Irreducibly social goods as a presupposition for the defense of collective rights

Abstract

The present study analyses the taylorian concept of irreducibly social goods. Besides that, aims to evaluate the possibity of existence of intrinsically social goods, or if all the goods, ultimately, shoud be understood only as goods originally formulated as individual goods. If there are intrinsically social goods, what consequence does this point of view have for the treatment of collective rights? The treatment of these questions is carried out by Taylor’s article Irreducibly Social Goods, where the Canadian philosopher states that there are convergent goods and irreducibly social goods. Convergent goods would be those that can be broken down into individual goods, that is, those that only individual can access; on the other hand irreducibly social goods are those shared by a human group or having a common meaning given by a background, this goods have not be broken down into individual goods. Finally, the study aims to present the consequences of this discussion in relation to the concept of collective rights.