Justifying Human Rights: Economics and the Individual

This paper examines the relationship between the individual conception in economics and the justification of economic rights as human rights. It briefly describes the nature of economic rights, and argues that the Homo economicus conception constitutes a barrier to justifying them. The paper then offers an alternative conception of the individual as socially embedded, and argues that it offers an adequate basis for the justification of economic rights. On this alternative conception individuals are enduring beings who have personal identities.