Lions, Language and Rights. On the Existence of Social Rights (Reply to Fernando Atria)

Abstract

This comment will focus on Atria's thesis according to which the notion of social rights is a contradiction in terms, a statement that is based on a structural analysis of subjective rights. I will present my comments to these statements in four points. The first focuses on showing that the simple relational model that Atria relies on to explain the entire language of rights is not the only one. The second point is a criticism of Atria's notion of subjective right, and I defend the need for a notion that allows making the distinction between "having a right" and "having a guarantee". In the third point, I address the problem of the political notion of rights that Atria suggests as an alternative; I try to show how his notion does not overcome the same criticisms that he makes of the notion of subjective rights, and I argue for the need to distinguish between a moral, a legal and a political concept. In the last point I analyze what are, in any case, some of the problems that must be addressed in the translation of social problems in terms of rights and obligations.