Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank David Clark for comments and the editing of this book review. Errors of interpretation or fact remain with the author.
Notes
1 Tasioulas also highlights other limitations of the freedom‐based approach. For example, the justification of the human right to be free from torture may require reference to the avoidance of pain; whilst choice‐based approaches provide weak foundations for justifying human rights such as freedom from torture when the capacity for choice is limited (for example, in the context of severe mental illness).
2 ‘[T]he doctrine of right has to do only with narrow duties, whereas ethics has to do with wide duties. Hence the doctrine of right, which by its nature must determine duties strictly (precisely), has no more need of general directions (a method) as to how to proceed in judging … but ethics, because of the latitude it allows limits imperfect duties, unavoidably leads into questions that call upon judgement to decide how a maxim is to be applied in particular cases, and indeed in such a way that judgement provides another (subordinate) maxim …’ (Kant, Citation1996 [1797], p. 168).
3 Pogge’s (Citation2008) development of a theory of poverty and human rights under a ‘minimalist normative assumption’ appears to avoid appeals to the ‘general obligations of those in a position to help’ and ‘implausible’/‘open‐ended’ positive duties of assistance and aid. Nevertheless, Pogge’s ‘restrictive’ approach also delimits the duties that correlate to human rights by making reference to principles of ‘reasonableness’. For example, moral responsibility for human rights deficits is assigned when the deficits are reasonably avoidable (p. 26).
4 See, for example, Constitution of the Republic of South Africa [Act 108 of 1996]. Government of the Republic of South Africa and others v Grootboom and others, decided on 4 October 2000, Case CCT 11/00, Constitutional Court of South Africa ‘Grootboom’; and Minister of Health and others v Treatment Action Campaign and others, decided on 5 July 2002, Case CCT 9/02. Available online (http://www.constitutionalcourt.org.za).
5 References for the Treatment Action Campaign Case and Grootboom case are provided in note 4.