A Social Practice Prioritarian Response to Allen Buchanan’s The Heart of Human Rights

Abstract

Allen Buchanan’s ‘The Heart of Human Rights’ addresses the moral justification of the international legal human rights system (ILHRS). Buchanan identifies two functions of the ILHRS: a well-being function and a status egalitarian function. Because Buchanan assumes that the well-being function is sufficientarian, he augments it with a status egalitarian function. However, if the well-being function is utilitarian or prioritarian, there is no need for a separate status egalitarian function, because the status egalitarian function can be subsumed by the utilitarian or prioritarian well-being function.