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I am fascinated by social contract theory and its application to morals. Fred has pointed out that it may give us a solid foundation that metaphysics, conceptual analysis, and science cannot provide. But I don't want to leave you with the impression that I think that the only way to argue for a right to be provided with a modest level of basic material resources is by positing a social contract.

I have already mentioned that Alan Gewirth argued that we had to acknowledge a right to freedom and well-being if we were to avoid contradicting ourselves. Now I want to add that James Griffin also argued for a right to what he called a right to welfare. Recall that he bases his theory of rights on the concept of personhood. Personhood or moral agency is what we value, and human rights are the means of protecting it. Listen to what he says about welfare rights.

The intuitive case for a human right to welfare goes something like this. Human rights are protections of human standing. We attach a high value to our living as normative agents -- our autonomously choosing and freely pursuing our conception of a worthwhile life. Then it is not surprising that we should include among human rights, as indeed the tradition did from the start, not only a right to liberty but also a right to life. If human rights are protections of a form of life that is autonomous and free, they should protect life as well as that form of it. But if they protect life, must they not also ensure the wherewithal to keep body and soul together -- that is, some minimum material provision? And as mere subsistence -- that is, keeping body and soul together -- is too meagre to ensure normative agency, must not human rights guarantee also whatever leisure and education and access to the thought of others that are also necessary to being a normative agent? [James Griffin, On Human Rights, p. 179.]

Now, Griffin is not arguing for as much as I included in my ideal society. I believe that we should develop a system of rights, including property rights, that gives each person the basic resources that will allow that person, with significant effort, to develop his or her capacities and pursue his or her notion of a good life. Nevertheless, Griffin's argument gives us another road to a more limited right to whatever is necessary to maintain our status as normative agents. I think his theory provides for a minimum, while my ideal goes beyond that minimum to advocate something more. Even if you reject a contractarian basis for a right to material resources, you still have to deal with Griffin's argument.