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Overview
Real Rights offers a new theory of the grounds of legal and moral rights, providing a platform from which to determine whether alleged rights are "real" or not. Defining a legal or moral right as a complex of liberties, claims, powers, and immunities, Wellman distinguishes the kinds of laws and moral reasons that can ground each of these. The book argues that it is agency which qualifies individuals to possess rights. Children acquire rights gradually, and the mentally limited can have only limited rights; fetuses and the dead can have none, nor can groups. Wellman goes on to discuss the duties implied by any real right, offering a detailed review of conflicts between rights, and analyzing the ways in which incompatible rights or other considerations could override implied duties. An original and systematic discussion of the grounds of rights, this book has concrete judicial implications, and should interest a wide range of scholars and practitioners in philosophy, law, and political science.Synopsis
Real Rights offers a new theory of the grounds of legal and moral rights, thereby providing a platform from which to determine whether alleged rights are "real" or not. In particular, Wellman conceives of a legal or moral right as a complex of liberties, claims, powers, and immunities, and distinguishes the kinds of laws and moral reasons that can ground each of these. The book argues that only agents can be right-holders, that children and the mentally-limited can have only limited rights, while fetuses, the dead, and groups can have none. It also discusses the duties implied by any real right, as well as the kinds of considerations (including conflicting rights) that could override implied duties. This original and systematic discussion of the grounds of rights should interest a wide range of scholars and practitioners in philosophy, law, and political science.