While paying "lip service" to rights in the sense just discussed, some have proposed to include further "rights," such as a "right to health care" or a "right to decent shelter," under the same umbrella. Certainly, health care and shelter are objective values and are therefore ethically desirable ends of human action; it is "right" (adjective) that human beings should desire and seek such things. A little reflection, however, shows that they cannot represent general moral principles and cannot belong to the concept of rights (noun). For example, Crusoe, alone on his island, is likely to be largely deprived of medical care. If there is a right to health care, then whom are we to indict for violating that right? Clearly, there is no issue of moral sanction in such cases.

Moreover, there are fundamental differences of kind necessitating a conceptual distinction between (1) such values as shelter and medical care and (2) the conditions associated with freedom of action, which we recognize as rights. The latter conditions—namely, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (i. e., property)—are social preconditions for the former values, but not vice versa. Metaphysically, human beings require freedom of action in order to produce shelter, health care, and similar values. In fact, as this freedom is eroded, such material values come to be in increasingly short supply. But shelter, medical care, and the like do not enable the individual to "produce" his or her freedom of action, because freedom is ultimately a social requirement. Its implementation requires that the rights to life, liberty, and property be recognized across society. Therefore, while shelter and medical care are highly important, they do not belong on the same conceptual hierarchical level as do those conditions recognized as rights.