We are deeply social creatures. Our core social needs-for meaningful social inclusion-are more important than our civil and political needs and our economic welfare needs, and we won't secure those other things if our core social needs go unmet. Our core social needs ground a human right against social deprivation as well as a human right to have the resources to sustain other people. Kimberley Brownlee defends this fundamental but largely neglected human right; having defined social deprivation as a persistent lack of minimally adequate access to decent human contact, she then discusses situations such as solitary confinement and incidental isolation. Fleshing out what it means to belong, Brownlee considers why loneliness and weak social connections are not just moral tragedies, but often injustices, and argues that we endure social contribution injustice when we are denied the means to sustain others. Our core social needs can clash with our interests in interactive and associative freedom, and when they do, social needs take priority. We have a duty to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to satisfy their social needs. As Brownlee asserts, we violate this duty if we classify some people as inescapably socially threatening, either through using reductive, essentialist language that reduces people to certain acts or traits-'criminal', 'rapist', 'paedophile', 'foreigner'-or in the ways we physically segregate such people and fail to help people to reintegrate after segregation.

We are deeply social creatures. Our core social needs - for meaningful social inclusion - are more important than our civil and political needs and our economic welfare needs, and we won't secure those other things if our core social needs go unmet. Our core social needs ground a human right against social deprivation as well as a human right to have the resources to sustain other people. Kimberley Brownlee defends this fundamental but largely neglected human right; having defined social deprivation as a persistent lack of minimally adequate access to decent human contact, she then discusses situations such as solitary confinement and incidental isolation. Fleshing out what it means tothers. Our core social needs can clash with oo belong, Brownlee considers why loneliness and weak social connections are not just moral tragedies, but often injustices, and argues that we endure social contribution injustice when we are denied the means to sustain ur interests in interactive and associative freedom, and when they do, social needs take priority. We have a duty to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to satisfy their social needs. As Brownlee asserts, we violate this duty if we classify some people as inescapably socially threatening, either through using reductive, essentialist language that reduces people to certain acts or traits - 'criminal', 'rapist', 'paedophile', 'foreigner' - or in the ways we physically segregate such people and fail to help people to reintegrate after segregation.

Human rights capture what people need to live minimally decent lives. Recognised dimensions of this minimum include physical security, due process, political participation, and freedom of movement, speech, and belief, as well as - more controversially for some - subsistence, shelter, health, education, culture, and community. Far less attention has been paid to the interpersonal, social dimensions of a minimally decent life, including our basic needs for decent human contact and acknowledgement, for interaction and adequate social inclusion, and for relationship, intimacy, and shared ways of living, as well as our competing interests in solitude and associative freedom. This pioneering collection of original essays aims to remedy the neglect of social needs and rights in human rights theory and practice by exploring the social dimensions of the human-rights minimum. The essays subject enumerated social human rights and proposed social human rights to philosophical scrutiny, and probe the conceptual, normative, and practical implications of taking social human rights seriously. The contributors to this volume demonstrate powerfully how important this undertaking is, despite the thorny theoretical and practical challenges that social rights present. Being Social is the first in-depth and polyphonic philosophical treatment of social rights qua human rights in the English language. It explains how social rights are rights to participate and not only to being in society, but also, even more importantly, it uncovers the social and interactional dimension of all human rights. A must-read for international human rights lawyers concerned about the critique of human rights' individualism.' - Professor Samantha Besson, International Law of Institutions Chair, College de France, Paris & Professor of Public International Law and European Law, University of Fribourg, Switzerland 'Every human being has deep needs for sociality: for contact, connection, intimacy, inclusion, recognition, and community. In this pioneering volume, leading experts explore how social human rights can help fulfil these needs in our homes, workplaces, cities, nations, and virtual worlds. Since a human life is a life with others, human rights must include social rights too.' - Leif Wenar, Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities, Stanford University

Oxford Legal Philosophy publishes the best new work in philosophically-oriented legal theory. It commissions and solicits monographs in all branches of the subject, including works on philosophical issues in all areas of public and private law, and in the national, transnational, and international realms; studies of the nature of law, legal institutions, and legal reasoning; treatments of problems in political morality as they bear on law; and explorations in the nature and development of legal philosophy itself. The series represents diverse traditions of thought but always with an emphasis on rigour and originality. It sets the standard in contemporary jurisprudence. This book shows that civil disobedience is generally more defensible than private conscientious objection. Part I explores the morality of conviction and conscience. Each of these concepts informs a distinct argument for civil disobedience. The conviction argument begins with the communicative principle of conscientiousness (CPC). According to the CPC, having a conscientious moral conviction means not just acting consistently with our beliefs and judging ourselves and others by a common moral standard. It also means not seeking to evade the consequences of our beliefs and being willing to communicate them to others. The conviction argument shows that, as a constrained, communicative practice, civil disobedience has a better claim than private objection does to the protections that liberal societies give to conscientious dissent. This view reverses the standard liberal picture which sees private 'conscientious' objection as a modest act of personal belief and civil disobedience as a strategic, undemocratic act whose costs are only sometimes worth bearing. The conscience argument is narrower and shows that genuinely morally responsive civil disobedience honours the best of our moral responsibilities and is protected by a duty-based moral right of conscience. Part II translates the conviction argument and conscience argument into two legal defences. The first is a demands-of-conviction defence. The second is a necessity defence. Both of these defences apply more readily to civil disobedience than to private disobedience. Part II also examines lawful punishment, showing that, even when punishment is justifiable, civil disobedients have a moral right not to be punished.

This book offers a much-needed investigation of moral and political issues concerning disability, and explores how the experiences of people with disabilities can lead to reconsideration of prominent positions on normative issues. Thirteen new essays examine such topics as the concept of disability, the conditions of justice, the nature of autonomy, healthcare distribution, and reproductive choices. The contributors are Norman Daniels, Ellen Daniels Zide, Leslie P. Francis, Christie Hartley, Richard Hull, Guy Kahane, F. M. Kamm, Rosalind McDougall, Jeff McMahan, Douglas MacLean, Susannah Rose, Anita Silvers, Julian Savulescu, Lorella Terzi, David Wasserman, and Jonathan Wolff.