The right not to be hungry

Amartya Sen

pp. 343-360

in: Guttorm Fløistad (ed), La philosophie contemporaine / Contemporary philosophy, Berlin, Springer, 1982

Abstract

Do people have a right to be free from hunger? This is asserted often enough, but what does it stand for? It is, of course, tempting to say: Nothing at all. But that piece of sophisticated cynicism provides not so much a penetrating insight into the practical affairs of the world, but merely a refusal to investigate what people mean when they assert the existence of rights that, for much of humanity, are plainly not guaranteed by the existing institutional arrangements.