Book Details

Internet Resource: Please Login to download book

The justified-constraint theory avoids the problems which have bedeviled the interest/benefit theories and the choice/will theories. It also solves the puzzle of the relational nature of rights. On the justified-constraint view, an obligation correlative to a right is to the right-holder when it is a feature of the right-holder that justifies the obligation. The analysis also shows that, as far as the concept of rights is concerned, any sort of individual or group can have rights. The limits on what sorts of things have rights are substantive, not conceptual. Moreover, the justified-constraint solves the problem of the rights of past and future generations.