A Social Philosophy of Housing by Peter King

Author:Peter King [King, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology
ISBN: 9781351752275
Google: uoRHDwAAQBAJ
Barnesnoble:
Goodreads: 14822606
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2003-04-11T00:00:00+00:00

Positive and Negative Rights

But rights can be distinguished in a further significant way. In particular, rights can be seen as being either positive or negative. This distinction has been of considerable importance in political philosophy and, in turn, on the application of the concept of rights in public policy. Positive rights imply a need for actions on the part of some agency or individual, whilst negative rights imply the need to maintain some position to prevent coercion.

To see rights as positive entities is to prescribe what rights individuals actually do, or ought to, have. It is to ask, 'what ought I to be able to do?'. One version of this argument is to say that if individuals have basic needs (or functionings, or because persons are unequal, or whatever), then they should be met. Therefore individuals have the implied right to have their needs (or whatever) fulfilled. This, of course, begs the question of how that right gets operationalised. Kateb (1992) relates this notion of individual rights to the role of the state. The state, in fact, has two roles. Firstly, it acts as the protector and enforcer of individual rights. Secondly, it is the agency against which the individual has rights. Thus, for Kateb, the state is needed to ensure that individuals can exercise their rights, and it also has the responsibility of fulfilling them.

The notion of positive rights was related to social policy by Marshall (1950), when he discussed rights in relation to citizenship. Citizenship is the status of those who are full members of a community. All who possess this status are equal in terms of the rights and duties they enjoy. Put another way, one has full status because of the rights bestowed on one by the community. Marshall defined these rights as, firstly, civil, which relate to individual freedom of action, belief and association, and to own property; social, in terms of ensuring an adequate level of personal welfare; and thirdly, political, relating to the ability to participate in the community. The role of the state is thus to act as both guarantor and provider of these rights. It is this Marshallian basis that Bengtsson (2001) relies on in his discussion of housing as a social right.

One can argue that this view of rights underpinned the postwar welfare state, at least until 1979. The Marshallian view has been discussed in relation to housing by Clapham et al (1996) who relate the loss of citizenship to social exclusion. The neglect of these rights has created social exclusion and thus impaired certain disadvantaged groups and individuals. They suggest that housing organisations can undertake a range of activities that advance citizenship. Moreover, the notion of citizenship can act as a 'driving philosophy' (p. 9) to campaign against what the authors consider to be restraints on a full range of activities. Arguments for positive rights can thus be presented as a manifesto of claims that ought to be met if individuals are to be fully integrated citizens of that society.

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