Rights and Deprivation

Many welfare state programs redistribute resources from some citizens to others. This book discusses whether such a redistribution can be justified by a theory of moral rights. Lesley Jacobs maintains that while many orthodox rights-based defenses of state welfare are misconceived, it is nevertheless possible to defend programs such as universal access to health care and social security on the grounds that they are required to fulfill the moral rights of individual citizens.

Lesley Jacobs is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia.