On the nature of rights

This chapter presents the importance of rights in morality and political theory. Philosophical definitions of rights attempt to capture the way the term is used in legal, political and moral writing and discourse. The chapter explains various features of the definition and criticize some alternative definitions. Some discourse of rights is of rights as viewed from the point of view of a certain system of thought, as when one compares Kantian rights with Utilitarian rights. The duties grounded in a right may be conditional. It is sometimes argued that to every duty there is a corresponding right. It is evident from the proposed definition that there are no conceptual reasons for upholding such a view. Some moral theories may yield such a correlativity thesis as a result of their moral principles. The right to political participation is a legal right in English law.