The Relevancy of Fully Authentic Agency in Brownlee's Human Right against Social Deprivation

1 The Relevancy of Fully Authentic Agency in Brownlee’s Human Right against Social Deprivation Chance Everett April, 20 2017 PHIL499 Senior Project 2 Human rights debates attempt to determine what universal human rights are; by this, I mean both what the definition of universal human rights is and which rights fit that definition, as well as what conditions enable or hinder these rights. The United Nations (U.N.) is the legal authority in regards to establishing and legislating these rights. Thus far, the U.N. has declared the existence of thirty human rights. This paper will respond to an argument for the need to either add or expand upon the U.N.’s current list of human rights. The article, “A Human Right against Social Deprivation” by Kimberley Brownlee, argues for why a human right against social deprivation is necessary and what it entails, justifies her reasoning, and rebuts several objections to her suggestion of a human right against social deprivation. My thesis is that, because protection against social deprivation and the ability for fully authentic agency are contingent on each other, Brownlee does not adequately prioritize autonomy or the protection of fully authentic agency in her argument for a human right against social deprivation. In this paper, I am defining agency as the ability to act, autonomy as the ability to self-govern, and fully authentic agency as the ability to perform self-governed actions. Brownlee begins her paper by pointing out that social rights are typically absent in human rights debates. Social rights are usually based on a belief in human beings’ rights to dignity and freedom (NESRI). Social rights as human rights are often denied, based on the claims that they are idealizations, unrealistic, etc. However, many largely acknowledged and agreed upon human rights, such as the right to life, liberty, and security of person and the right to recognition as a person before the law, are foundationally contingent upon the protection of basic social needs, such as the right to live. In fact, I would argue that if protection of our basic social needs fails to exist or fails in execution in the form of social rights, every single one of the thirty human rights the U.N. has declared are put at risk, because a human right against social deprivation is 3 necessary for of each of them. A few of the human rights recognized by the U.N. are the following: All human beings are born free and equal, no one should be subjected to torture, all are equal before the law, no one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest, and all have the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, etc. Because basic social needs must be met for the protection of the exercising of those rights that have been declared by the U.N., the environment which establishes the conditions for those needs to be met must be protected by a human right against social deprivation. Some argue that the main social right that humans are entitled to is subsistence (Shue). James Nickel, however, argues that human rights are “concerned with ensuring the conditions, negative and positive, of a minimally good life,” and that a minimally good life goes beyond subsistence (386). Brownlee agrees with Nickel when she claims that, because social rights are concerned with having a minimally good life, they are not focused solely on subsistence. But she disagrees with his following statement regarding human rights: “These standards should not much be concerned with promoting the highest possible standards of living or with identifying the best or most just form of economic system. Rather they should attempt to address the worst problems and abuses in the economic area” (Nickel 386). She responds to Nickel by stating that by focusing solely on the economic area, he implies that economic needs are more important than social needs and/or that our social needs may be accounted for if economic needs are satisfied because they are derivative of them. Regardless, these assumptions are false, according to Brownlee. Because Western culture promotes the ideal individual as being self-sufficient and independent, we may assume that many of our social needs are the responsibilities of individuals, or simply not consider them because they are taken for granted. Therefore, acknowledgement of social rights is often neglected. Social rights protect social conditions that are necessary for 4 human beings to be able to account for their basic social needs. Economic rights protect economic conditions that are necessary for human beings to be able to account for their basic economic needs. Brownlee argues that the deprivation of economic rights is not “disvaluable” intrinsically, it is only “disvaluable” instrumentally (Brownlee 203). What she means is that social rights have intrinsic value as well as functional value, and their deprivation holds negative value in itself, whereas economic rights have only functional value and their deprivation holds negative value only functionally (as means to an end). Economic rights are meant to protect means to ends, but social rights protect ends in themselves, the ends in this case being the protection of the ability for one to have a minimally good life. Focusing solely on subsistence and economic rights provides an unsatisfactorily narrow conception of the conditions necessary to have a minimally good life. The subsistence-based conception seems to be focused more on ensuring the continuance of one’s having a life than enabling one to live a meaningful life. Under one theory of human rights, James Griffin asserts, “Human beings have the capacity to form pictures of what a good life would be and to try to realize these pictures. We value our status as agents especially highly, often more highly even than our happiness. Human rights can then be seen as protections of our agency – what one might call personhood” (4). By this conception, social rights are of utmost importance. If one’s agency is viewed as their ability to form pictures of a good life and to try to realize those pictures, then we must significantly consider agency as a foundational principle when contemplating what, why, and how human rights exist. Brownlee is arguing for the recognition of a human right against social deprivation. The right can be seen largely as a social right, but also as an economic right, a civil right, and a political right. The protection of this right is necessary as part of having a minimally good life. 5 “The term ‘social deprivation’ does not refer to poverty and its associated ills, but instead to genuine, interpersonal, social deprivation irrespective of economic conditions. Social deprivation is a persisting lack of minimally adequate opportunities for decent or supportive human contact, including interpersonal interaction, associative inclusion, and interdependent care” (Brownlee 199). Brownlee believes that a human right against social deprivation is more important than all other rights besides those she calls brute survival rights. She also believes that by ignoring fundamental human social needs, such as socialization, interpersonal caring, and meaningful associations, and by focusing solely on economic needs, such as food, shelter, and healthcare, we are failing to acknowledge and protect fundamental human social rights. Specifically, she argues for the need to protect a right against social deprivation from threats by arenas of institutional segregation, such as solitary confinement, quarantine, and other forms of isolation, as well as less organized forms of unwanted persistent isolation, and persistently hostile, unjust, degrading, inhumane social environments, such as, potentially, internment camps, prisons, orphanages, senior living facilities, extensively isolated workplaces, etc. Her conceptions of this basic human right against social deprivation are as follows: a. The right is not against freely chosen isolation, but chosen isolation in a socially depriving environment does not qualify as freely chosen. b. The right is not solely protecting against isolation, but also against persisting social conditions that cause a person’s primary sources of interaction to be brutal, hostile, degrading, etc. c. The right does not protect a supposed right to interaction with persons of one’s choosing, such as friends or loved ones, because such persons cannot be produced on demand; however, it protects a right to decent and supportive interaction. (Brownlee suggests a categorized range principle to formulate what minimally adequate opportunities for 6 decent and supportive opportunities are and for whom. Her range principle is based on identifying the generalizable needs of categorical populations and accommodating those groups’ specific needs. Group a necessitates z, groups b necessitates x, etc.) d. The right protects not only against coercive social deprivation, but also against incidental or accidental social deprivation (such as incidental neglect for patients in quarantine). e. The right is not only a negative right against interference with social efforts, but also a positive right that needs to be provided for based upon our needs for minimal opportunities for decent or supportive contact. A human right against social deprivation, as Brownlee describes in points a – e above, adheres to six common human rights tests in chapter 5 of James Nickel’s Making Sense of Human Rights. Brownlee claims that a human right against social deprivation protects against a substantial and recurrent threat and against egregious threat to human dignity. She states it can be a universal right, successfully implemented in most countries, and that no norm weaker than a right can be as effective or sufficiently effective. She also claims that a human right against social deprivation imposes only normative burdens that are not destructive or intrusive to people. Brownlee acknowledges that the successful implementation of a right against social deprivation in most countries today may be problematic, but she contends that justice should not be halted on grounds of the presence of injustice (221). Brownlee’s defense of a human right against social deprivation rests on two claims. The first is that a human right against social deprivation asserts that “we have a human right to those conditions that are necessary for the realization of a minimally decent human life” (208). The second argues that “having minimally adequate opportunities for decent or supportive interpersonal contact and social inclusion is both a necessary condition for a minimally decent 7 life and a constitutive part of such a life” (Brownlee 208). She does not go on to defend her first claim, because it is relatively uncontroversial within the scope of human rights debates. She does, however, give three supporting arguments for her second claim. First, she asserts that human beings are social creatures with basic social needs; therefore, those needs must be protected through social rights (209). Second, human beings are not only dependent on others for their survival, but also for their well-being. Subjection to isolation and chronic loneliness have been proven to lower levels of subjective well-being, as well as to increase risk of conditions such as increased blood pressure, unhealthy weight gain, encountering situations resulting in psychological diagnoses, hindrance of cognitive and physical development, etc. Subjection to long-term isolation is associated with obesity, increased vascular resistance, weakened immune system, alcoholism, suicidal ideation and behavior, and even mortality in older adults (Williams 2126). Her last supporting argument is that human interactions have intrinsic value and that we have a Kantian duty to treat others as ends in themselves. In addition, Brownlee makes four assertions that imply the need for the protection of a human right against social deprivation based on being necessarily fundamental for a minimally decent human life, as follows: 1. “Social deprivation undermines the ability to develop and sustain basic cognitive and physical function. Thus, protection from social deprivation is necessary for the exercise of rights that require basic health, cognition, understanding, and physical aptitude.” (214) 2. “Social deprivation undermines a person’s capacity to understand and to exercise civil and political rights. Thus, protection from social deprivation is necessary for the exercise of first-generation human rights.” (214) 8 3. “Social deprivation puts at risk a person’s brute survival interests in the provision of food, security, and shelter. Thus, protection from social deprivation is necessary to secure the basic rights of subsistence.” (214) 4. “Coercive social deprivation is a severely cruel, inhuman, and degrading form of treatment. And, given its cognitive and physical effects, both coercive and non-coercive social deprivation render a person vulnerable to other types of cruel, inhuman, degrading, or severely unfair treatment. Thus, protection from social deprivation is necessary to reduce vulnerability to such treatment.” (213) She then claims that a few things the right applies to that go beyond a minimally decent human life are things such as protecting conditions necessary for autonomy, an identity, meaningful employment, higher education, love, self-respect, creativity, etc. I agree that social deprivation undercuts conditions for autonomy, but I argue against her consideration of autonomy as being beyond necessary for a minimally good life. I will argue that Brownlee should reconstruct her argument, as well as the implications she provides, for a human right against social deprivation. I agree with Brownlee’s two original claims. The first is that all humans have a right to the conditions necessary for the realization of a minimally good life. The second is that “having minimally adequate opportunities for decent or supportive interpersonal contact and social inclusion is both a necessary condition for a minimally decent life and a constitutive part of such a life” (Brownlee 208). She gives three supporting arguments for her second claim. I argue that her second and third supporting argument are unnecessary. My reasoning is as follows: Her first supporting argument claims that human beings are fundamentally social creatures with basic needs. Basic needs must be protected by the establishment of human rights, including basic social needs. A human right 9 against social deprivation is a basic social need. Therefore, a human right against social deprivation must be established as a human right. If we are to grant human beings rights based on protecting the conditions necessary for the realization of a minimally good life, rather than basing human rights on the protection of brute survival skills (as Brownlee argues for), then protection against social deprivation and survival are contingent on each other, but they are also contingent on the conditions necessary for the realization of a minimally good life, and those conditions depend on their being protected. The protecting of our basic needs and the protection of a human right against social deprivation are rely on each other. The ability to have the conditions necessary for a minimally good life is contingent on a human right against social deprivation. Therefore, I argue that a right against social deprivation, as well as the enabling of the ability for fully authentic agency, and the protection of the conditions that constitute a minimally good life are all contingent on each other because, like Brownlee, I do not believe the existence of human rights should aim towards providing merely brute survival. If human beings are fundamentally social creatures with basic social needs, and one of those needs is to have the conditions necessary for the realization of a minimally good life, then a right against social deprivation is not only essential for survival, but also essential for creating the conditions necessary for the realization of a minimally good life. Therefore, the fact that a right against social deprivation is necessary for survival is accounted for by her claim that our basic human needs must be protected. Her third supporting argument is that a human right against social deprivation must be protected because human interactions have intrinsic value and human beings have a Kantian duty to treat people as ends in themselves. I believe that her claim that human interactions have intrinsic value can be accounted for by her first supporting argument as well, because their 10 intrinsic value is constitutive of the need to protect basic human social needs, and arguably contingent on the protection of basic social needs as well. However, like Brownlee’s dissatisfaction with the deprioritizing of social rights, I am dissatisfied that Brownlee is significantly deprioritizing what she calls a Kantian duty to treat people as ends in themselves, and what I am calling protection of fully authentic agency. In this paper, I am equating what Brownlee refers to as a Kantian duty to treat people as ends in themselves to the protection of fully authentic agency because the two are contingent on each other. The respecting of one’s ability to willfully bring something about (Kantian duty to treat people as ends in themselves) and the protection of one’s ability to govern one’s own actions (fully authentic agency) are contingent on each other. One cannot treat people as ends in themselves without protecting people’s ability to formulate and achieve their own plans. I object to her deprioritizing of the necessary protection of fully authentic agency, which I am defining as the ability to perform self-governed actions, in the structure of her argument. Alan Gewirth argues that denying the value of agency is not an option for human life and that a human life necessitates the indispensable condition of agency (Nickel). I believe Brownlee’s argument that human beings have a Kantian duty to treat others as ends in themselves (protection of fully authentic agency) is accounted for in her first claim in defense of a right against social deprivation, that “we have a human right to those conditions that are necessary for the realization of a minimally decent human life” (208). The realization of a minimally decent human life depends on the protection of fully authentic agency. I argue that Brownlee does not attribute as much value as she should to the fact that the protection of fully authentic agency is a condition necessary for a minimally decent human life in her defense of a human right against social deprivation. We can apply the necessary protection of fully authentic agency to her second claim 11 also, because the protection of fully authentic agency and the ability to have minimally adequate opportunities for decent social contact are contingent on each other. Although Brownlee does support her second claim by using the notion of a Kantian duty to treat people as ends in themselves (protection of fully authentic agency), she does not adequately acknowledge the fact that the protection of fully authentic agency and the ability to have minimally adequate opportunities for decent social contact are contingent on each other, and she claims the ability to have minimally adequate opportunities for decent social contact as a primary justification for a human right against social deprivation. She does argue that “social deprivation undermines a person’s capacity to understand and to exercise civil and political rights,” and she claims that social deprivation undermines the conditions for autonomy (214). She even asserts that “a minimally decent life is one in which persons have the opportunities to develop and maintain these abilities according to their own capacity to do so” (201). Yet, the ability to develop and maintain one’s own abilities is contingent on the protection of fully authentic agency. So, when Brownlee considers the protection of autonomy to be a condition which goes beyond having a minimally good life, I object. I have defined agency as the ability to act, whereas I have defined autonomy as the ability to self-govern. The two are constitutive of each other, but not contingent on each other. Autonomy is contingent upon agency, but agency is not contingent upon autonomy. The exercising of the ability to self-govern (autonomy) is contingent specifically on the ability to choose one’s actions; but, the ability to act (agency), in itself, is not contingent upon the ability to self-govern. Although autonomy and agency are not the same thing, the two blend to form what I am calling fully authentic agency, the ability to perform self-governed actions. I object to her deprioritizing fully authentic agency specifically, in her argument, and especially to her conception that one could have a minimally good life without the protection of 12 fully authentic agency. Because fully authentic agency is contingent on the protection of autonomy, and the protection of autonomy and the conditions for a minimally good life are contingent on each other, conditions for a minimally good life and one’s ability for fully authentic agency are contingent on each other. Protection against social deprivation and fully authentic agency are contingent on each other, so having a minimally good life and protection against social deprivation are contingent on each other. Therefore, conditions for a minimally good life are contingent on the protection of autonomy. The “defining features” section of “Human Rights” in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states, “Most if not all human rights are claim rights that impose duties or responsibilities on their addressees or dutybearers. Rights focus on freedom, protection, status, or benefit for the rightholders….[they]often require actions involving respect, protection, facilitation, and provision” (“Human Rights”, 2). My justifications for the claim that Brownlee significantly deprioritizes agency and autonomy in her argument are based on such focuses. Freedom and fully authentic agency are contingent on each other. The exercising of meaningful freedom is contingent on the protection of fully authentic agency. The protection of fully authentic agency and protection against social deprivation are also contingent on each other. So, a right against social deprivation and the protection of freedom depend on the protection of fully authentic agency. The act of willful protection, itself, requires the guarantee (protection) of fully authentic agency. If status refers to moral status, then the existence of responsibility assumes persons’ fully authentic agency, and the existence of human rights assumes existence of responsibility. If status refers to social standing, it is debatable whether agency is of the absolute highest value to human beings or not because values are socially constructed (the free constructing of those values requires the protection of fully authentic 13 agency), but my argument only claims the need for it to be granted adequate priority. Fully authentic agency is not necessarily a component of benefit itself; however, in the case of Brownlee’s argument for a human right against social deprivation, I argue that the benefits of the protection of a human right against social deprivation depend on the protection of fully authentic agency. The respecting of persons’ fully authentic agency and the respecting of persons’ rights against social deprivation are often the same thing. Adequate respect for one’s right for fully authentic agency, applied to the case of solitary confinement, results in adequately respectful treatment, and therefore the right’s protection becomes unnecessary due to the abolition of solitary confinement practices. The protection of fully authentic agency and the protection of social deprivation are contingent on each other. To willfully protect, facilitate, or provide anything, in this case, against social deprivation, requires the ability for one to decide for oneself and to act based on that decision. I argue that Brownlee should have given more priority to fully authentic agency, and the fact that protection of fully authentic agency and protection against social deprivation are contingent on each other, in the construction of her argument in defense of a human right against social deprivation. Just as failure to protect against social deprivation hinders the exercising of all thirty human rights declared thus far, so does failure to protect fully authentic agency, which is contingent on autonomy. Often, the hindrance of one’s fully authentic agency comes from environments and social structures that have socially depriving practices built into them, such as the practice of solitary confinement within prisons. Often, environments that necessitate protection against social deprivation are brought about by the hindrance of one’s fully authentic agency (contingent on autonomy). If one’s self-governed actions are hindered by an 14 environment, and therefore they are socially deprived, protection from social deprivation is necessary due to their inability to act in a self-governed manner. Brownlee’s first implication of the right against social deprivation asserts that social deprivation undermines the sustenance and development of basic cognitive and physical functions. She then claims that social deprivation is necessary for basic health, cognition, physical aptitude, etc. The significance of one’s health and the protection of fully authentic agency are contingent on each other, because a less than basically healthy life is less than minimally good and arguably not worth living, and a life without the ability for fully authentic agency is also less than minimally good. The fully autonomous exercise of one’s cognition is obviously being threatened by failing to protect one’s ability for autonomy. The meaningful exercise of one’s physical aptitude is contingent on the protection of fully authentic autonomy, and the protection of fully authentic autonomy is constitutive of the meaningful exercise of one’s physical aptitude. Often, the necessary protection of a right against social deprivation is derivative of the need to protect autonomy, because the willful exercise of physical aptitude is contingent on the protection of autonomy. Brownlee’s second implication of the right against social deprivation asserts that social deprivation undermines the understood exercising of basic civil and political rights. The exercise of one’s basic civil and political rights is contingent on fully authentic agency, and thereby contingent on the protection of autonomy. Often, the necessary protection against social deprivation for the exercising of one’s basic civil and political rights is derivative of the necessary protection of fully authentic agency. For example, hindering another’s ability to exercise her right to vote necessitates protection against social deprivation due to the necessary protection of her fully authentic agency. 15 Brownlee’s third implication asserts that social deprivation puts a person’s brute survival interests at risk, such as the provision of food, security, and shelter. Because the provision of food, security, and shelter and the protection of fully authentic agency are contingent on each other, the necessary protection against social deprivation for the provision of food, security, and shelter is often derivative of the necessary protection of fully authentic agency. Brownlee’s fourth implication asserts that coercive social deprivation is inhumane. Her first implication asserts that social deprivation often hinders the sustenance and development of basic cognitive and physical functions and that coercive and non-coercive social deprivation often causes vulnerability to inhumane treatment due to the hindrance of the sustenance and development of basic cognitive and physical functions. Because I have already addressed her first implication, I will simply claim that often in cases the necessary protection against social deprivation is contingent on and/or constitutive of the existence of coercive and non-coercive situations, and those situations are often derivative of the necessary protection of fully authentic agency. This is because the existence of coercive and non-coercive situations is often derivative to the necessary protection of fully authentic agency, and the necessary protection of fully authentic agency is contingent on the protection of autonomy, and protection of a right against social deprivation and fully authentic agency are contingent on each other. She also lists the three implication that go beyond a human right. The first is that social deprivation undermines the conditions for full autonomy, and gives rise to my thesis. Brownlee’s second implication of how protection against social deprivation constitutes the ability for conditions that go beyond a good life asserts that social deprivation hinders equality of opportunity to the extent that equality is contingent upon any or all her first four implications. I will simply assert that the existence of equal opportunity and the protection of fully authentic 16 agency are contingent on each other (example: segregation). Therefore, in this case, the necessary protection against social deprivation is often derivative of the necessary protection of fully authentic agency, and so I object to her assertions that conditions for a minimally good life are not contingent on the protection of equal opportunity. Brownlee’s third implication of how protection against social deprivation constitutes conditions that go beyond a good life asserts that social deprivation undermines a person’s ability to engage with prioritized domains of value such as education, identity, love, etc. Often, necessary protection against social deprivation that is contingent on and/or constitutive of the undermining of one’s ability to engage in prioritized domains of value is derivative of the necessary protection of fully authentic agency, because necessary protection of one’s ability to engage in prioritized domains of value is often contingent on the necessary protection of fully authentic agency, which is contingent on autonomy. I would categorize all of her last three implications as constitutive of the ability to have a minimally good life, but I will not justify my claim, because I am objecting to her deprioritizing autonomy in the construction of her argument for a right against social deprivation. Because subjection to solitary confinement violates a human right against social deprivation and denies the ability for fully authentic agency, and because a minimally good life requires the protection of fully authentic agency and a right against social deprivation, the practice of solitary confinement should be abolished, because it denies one’s ability to have a minimally good life, and such is a denial is a violation of human rights. The necessarily socially depriving environment of solitary confinement denies one’s ability to have a minimally good life by denying opportunity for fully authentic agenc. I will focus on how fully authentic agency is denied to persons in solitary confinement, argue how solitary confinement denies prisoners or 17 others full authentic agency, and explain why I argue for autonomy to be a requisite condition of a minimally good life in the structure of Brownlee’s argument. Solitary confinement was originally lobbied for as a substitute punishment for sentences such as death and other extreme judicial punishments. It was not originally intended to be an institutionalized method of cruel and unusual punishment, but rather a last resort to save an otherwise lost life (Warnes). Prisoners who were given the option of receiving the lash or going into solitary confinement often chose the lash back in the 1800s (Warnes). Many of those who were given the option to have physical pain inflicted on them or temporarily go into solitary confinement chose physical pain, evidence that the psychological tolls were known even in the 1800s (Warnes). Modern conditions of solitary confinement are typically a 6’x7’ cell, always lit, with no personal property allowed inside (e.g. no books), no commissary, no visitation, often no window, and with a one-piece mat-like overall for clothing, etc. The daily routines of practices of solitary confinement vary, but inmates are typically allowed out of the cell for up to one hour, three times a week, to shower and exercise, alone. In her book, Solitary Confinement: Social Death and Its Afterlives, Lisa Guenther writes, “The aim of this current policy is not to enable prisoners to adapt to a new noncriminal life beyond prison but, rather, to adapt to the rules and structures of prison itself” (xvi). 2005 census data estimate that as many as 80,000 prisoners were held in solitary confinement that year; estimates for the 2011-2012 years were as high as 400,000, and in 2014, the Federal Bureau of Prisons stated that about 5% of the federal prison population was being held in restrictive housing (Warnes). Persons may be put into solitary confinement based on officer discretion, or if they are at risk of harm. If prisoners are threatening someone or if an officer often feels it is their duty to place the “at risk” prisoner in solitary confinement, based on their personal assessment of the situation, the “at risk” inmate qualifies 18 for solitary confinement. In many of these cases, the victim is punished and their human rights violated. This method allows officers to target prisoners, if they so choose. However, courts define basic human needs as shelter, food, minimal exercise, minimal hygiene, and basic medical care, all of which they consider to be provided for in solitary confinement, so it remains a prevalent practice within U.S. penal facilities. The fact that solitary confinement has been declared psychological torture and has been shown to decrease mental health and increase mental illness, as well as suicide rates, etc. by leading experts in the field, are not issues the U.S. courts are adequately remedying. Guenther provides excerpts from a first-hand account of a man named Jack Henry Abbott, who committed suicide in a prison cell at the age of 58. From the age of 12 until his death, he spent less than a year outside some form of detention. He spent fourteen to fifteen years total in solitary confinement. He was incredibly articulate about his experiences in his account. Guenther includes one of his excerpts in her book, “’In the American judiciary, anyone who is sent to prison suffers civil death….There is no legal relationship between prisoners, and any social relationship among prisoners [that is] not monitored directly—a “forced” social relationship—by the pigs is in violation of the rules.’” Evidently, there came a time when Jack Henry Abbott decided that such a life was not worth living. Thus he committed suicide. “Article 5 of the American Convention of Human Rights states, ‘punishments consisting of deprivation of liberty shall have as an essential aim the reform and social readaptation of the prisoners’” (Bassett 418). Bassett provides evidence that this might not be the case regarding solitary confinement in the U.S. In “The Constitutionality of Solitary Confinement: Insights from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” she provides a first-hand account of Thomas Silverstein, a man who spent 28 years in prison under orders for no human contact. His account is as follows: “I 19 was confined to a special part of the prison known as the ‘side pocket’….I was deep underground, and there were no windows in the side pocket. The side pocket cells measured approximately six feet by seven feet, almost exactly the size of a standard king mattress….I could lie down, I could sit on my bed, or I could stand….I was permitted to wear underwear but I was permitted no other clothing. Shortly after I arrived, the prison staff began construction on the side pocket cell, adding more bars and other security measures to the cell while I was within it. In order not to be burned by sparks and embers while they welded more iron bars across the cell, I had to lie on my bed and cover myself with a sheet….As they built new walls around me it felt like I was being buried alive. It was terrifying” (Bassett 404). In her article, she writes that experts Craig Haney and Stuart Grassian have interviewed many inmates who have been subjected to prolonged solitary confinement. She states the experts concluded that many of those prisoners had fallen victim to SHU (Secure Housing Unit) Syndrome. Some symptoms of SHU Syndrome are as follows: appetite and sleep disturbances, anxiety, panic, rage, loss of control, paranoia, hallucinations, self-mutilation, insomnia, hypersensitivity, ruminations, cognitive deficiencies, irritability, suicidal ideation and/or behavior, etc. Symptoms may be irreversible after as few as fifteen days (420). Bassett also notes that prisoners will go as far as to throw feces at guards passing their cells out of pure desperation for any form of human interaction, even if that interaction is in the form of reprimand or punishment. Basset’s primary argument against solitary confinement is that “Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs suggest that prisoners in solitary confinement are prevented from belonging, a basic human need” (430). Her argument is intriguing, yet I fear it may not resonate with the public due to issues such as stigmatization, criminalization, socialization, etc. Ultimately, I believe that by granting prisoners the ability for fully authentic agency and respecting their rights against social deprivation (opportunities for 20 decent social contact), or by allowing them to belong, that both the ability for fully authentic agency and having opportunities for decent social contact are more likely to be accomplished. I believe this because for one to truly belong, it is likely that they have been granted ability for fully authentic agency and opportunities for decent human contact which resulted in their belonging. Also, by respecting one’s human right against social deprivation and granting one’s ability for fully authentic agency, they are enabled to act in ways which might produce feelings of belonging. In her article “Older Prisoners and the Physical Health Effects of Solitary Confinement,” Brie Williams claims that subjection to isolation and chronic loneliness have been proven to lower levels of subjective well-being, as well as to increase the risk of things such as increased blood pressure, unhealthy weight gain, attainment of conditions resulting in psychological diagnoses, hindrance of cognitive and physical development, etc., and they are associated with obesity, increased vascular resistance, weakened immune system, alcoholism, suicidal ideation and behavior, and even mortality in older adults (Williams 2126). She also writes, “The sensory deprivation of isolation… causes reductions in auditory or visual stimuli that worsen mental health among individuals of all ages. In the case of older adults, these deprivations can also worsen confusion and memory loss” (2126-7). For older people, exercise is an important preventative measure for heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, etc., and so Williams claims that solitary confinement poses serious health risks for older prisoners. She also argues that shackling older prisoners, especially by the feet, poses great risks as well, because fall-related injuries are the leading cause of death among older adults. By denying older adults the proper exercise and shackling them by their hands and/or feet when they are moved, the practice of solitary confinement significantly increases the risk of injury or death for older prisoners. If 21 such older prisoners were not denied the ability to exercise or to walk without being shackled at the ankles, these risks might be decreased. The protection of their fully authentic agency through a right against social deprivation would protect against such conditions. Brownlee concludes her article by rebutting a few objections to her argument for a human right against social deprivation. The first objection she acknowledges is in regards to ideals of family. This objection is as follows: “It [Brownlee’s conception of a human right against social deprivation] offends the ideal of the family either by threatening to take primary responsibility for social inclusion away from the family or by introducing formal, self-serving language of rights into intimate relations” (Brownlee 215). She rebuts this claim by stating that assertions of the right would be unnecessary in any healthy family or intimate relationship, and unless asserted in a remedial capacity in response to the presence of unjust circumstances, one would not ever need its protection. Her explanation for this is simply that individuals within healthy families would have no need to invoke the right because they are not socially deprived and that individuals within socially depriving families would benefit by the alleviation of an inhumane environment through the protection of a human right against social deprivation. I agree with Brownlee’s rebuttal. However, I do not think that she adequately acknowledges the possibility for very complicated problems that might arise when establishing “self-serving language of rights into intimate relations” within families that have vastly different parenting techniques, religious beliefs and practices, cultural beliefs and practices, socioeconomic backgrounds, family members, etc. All family circumstances cannot be dealt with as simply being deemed just or unjust, and then argue that in unjust circumstances the right applies. I argue that such situations are not so easily discerned as right and wrong, and that in some cases the courts should not even have any authority to make such judgments. I am not offering a solution, because I doubt there is 22 always going to be one; but, I am arguing that Brownlee might take more extreme situations into consideration for her rebuttal. Another objection she rebuts are concerns of institutional feasibility. This objection focuses on unfeasible burdens upon social institutions, unfeasible restrictions on criminal justice practices, and claims that a human right against social deprivation is unfeasible as a universal human right. Her response to the claim of unfeasible burdens on institutions is that the protection of all rights come with costs, and that, ultimately, there is a greater cost to humanity not to guarantee protection of a right against social deprivation than to do so (I agree). Her response to the objection of the right bearing unfeasible burdens on criminal justice practices is that criminal justice practices should not, and do not need to, violate basic human rights to punish prisoners. There are far less cruel practices in prisons, such as keeping an inmates’ cell door closed for a given number of days, that allow them to interact with others who are outside their cells, and simultaneously be punished effectively. To throw someone in a dark hole for months, give them food three times a day, then claim that no other possibilities for punishment exist, was never a reasonable argument to begin with and evidence has only mounted against it. Regarding the hypothetical inability to protect this right universally, Brownlee simply asserts, and I agree, that governments’ allowance of the breach of their citizens’ human rights should not prevent us from doing the right thing, the right thing being protecting their human rights, in this case, specifically, a human right against social deprivation. Conditions of solitary confinement necessitate protection against social deprivation. I argue that this protection is primarily due to the denial of the ability of inmates in solitary confinements for fully authentic agency. The denial of those inmates’ opportunities for minimally decent social contact is a result of the denial of their ability for fully authentic agency. Another result of the 23 denial of their ability for fully authentic agency can be adaptive preference formation. Adaptive preference formation occurs in inmates all throughout the prison complex, but most typically most severely in those subjected to solitary confinement. Adaptive preferences are commonly formed in oppressive circumstances. Due to an inability to satisfy one’s true preferences, those preferences become warped, or adapted to one’s oppressive environment, and thereby cease to be fully authentic. This is because adapted preferences are produced in environments in which one’s autonomy and rationality are being manipulated (Stoljar). Often, conditions of solitary confinement cause one’s autonomy and rationality to be manipulated through the denial of one’s minimally decent opportunities for decent social contact. The denial of one’s ability for fully authentic agency is often a result of adaptive preference formation and/or the denial of their minimally decent opportunities for decent social contact. In the case of solitary confinement, the need for protection against social deprivation (which is necessary as a human right for protecting the conditions that allow humans to have minimally good lives) is derivative of the denial of one’s fully authentic agency due to subjection to conditions which deny one’s ability for full autonomy. Therefore, I argue that Brownlee should reconstruct her argument structure to include the conditions for full autonomy as necessary for a minimally good life. Works Cited 24 Brownlee, Kimberley. "A Human Right Against Social Deprivation." The Philosophical Quarterly63.251 (2013): 199-222. Web. "Economic and Social Rights." Economic and Social Rights | NESRI | National Economic & Social Rights Initiative. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2017. Griffin, James. "Discrepancies Between the Best Philosophical Account of Human Rights and the International Law of Human Rights." 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"Older Prisoners and the Physical Health Effects of Solitary Confinement." American Journal of Public Health106.12 (2016): 2126-127. Web.