Rights and Claims

Abstract

Philosophers frequently, and jurisprudents almost invariably, assert a necessary connection between rights and claims. Such an assertion, however, takes several different forms. Many philosophers equate a right with either a claim ¹ or, at least, a justified or recognised claim,² and a common jurisprudential definition of a right is that it is a legally enforceable claim;³ while some philosophers and jurists equate a claim only with one — though that the fundamental — kind of right or sense of the word `right’.⁴ Other philosophers contend merely that a right implies a claim or that a right implies a right to claim.⁵