theoretical questions must be probed. This essay explores each of these issues in order to demonstrate that greater conceptual clarity repudiates the arguments against the existence of economic rights. It also seeks to attenuate the vexing problem of necessary and painful tradeoffs between competing rights claims. The final portion of this essay heuristically demonstrates how greater conceptual clarity can aid us in dealing with complex policy issues involving competing rights claims. The phase “Nonsense on stilts” is borrowed from Jeremy Bentham’s refutation pf “Natural” rights. Jeremy Bentham, “Anarchical Fallacies” in Human Rights, ed. A.I.Melden (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1970), 30–31. |
