2003年6月

國家應維護社會權嗎？評當代反社會權論者的幾項看法
Ought Social Rights to be Protected by the State? On Some Contemporary Cirticisms of Social Rights

研究論文 Research Article

陳宜中
I-chung Chen

309-338

本文從政治哲學的角度探討社會權的理論意涵，並針對當代反社會權論者的幾項看法，進行分析和評估。社會權的理論家們認爲，社經基本需要之滿足必須視爲是公民之基本權利，以及一項最基本的社經正義原則。反對者則認爲社會權是一種「積極」權利而不應予以保障，因其違背了古典自由主義對權利與正義之「消極」理解及對國家角色之認定。批評者指出，社會權是一種施加於國家及第三人某些積極義務之權利，而此種積極權利的問題在於：請求稀少資源；內容、程度及實現與否難以判定；不具普遍性；所隱含的權利義務關係不夠明確；與私產權相衝突；以矯治後果或事態爲目的。本文針對這些看法進行評估，並說明其爲什麼是不成功的。本文認爲，社經基本需要之滿足是一項正當的社經正義／權利主張，旨在釐清究竟哪些社經事務具有政治道德上的重要性，而必須予以高度關切。儘管社會權仍必須面對不少理論與實踐上的難題，但此種權利之「積極」或「消極」與否，並非其是否應予保障之問題關鍵。

Social rights are widely viewed as a species of 'positive rights', namely rights that impose 'positive obligations' on the state and other people, demanding that they act in certain ways for the right-holders. According to some contemporary critics of social rights, 'positive rights' should not be enforced by the state and treated as a matter of justice. Being positive, social rights are said to be problematic in the following ways: they are inevitably asserted to scarce goods and therefore do not possess the property of compossibility; they are highly indeterminate and not easily ascertainable; they cannot claim the property of universality; they do not entail correlative obligations; their realization necessitates a redistribution of resources that violates rights of legitimate property­holders; and they involve an erroneous conception of justice. This article shows that none of these arguments has any significant force. The dis­tinction between negative and positive rights is one thing; whether social rights ought to be protected by the state is quite another. The former has to do with different occasions for performance, not issues of moral importance.

社會權, 正義, 積極權利, 消極權利, 自由主義
social rights, justice, positive rights, negative rights, liberalism

政治學
Political Science

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