Abstract

The article reconstructs and critically assesses some of the most recurring arguments in legal and political philosophy to the effect that social rights are different in structure from, and necessarily incompatible with, the more familiar civil and political liberties. The author shows that social rights and civil and political liberties have in common more than meets the eye, and so they are different in degree rather than in kind. Moreover, while these rights can certainly happen to conflict one against the other in particular instances, they prove not only to be compatible but even mutually reinforcing as far as their respective axiological foundations are concerned.