[VOL. 48: 773, 20111 Socioeconomic Rights and Theories ofJustice SAN DIEGO LAW REVIEW life, and so on. They might figure that serious limitations on the upside prospects of social arrangements would be justified for the sake of avoiding these desperate possibilities. If this was their approach, then they would, in effect, have adopted something very similar to what we call socioeconomic rights-rights calculated to ensure that those in a society who are materially radically disadvantaged are, if possible, raised by collective provision above the level of radical disadvantage.7 2 It seems to me that this is the most promising avenue for the generation of something like a fundamental right to welfare provision. But it is worth noting that given the level at which it emerges in, say, a neo-Rawlsian theory of justice, there is much more work to be done before we can conclude that such a theory requires that people in a wellordered society actually be vested with such a right. (I will discuss this further in Part VIII.) VI. CHOICE AND PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY Many of those who would benefit if socioeconomic rights were recognized are destitute and in need of the assistance that these rights afford through no fault of their own. Others, however, are destitute because of bad choices they have made. Some are in need because of sheer bad luck that has nothing to do with choices they made; others are in need because they chose to take, and hoped to benefit from, a risk that had penury as one of its possible outcomes. Again, some are in need of the help that such rights require because neither they nor their parents nor their grandparents ever had access to anything remotely like a fair share of their society's-or the world's-wealth or a fair opportunity to make a decent and self-sufficient life for themselves. But this is not true of everyone, for some may have squandered a fair share and need assistance now on account of their own lack of prudence. It is possible to defend socioeconomic rights in a way that makes distinctions like these irrelevant at a certain level of compelling need. A starving person is a starving person, we might say, and they have a right to our help even when they are responsible for their predicament or even 72. Elsewhere I have argued that this position is also supported by what Rawls says about the impact of "strains of commitment" on reasoning in the original position. See Jeremy Waldron, John Rawls and the Social Minimum, 3 J. APPLIED PHIL. 21, 21 (1986), reprinted in JEREMY WALDRON, LIBERAL RIGHTS: COLLECTED PAPERS 1981- 1991, at 250, 250 (1993). 797