This chapter contains section titled: Human Rights in Rawls's The Law of Peoples Human Rights as Universal Claim Rights Human Rights Minimalism and the Problem of Justification Acknowledgments Notes.

This paper explores the relationship between a person's claim right not to be harmed and the duties this claim confers on others. I argue that we should reject Jonathan Quong's evidence-based account of this relationship, which holds that an agent A's possession of a claim against B is partly determined by whether it would be reasonable for A to demand B's compliance with a correlative duty. When B's evidence is that demanding compliance would not be reasonable, A (...) cannot have a claim against B. I suggest that some of the putatively problematic cases that Quong identifies can be resolved by plausibly narrowing the scope of the right not to be harmed. I also argue that Quong's view leads to implausible conclusions, and that his account of what happens to A's claim in the face of lesser-evil justifications is inconsistent with his broader view. I then defend the view that agents are required, and not merely permitted, to act on lesser-evil justifications. I further argue that A may not defend herself against the infliction of harms that are justified on lesser-evil grounds. However, she may defend herself in cases where B is only evidentially, and not objectively, justified in harming her. (shrink)

Most challenges to immigration restrictions have not shown that states lack a claim-right to exclude, or a moral right against outside interference to make membership decisions. And an important, unexamined aspect of the claim-right is that states have the right against interference to wrongfully exclude, or the right to do wrong when making admission decisions. A major implication of this right is that even political or economic measures to affect states’ immigration policies are off the table – significantly (...) compromising the prospect of meaningfully addressing the world’s growing refugee crisis. In the form of a reductio argument, I provide reason to reject this position. Specifically, I try to demonstrate that, in the relevant cases, a plausible moral defense for the right to wrongfully exclude can only be given for states with objectionable character – protecting the very states whose immigration policies we should be most concerned with, which is surely morally counterintuitive. (shrink)

This paper is not so much concerned with the question under which circumstances self-defense is justified, but rather with other normative features of self-defense as well as with the source of the self-defense justification. I will argue that the aggressor’s rights-forfeiture alone – and hence the liberty-right of the defender to defend himself – cannot explain the intuitively obvious fact that a prohibition on self-defense would wrong victims of attack. This can only be explained by conceiving of self-defense also (...) as a claim-right. However, I will also argue that a claim-right cannot ground the self-defense justification either. Rather, what grounds the self-defense justification and its particular strength and scope is the fact that self-defense is an act-specific agent-relative prerogative: a defender is allowed to give particularly grave weight to his interest in engaging in self-defense, which distinguishes self-defense from most other acts. This is not the same as saying that he has a right or a liberty to engage in self-defense. Thus, self-defense, understood as a normative concept, is a claim-right, a liberty-right, and an act-specific agent-relative prerogative. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This is a new analysis of rights, particularly of the paradigm: the claim-right. The new analysis makes better sense of rights than the leading alternatives do. The new analysis handles all of the well-known counterexamples to the Will and Interest theories; it seems not to generate counterexamples of its own; and it solves many long-standing puzzles in the theory of rights. Moreover, the central concepts of the new theory are as salient and forceful as are (...) class='Hi'>rights themselves. (shrink)

In the contemporary philosophical literature, political legitimacy is often identified with a right to rule. However, this term is problematic. First, if we accept an interest theory of rights, it often remains unclear whose interests justify a right to rule : either the interest of the holders of this right to rule or the interests of those subject to the authority. And second, if we analyse the right to rule in terms of Wesley Hohfeld’s characterization of rights, we (...) find disagreement among philosophers about what constitutes the conceptual core of political authority: a power-right or a claim-right to rule. In this paper I show that both of these are problematic for a number of reasons. First, if we think that it is only the interests of the holders of a right to rule that justify the possession of authority, the conceptual core of authority must consist in a claim-right. However, this understanding of authority biases our thinking about legitimacy in favor of democratic exercises of power. Second, if we hold such a decisively democratic view of legitimacy, we confront an impasse with respect to addressing global collective action problems. Although it is clear that political authority is necessary or useful for solving these issues, it is doubtful that we can establish global institutions that are democratically authorized anytime soon. The paper suggests an alternative ‘Power-Right to Command View’ of political legitimacy that avoids the democratic bias and allows for thinking about solutions to global problems via global service authorities. (shrink)

The right to self‐defense has played a major role in objections to gun regulation. Many contend that gun regulations threaten this right. While much philosophical discussion has focused on the relation between guns and this right, less attention has been paid to the argument for the right of self‐defense itself. In this article, I examine this argument. Gunrights defenders contend that the right of self‐defense is needed to explain why interferences in self‐defense are wrong. I propose an alternative explanation for (...) such wrongs, one which does not posit the existence of a self‐defense right, and then show how it undermines their claim that there exists a strong presumption against gun regulation. I conclude by articulating the implications of this alternative explanatory account for other rights. (shrink)

My task here is to articulate my own novel hybrid theory of (claim-)rights, namely, the Tracking Theory of rights. While new, it has historical antecedents. There is nothing (entirely) new under the sun. Its most vivid antecedents come from the fields of epistemology, in particular Robert Nozick's work, and legal philosophy, in particular Gopal Sreenivasan's work. I am happy to stand on the shoulders of giants. Here I want to freshly articulate the theory from the ground up. (...) So the challenge will be to keep the articulation of the Tracking Theory front and centre, but, naturally, indebtedness to Nozick and Sreenivasan will be woven in at multiple junctures. My Tracking Theory will neither stand nor fall with Nozick's. The relation is more subtle. The strategy is to trade on the indubitable subtlety of Nozick's epistemology to capture the structure of a central normative concept. (shrink)

Leif Wenar’s kind-desire theory states that an individual holds a claim-right against an agent only because she has reason to desire, as a member of a particular social or natural kind, that the agent fulfil his duty. He argues that the kind-desire theory is superior to the interest theory of claim-rights, which states that an individual holds a claim-right against an agent only because his duty is in some manner beneficial to her. I compare the merits (...) of the kind-desire theory and a justificatory interest theory, and argue that the kind-desire theory does not satisfy two conditions for a satisfactory analysis of claim-rights as well as this justificatory interest theory. (shrink)

My task here is to articulate my own novel hybrid theory of (claim-)rights, namely, the Tracking Theory of rights. While new, it has historical antecedents. There is nothing (entirely) new under the sun. Its most vivid antecedents come from the fields of epistemology, in particular Robert Nozick's work, and legal philosophy, in particular Gopal Sreenivasan's work. I am happy to stand on the shoulders of giants. Here I want to freshly articulate the theory from the ground up. (...) So the challenge will be to keep the articulation of the Tracking Theory front and centre, but, naturally, indebtedness to Nozick and Sreenivasan will be woven in at multiple junctures. My Tracking Theory will neither stand nor fall with Nozick's. The relation is more subtle. The strategy is to trade on the indubitable subtlety of Nozick's epistemology to capture the structure of a central normative concept. (shrink)

My task here is to articulate my own novel hybrid theory of (claim-)rights, namely, the Tracking Theory of rights. While new, it has historical antecedents. There is nothing (entirely) new under the sun. Its most vivid antecedents come from the fields of epistemology, in particular Robert Nozick's work, and legal philosophy, in particular Gopal Sreenivasan's work. I am happy to stand on the shoulders of giants. Here I want to freshly articulate the theory from the ground up. (...) So the challenge will be to keep the articulation of the Tracking Theory front and centre, but, naturally, indebtedness to Nozick and Sreenivasan will be woven in at multiple junctures. My Tracking Theory will neither stand nor fall with Nozick's. The relation is more subtle. The strategy is to trade on the indubitable subtlety of Nozick's epistemology to capture the structure of a central normative concept. (shrink)

My task here is to articulate my own novel hybrid theory of (claim-)rights, namely, the Tracking Theory of rights. While new, it has historical antecedents. There is nothing (entirely) new under the sun. Its most vivid antecedents come from the fields of epistemology, in particular Robert Nozick's work, and legal philosophy, in particular Gopal Sreenivasan's work. I am happy to stand on the shoulders of giants. Here I want to freshly articulate the theory from the ground up. (...) So the challenge will be to keep the articulation of the Tracking Theory front and centre, but, naturally, indebtedness to Nozick and Sreenivasan will be woven in at multiple junctures. My Tracking Theory will neither stand nor fall with Nozick's. The relation is more subtle. The strategy is to trade on the indubitable subtlety of Nozick's epistemology to capture the structure of a central normative concept. (shrink)

My dissertation seeks to understand our concept of moral claim-rights---rights of one person against another. It achieves this understanding by doing two main things: analyzing our concept of moral claim-rights in terms of our concept of moral duties; and discerning the role in our moral thinking of our concept of moral duties. Along the way, various views of, and issues surrounding, these two concepts are considered. ;Roughly, my view of our concept of moral claim- (...) class='Hi'>rights is this: X has a moral claim-right against Y that Y do A if and only if whether Y has a moral duty to do A depends on whether X would desire that Y do A were X instrumentally rational and in possession of full relevant information. Suppose Boris has promised Alice that he will paint her house. She thus has a moral claim-right against Boris that he do so. Does this mean Boris has a moral duty to paint her house? No, since Alice might not desire that Boris paint it . ;Generally, my view of the role of our concept of moral duties in our moral thinking is that, as we think, moral duties are some, but not all, of the considerations bearing upon what one ought morally to do. More specifically, "ought morally" has a two-filter structure---an agent ought morally to perform one or another of those actions available to her which survives two successive stages of filtering. The first stage of filtering involves trading-off considerations of moral duty against those of overall goodness, while the second stage involves trading-off considerations of overall goodness against those of personal interest. In illustration of the first stage, where moral duties are involved, suppose that Alice can make some net contribution to the overall good by slapping Boris. Since Alice has a moral duty not to slap Boris, it is morally impermissible for her to do so unless the contribution she can make to the overall good is quite large. (shrink)

Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

In the last decade, there has been a seismic shift in debates about the ethics of war, a shift that challenges the foundational assumptions of the just war tradition. In the revisionist project responsible for this shift, the key question becomes whether an agent, through their actions, is liable to the use of deadly force. More recently, this revisionist project has been modestly expanded, from considering how killing others could make an agent liable to the use of defensive force to (...) considering how saving or not saving others could do so as well. In this paper, I consider how analyzing questions of liability in this new, expanded domain can highlight important distinctions that we may miss when we consider the same kinds of actions (i.e., killings) time and time again in considerations of self-defense and war. Morally salient elements that would normally be concealed can be revealed, and we can use that insight to consider the paradigmatic case of killing anew. It turns out that a more nuanced understanding of rights – the moral element that is meant to the centerpiece of the revisionist project – can be used to demonstrate a serious limitation for both revisionism and the just war tradition it seeks to replace. One can hold onto one of core aims of the revisionist project, its weary skepticism of the blank pass given by traditional just war theorists to those who fight unjust ad bellum wars, while maintaining that a fuller appreciation of the moral complexities of rights often strengthens, rather than undermines, many of the traditional in bello rules. (shrink)

Negotiation is mainly treated as a process through which counterparts try to satisfy their conflicting interests. This traditional, subjective approach focuses on the interests-based relation between subjects and the resources which are on the bargaining table; negotiation is viewed as a series of joint decisions regarding the relation of each subject to the negotiated resources. In this paper, we will attempt to outline an intersubjective perspective that focuses on the communication-based relation among subjects, a relation that is founded upon communicative (...) rationality mechanisms which are inherent in social activity. Much in contrast to the concept of interests which describe the relationship of each subject alone to the resources, we will use the concept of ?claim-rights? which are properly formed and validated only vis-à-vis negotiating partners and on the basis of the communication that develops among them. We will offer a step-by-step account of the creation of claim-rights and argue that their validation does not necessarily lie in the parties? interests, but in the communication mechanisms that induce consensus and result in mutually acceptable outcomes. (shrink)

Children are often denied rights on the basis of their incompetence. A theory of rights for children is essential for consideration of the child's political status, yet the debate surrounding children's rights has been characterised by the divisive concept of ‘capacity’ typified in the two leading rights theory, Interest Theory and Will Theory. This article will provide a thorough analysis of the relationship between capacity, competence and rights. Although Interest Theory has successfully dealt with the (...) competence requirement for being a right-holder, the competence requirement still holds for the type of rights a child holds. Children's interests are determined sufficiently strong to found a right when the claim-holder has the competence to realise the benefit to which that interest pertains. This allows us to recognise children as right-holders while constraining the types of rights they hold according to their developing competencies. (shrink)

A standard objection to socioeconomic human rights is that they are not claimable as human rights: their correlative duties are not owed to each human, independently of specific institutional arrangements, in an enforceable manner. I consider recent responses to this ‘claimability objection,’ and argue that none succeeds. There are no human rights to socioeconomic goods. But all is not lost: there are, I suggest, human rights to ‘socioeconomic consideration’. I propose a detailed structure for these (...) class='Hi'>rights and their correlative duties, while remaining neutral on substantive moral debates. I argue that socioeconomic-consideration human rights are satisfactorily claimable and sufficiently practical. (shrink)

This paper argues for a conception of the natural rights of non-human animals grounded in Kant’s explanation of the foundation of human rights. The rights in question are rights that are in the first instance held against humanity collectively speaking—against our species conceived as an organized body capable of collective action. The argument proceeds by first developing a similar case for the right of every human individual who is in need of aid to get it, and (...) then showing why the situation of animals is similar. I first review some of the reasons why people are resistant to the idea that animals might have rights. I then explain Kant’s conception of natural rights. I challenge the idea that duties of aid and duties of kindness to animals fit the traditional category of “imperfect duties” and argue that they are instead cases of “imperfect right.” I explain how you can hold a right against a group, and why it is legitimate to conceive of humanity as such a group. I then argue that Kant’s account of the foundation of property rights is grounded in a conception of the common possession of the Earth that grounds a right to aid and the rights of animals to be treated in ways that are consistent with their good. Finally, I return to the objections to the idea that animals have rights and offer some responses to them. (shrink)

Há pelo menos dois registros diferentes sobre o significado de “direitos”. Segundo um deles, os direitos são relações entre dois termos: uma pessoa e um bem; para o outro, os direitos são relações entre três termos: um indivíduo, uma pessoa e uma ação ou algo. Os registros são diferentes, mas não são totalmente incompatíveis. De acordo com a interpretação de direitos como entitlements, trata-se de direitos morais ou legais, ou seja, as relações de ordem moral ou jurídica das pessoas com (...) bens (de benefícios concedidos a pessoas por uma lei humana, moral ou legal). Como uma espécie de direitos, os direitos humanos são vistos como direitos (entitlements) das pessoas ou dos indivíduos a bens essenciais, dos quais podem-se inferir reivindicações (claims) contra outras pessoas ou contra governos e representantes. Falamos sobre direitos humanos geralmente desta forma. Mas de acordo com o outro registro, os direitos em sentido próprio têm que ser interpretados como claims. Neste artigo, pretendo apresentar alguns argumentos em favor da vantagem de expor todos os enunciados significativos dos direitos como entitlements em termos explícitos de claims. (shrink)

By way of conclusion, I have tried to show that rights do not come from nowhere, that is, rights are not sui generis. They come from claims. Rights do not make claims possible; rather claims make rights possible. For out of claims come claims to rights and from the welter of such claims to rights a legal system is established which, after sifting and refining, accepts some claims to rights and dignifies these as (...) deeds, titles, rights and rejects others; and provides rules enabling persons to exercise their rights. A system of rights and rules thus generated gives one the right to make strong claims. Although having a right is not a condition for making a claim, having a right is necessary to sustain and appraise a claim. Appealing to rights enables us to distinguish weak from strong claims. For rights may sustain or rebut claims though they are not themselves claims.How can we appraise claims? A claim to implies a claim that, the latter being an outcome of the former. If the resulting claim is open to appraisal of the sustain/reject or true/false kind, then it is a claim in a sense other than a primitive cry in the wild. If one can go on to say of a claim that is open to appraisal that one has a right to make such a claim or that one has a strong claim, this is to give favorable, initial appraisal to a claim thus made; and is a claim not in a primitive but in a secondary and ultimately more significant sense. (shrink)

These are the answers I gave to Brian Bix, Peter Koller, Ralf Posher, Torben Spaak, Timothy Endicott, and Jan Sieckmann at the end of a splendid conference day in 2018. The critique given to me concerned important aspects of three main themes in my work: the claim to correctness, human and constitutional rights, and the ideal dimension of law. In the last decades I have attempted to connect these themes systematically. The result is the idea of democratic constitutionalism (...) as an institutionalization of practical reason. (shrink)

This article sets out to describe how churches have responded and continue to respond to fast-changing urban environments in Pretoria Central and Mamelodi East, animating Henri Lefebvre’s sociological perspective of citadins or urban inhabitants. We make tentative interpretations and offer critical appreciation. Churches, which were historically separated from the city centre, now directly participate in claiming a right to the city. With necessary fluidity, churches express lived African urbanisms through informality, place-making, spatial innovation and everyday rituals. Though not exhaustive, the (...) article focuses on rituals shared among historic urban Christians and contemporary African urban Christians, namely prayer, listening to the Bible and worship. These rituals, when combined with the churches’ spatial innovation, to a certain degree contribute to place-making. (shrink)

Unless rights are claimable, it is sometimes argued, they are no more than rhetorical gestures which mock the poor and needy. But what makes a right claimable? If rights are to avoid the charge of emptiness, I argue, they must be effectively enforceable. But what does this involve? I identify three conditions of enforceability, and four sets of broader circumstances in which these conditions can be met. I discuss the implications of this analysis of rights for multicultural (...) societies, and conclude that the conditions in which appeals to rights are useful are more limited than many contemporary theorists allow. (shrink)

There is a distinction between two different ways in which people’s interests might figure as inputs into the reasoning that determines verdicts of moral permissibility and impermissibility. Their interests may receive a certain priority in that reasoning, as for example the interests of the people whose lives are at stake in the famous Bystander example should. Or they may not, as for example the interests in spectacle that people watching on the sidelines might have should not. A theory of (...) class='Hi'>rights needs to make sense of this distinction. One of the chief attractions of Alec Walen’s theory of rights in The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War is that it promises to do so, thanks to the concept of a claim that it introduces and the structural role this concept plays in the theory. However, I argue here that the substantive content of the mechanics of claims – in particular, a principle Walen calls the ‘welfare principle’ – privileges welfare interests to a degree that threatens to undermine the theory’s advantages. I consider and reject some ways of modifying the welfare principle so as to avoid this implication, suggesting that their failure raises much deeper questions of moral theory that must be confronted if the mechanics of claims is to make good on its promise. (shrink)

I have contended that acting on some principle and complaining when others act in accordance with the same principle in similar circumstances is morally improper. By wrongdoing one forfeits the right to claim the right (s)he disregards in interacting with others. This is not equivalent to a view that one's acting in a certain way justifies others acting in that way, i.e. that by wrongdoing one forfeits rights (s)he disregards in interacting with others. It may still be morally (...) improper to treat malfeasors in the same way they treat us but, I have argued, they cannot themselves claim a right not to be treated in that way.This analysis of the right to claim rights can help explain the change in moral status of wrongdoers in two important ways. First, if there are some non-forfeitable human rights, the loss of moral standing of one who disregards those rights in others can be explained. Second, and perhaps potentially more important, if having a right implies the right holder's being justified in claiming it, we have a basis for saying all human rights are forfeitable.This second position would require a tightening of the link between the right to X and the ancillary right to claim the right to X. I have not undertaken that burden here. Instead, I argued that the loss of the right to claim is, itself, a significant loss. (shrink)

The paper argues that promise rights presuppose independently existing (if not pre-existing) claims. The argument relies on the Bifurcation Thesis, according to which all claims, and all rights, can be exhaustively divided into two categories: capacity based and exercise based.

Journal Name: The Law & Ethics of Human Rights Issue: Ahead of print.

This paper focuses on the current international refugee crisis and the ways in which it is leading to sharp symbolic and physical violence through the process of “othering.” Based on Hannah Arendt’s discussion of statelessness and the question of the right to have rights, and Giorgio Agamben’s discussion of Homo Sacer, as well as drawing on other key authors such as Judith Butler, we argue that conditions of extreme human vulnerability and dangers of totalitarianism are being radically worsened by (...) the ethnicized and racialized denial of the other, that is, of human rights. Rather than advocating an abstract cosmopolitanism, however, without strong purchase in contemporary social life, the paper concludes by noting the need to place oneself in a position of discomfort, in order to confront the tension between particularistic attachments and universalist aspirations, between the multiplicity of laws and the ideal of a rational order common to all polities, between belief in the unity of humankind and the healthy antagonisms and tensions generated by human diversity. (shrink)

This essay assesses the oft‐made link between Walter Rauschenbusch and Martin Luther King Jr. Denying neither Rauschenbusch’s influence on King nor King’s social gospel status, it nevertheless questions the way historians locate Rauschenbusch’s legacy in King and the civil rights movement. This strategy, however unintentionally, reproduces the white social gospel’s “astigmatism” on race and undermines the contributions of black social gospel (and other neglected) leaders even as revised histories affirm them. After exploring King’s references to Rauschenbusch and Rauschenbusch’s reflections (...) on race, the paper compares their theologies. This comparison reveals key differences on race and economic justice that ramify across Rauschenbusch’s and King’s distinctive articulations of social gospel categories, further complicating historians’ claims on King. Oversimplifying the connection between these important figures in religious ethics distorts theological understanding of social gospel legacies and compromises their power for future generations. (shrink)

This paper investigates how a performative understanding of a woman’s right to care can become part of a feminist politics which is able to transcend the well-worn dichotomies we find both within and without feminist literature, such as difference versus equality, difference versus repronormativity, and rights as freedom versus rights as domination. Drawing on my own research, I argue that claiming the right to care does not simply push women more deeply into motherhood resulting in even more control (...) and regulation of their lives, but that claiming care rights enables women to speak for themselves. Following the work of Linda Zerilli this paper argues that claiming women’s rights should, above all, be viewed as performative activities which contribute to democratic practices. (shrink)

I propose a model for the development of citizen rights based on the advance of political and social rights and apply it to contemporary claims regarding environmental rights. In terms of this “claims and attenuations” model, I sketch the roles of environmental philosophers and activists, the media and public opinion, and political insiders in the development of positive rights. I then predict a weakeningof environmental claims and a marginalization of environmental philosophies as environmental claims are secured (...) as positive rights. (shrink)

I propose a model for the development of citizen rights based on the advance of political and social rights and apply it to contemporary claims regarding environmental rights. In terms of this “claims and attenuations” model, I sketch the roles of environmental philosophers and activists, the media and public opinion, and political insiders in the development of positive rights. I then predict a weakeningof environmental claims and a marginalization of environmental philosophies as environmental claims are secured (...) as positive rights. (shrink)

Most of us have certain intuitions about moral rights, at least partially captured by the ideas that: (A) rights carry special weight in moral argument; (B) persons retain their rights even when they are legitimately infringed; although (C) rights undoubtedly do conflict with one another, and are sometimes overridden as well by nonrights considerations. I show that Dworkin's remarks about rights allow us to affirm (A), (B), and (C), yet those remarks are extremely vague. I (...) then argue that Feinberg's more comprehensive and precise theory, designed to do justice to all three theses, cannot assure us of (A), that rights are not merely one consideration to be weighed in the balance with heterogeneous others. I show how Feinberg accepts (C) despite being drawn toward an alternative absolutist theory of rights and commits himself to (B) through his rejection of prima facie rights. But his promising distinction between recognition and enforcement of a right, which helps give some sense to (B) despite its tension with (C), undermines the force of rights in moral argument apparently intended by (A). We thus learn that Feinberg's and Dworkin's accounts of rights are incompatible, though each is correct in important ways. Contrasting their views allows us to clarify the implications and consistency of alternative theses about rights, one step toward meeting the challenge of developing a theory which shows more adequately how respect for rights is to be combined with other intuitions about rights and their relation to other values. (shrink)

This essay is a foray into the question of whether the language of human rights might one day serve to put decisions of human reproduction into the framework of accountability to social and ecological justice. Two possibilities seem to present themselves: extending moral concern to beings who have not been considered worthy of it so that they are accorded biotic rights and enlarging the definition of rights so that the umbrella is natural rights, with human (...) class='Hi'>rights constituting only a subset of such rights. (shrink)

This paper argues that Susan James' definition of rights as 'enforceable claims' suffers from key faults based in its descriptive approach to a normative and evaluative concept (rights). James cannot explain key and valuable functions of the concept of rights as action-guiding and reason-giving, and some upshots of the view are inconsistent with the reasons one would appeal to rights as a distinctive concept. On her view it is difficult to explain how a right can be (...) violated, given that violation appears to imply lack of effective enforcement. (shrink)

Sue James recommends an 'enforcement account' of rights, where a right is to be understood simply as an enforceable claim. I show that adopting this analysis of rights implies giving up non-rhetorical, important, uses of the word 'right' which are possible on the best alternative theory of rights to James's position: the ability to deny a moral right's existence, even where claims are effectively enforced; the notion of a right's violation; and the idea that rights (...) imply entitlement to make a demand, and not just enforcement of demands. Thus, adopting James's position implies giving up much more than mere rhetoric about rights. (shrink)