Being Social : The Philosophy of Social Human Rights

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, Collège 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

Kimberley Brownlee, Research Chair in Ethics and Political & Social Philosophy, University of British Columbia,David Jenkins, Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Otago,Adam Neal, Leverhulme Trust-funded doctoral student in Philosophy, University of Warwick

Kimberley Brownlee holds the Canada Research Chair in Ethics and Political & Social Philosophy at the University of British Columbia. Her current work focuses on loneliness, belonging, social rights, and freedom of association. She is the author of Being Sure of Each Other (OUP, 2020) and Conscience and Conviction: The Case for Civil Disobedience (OUP, 2012).


David Jenkins is a lecturer in political theory at the University of Otago. He has published work on unconditional basic income, the politics of public space in India, homelessness, James Baldwin and recognition, homelessness, structural injustice, and work.


Adam Neal is a Leverhulme Trust-funded doctoral student in Philosophy at the University of Warwick. His research concerns the social and interpersonal implications of poverty, the philosophy of work and the ethics of relationships.