New Essays on the Nature of Rights

This collection of essays falls into three interrelated parts (the essays in parts two and three utilise the Hohfeldian framework of part one), all aimed at furthering our philosophical understanding of rights.

Rights stand at the centre of legal, political, and moral discourse. A proper understanding of rights is thus of paramount importance to our understanding of law, politics, and morality. All of the essays are cutting-edge, and none has been previously published.

The first part, Hohfeld, contains essays by A Halpin and J Penner. These essays take as their starting point the work of celebrated American jurist, WN Hohfeld. Halpin, most generally, considers the value of Hohfeldian neutrality when theorising about legal rights. Penner, meanwhile, considers the ability of Hohfeld's project properly to characterize areas of private law, in particular property rights.

The second part, Theories, contains essays by M McBride and M Kramer. These essays take as their starting point the work of two contemporary theorists of rights, viz. G Sreenivasan and L Wenar, each of whom has attempted to transcend the 'Interest/Will Theory' debate by offering new theories of rights. McBride attempts to defend a modified version of Sreenivasan's 'Hybrid Theory' of rights. Kramer, meanwhile, questions the viability of Wenar's 'Several Functions Theory' of rights as a workable new theory of rights.

The final third part, Explorations, contains essays by R Cruft, G Sreenivasan, and H Steiner. Each of these three theorists has developed their own sophisticated theories of rights - respectively, 'Hybrid Theory', 'Interest-Theory-with-exceptions', and 'Will Theory'.

Each of these theorists seeks to explore certain philosophically interesting phenomena in light of their own theories of rights. By turn, these essays look at the nature and the moral grounding of rights, public goods and third party benefits, and strict liability. The collection is integrated and unified by means of an Introduction, written by M McBride.