Rights and Right-Holding : A Philosophical Investigation

Abstract

Rights and Right-Holding presents a rigorous philosophical investigation of the two phenomena mentioned in its title. With a lengthy exposition of the analysis of legal and moral positions that was propounded in the early twentieth century by the American legal theorist Wesley Hohfeld, it plumbs the logical relationships among such positions, and it amplifies the Hohfeldian analysis by showing how logical quantification has to be incorporated into Hohfeld’s schema. The volume then ponders the longstanding debates over the Interest Theory of right-holding versus the Will Theory of right-holding, as it champions the Interest Theory while undertaking some lengthy and innovative critiques of the Will Theory. Finally, it considers at length the ethical and analytical questions involved in ascertaining what sorts of beings are capable of holding claim-rights at all. In so doing, the book delves deeply into some foundational matters of moral and political philosophy even while it continues to engage with subtle points of logical quantification and analysis. It concludes that the beings capable of holding claim-rights include not only human adults of sound mind but also all other living human beings, many dead people, all future generations of people, and most non-human animals.