Human Rights, Ownership, and the Individual

Is it defensible to use the concept of a right? Can we justify rights' central place in modern moral and legal thinking, or does the concept unjustifiably side-line those who do not qualify as right-holders? Rowan Cruft develops a new account of rights. Moving beyond the traditional 'interest theory' and 'will theory', he defends a distinctive 'addressive' approach that brings together duty-bearer and right-holder in the first person. This view has important implications for the idea of 'na...