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Hinckley forum highlights human right to subsistence; speakers say legal remedies remain limited
Summary
At a University of Utah Hinckley event, Professor Elizabeth Ashford and colleagues discussed the right to subsistence—basic food, water, shelter—and participants pressed for remedies, with former Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson asking where enforceable relief exists locally.
Professor Elizabeth Ashford, a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of St. Andrews, framed the right to subsistence at a Hinckley Institute forum at the University of Utah on Oct. 24, 2025, and described its scope and the difficulty of finding legal remedies.
Ashford defined the right to subsistence as “the basic essentials of life. So, adequate food, sufficient water, safe uncontaminated water, safe air, and protection from the elements,” and said the right imposes both negative duties not to actively deprive people of those means and positive duties to secure basic living standards.
Ashford and other…
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