A Debate Over Rights Philosophical Enquiries [Paperback]

This collection of essays forms a lively debate over the fundamental characteristics of legal and moral rights. The essays examine whether rights fundamentally protect individuals' interests or whether they instead fundamentally enable individuals to make choices.

Preface,Matthew H. Kramer
Introduction,Matthew H. Kramer
Rights Without Trimmings,Matthew H. Kramer
1. Setting the Hohfeldian Table
2. Rights Without Trimmings
Appendix: Getting Hohfeld Right
Rights at the Cutting Edge,N. E. Simmonds
1. Background
2. The Fundamental Issues
3. Hohfeld and the Fragmentation of Rights
4. Hohfeld and the Kantians
5. The Interest Theory of Rights
6. The Modern Will Theory
Working Rights,Hillel Steiner
1. Preliminary Intuitions about Rights
2. From Hohfeld to Hart: The Modern Will Theory
3. Some Apparent Problems with the Will Theory
4. From Hart to Kant: The Classical Will Theory (Partly) Redeemed
5. Some Real Problems with the Interest Theory
Index

...all three of the essays are quite well written, and the authors expound their positions with admirable vigor and clarity. This work will certainly be of significant interest to anyone concerned with the Hohfeldian jural framework, the 'Interest' and 'Will' theories of rights, or the rival analytic and evaluative approaches to the philosophical foundations of rights theory. It is, then, a more than welcome addition to our ongoing 'debate over rights'. --The Law and Politics Book Review

Matthew Kramer is Professor of Legal & Political Philosophy, University of Cambridge, Fellow and Director of Studies in Law, Churchill College (Cambridge), and Director of the Cambridge Forum for Legal & Political Philosophy.

Nigel Simmonds is a Reader in Jurisprudence, Cambridge University, and Fellow and Director of Studies in Law, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

Hillel Steiner is Professorl)