Health, healthcare, and public health as objects of (human) rights

Abstract

Proponents of health rights hold that there are rights to health, healthcare, or public health. Yet health rights raise familiar philosophical challenges, including those concerning the scope, content, relative strength, and justification of the purported rights and their correlative duties, and practical challenges, including those concerning how to recognize the rights under resource constraints without undermining access to other social goods. Recognizing narrower health rights, such as a right to healthcare, can address some of these concerns but may not secure the health outcomes desired by health advocates. Indeed, the moral considerations most likely to justify a right to healthcare appear to prioritize public health initiatives. Recognizing a right to healthcare may make it more difficult to address relevant population-level concerns. After all, healthcare and public health entitlements often draw on the same budget. These considerations present a puzzle: Can plausible health rights-claims meet necessary philosophical strictures, rather than just serve rhetorical utility, and adequately recognize the moral importance of population-level public health? This chapter explains the puzzle, analyzes two potentially promising approaches to solving it, and outlines my preferred approach. It should thereby provide insights into rights theory and related issues in health justice and public health ethics.

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ORCID for Michael Da Silva: orcid.org/0000-0002-7021-9847

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