Corporate malfeasance, global health, and human rights

As social justice theories grow more nuanced, global health disparities continue to increase. Unacceptable injustice exists, whether analyzed through the lens of capabilities, development, liberty, utility, human rights, or fairness. Motivating action to remedy injustice requires an acknowledgment of human rights violations, but human rights themselves are controversial and have uncertain ontological foundations. Any argument defending human rights must face interlocutors who will deny such rights exist. One could develop a vibrant and complex defense of human rights on many grounds, but it is also possible to limit objections by choosing the least controversial of human rights: so-called negative rights. Those who deny that humans have a right to human flourishing or dignity will often agree that each person has a right to be left alone and permitted to seek whatever happiness is possible without denying another person's right to be left alone. If starvation and disease are the result of unjust interference with a person's ability to pursue self-determined ends, then rectification is demanded by even the most lenient of libertarian theories of justice. While starvation and poor health are often the results of war and brutal government, corporate malfeasance or indifference has created massive suffering in the world (including supporting brutal governments). Corporations amass enormous fortunes through the denial of even the most basic human rights, the right to be left alone. This presentation offers a philosophical defense of negative rights, provides examples of such violations of negative rights, and offers modest solutions for rectifying human rights abuses.