The Human Right to Health: Empathy and Universal Human Dignity Versus Apathetic Capitalism

Abstract

The human right to health as a concept continues to face many challenges. The ineffective role of the World Health Organization in previous decades and the rise of neoliberal capitalism have contributed significantly to the "shaky foundations" of the human right to health and the "conventional reluctance" to accept the so-called broad understanding of health, depicted in this paper as the social determination of health. This concept means that health (like positive and negative health outcomes) results from structural, racial, and class differences. On the other hand, the separation of reason and emotions in today's prevailing positivistic epistemology in social sciences is another crucial factor in the slow development of the human right to health. This separation has manifested itself in human rights studies by overlooking the concept of empathy in legitimizing the universality of human rights, even though empathy is a critical concept in understanding the universal moral dignity of human beings. Furthermore, these epistemological problems are compounded by the capitalist ethos, which leads to the hardening of personality and an empathy gap that contributes to the challenges in developing the human right to health. Empathy is necessary to understand health's social determination and fully develop the human right to health, but positivistic social sciences and capitalism-driven reason undermine it. 

Take-home message: Policymakers are urged to integrate empathy and a broader understanding of health determinants into their strategies to ensure the universal realization of health rights and address the underlying social and economic disparities.

Keywords: Capitalism, empathy, health, human rights, human dignity, human right to health