Previously, we explained how modern ‘rights’ claims don’t meet Hohfeld’s framework, which distinguished between claim-rights (which correspond to someone else’s duty) and liberties (which imply no duty on others).
But even Hohfeld doesn’t answer the deeper question: what makes something a right in the first place?
To get there, we must explore two ideas: when does someone have a right, and what should these rights protect.
When Does Someone Have A Right?
This is where the Interest Theory of Rights comes in. The idea is simple: you have a right when someone’s duty protects your interest.
In other words, if someone fulfilling their duty to you puts you in a position that always serves your interests, you have a right to that duty and they must fulfill it.
Conversely, if someone violating their duty to you puts you in a position that always harms a person, you have a right to not experience that and they must honour it.
Here are some examples:
- If Jane assaults John, John becomes a victim, a position that clearly harms anyone. Hence, John has a right to not be assaulted and Jane has a corresponding duty not to do so.
- If Jane promises to take John to the movies, it benefits John as he receives what was promised, fulfilling his interest. So John has a right grounded in Jane’s duty to keep her word.
Rights protect real human interests. They’re not about getting everything we want, but about protecting what’s objectively good for us as human beings. That’s what makes them meaningful.
While the Interest Theory helps clarify when someone has a right, not every desire is an interest worth protecting.
So then, how do we identify what should rights protect?
That’s where basic goods come in.
What Are Basic Goods?
Natural law theorist John Finnis identified seven basic goods essential to human flourishing:
- Life
- Knowledge or truth
- Marriage
- Aesthetic experience
- Excellence in work and play
- Friendship
- Practical reasonableness (one’s ability to make sound decisions and act wisely)
Not anything we want is a basic good. There are a few characteristics that define what basic goods are:
- Basic goods are ends in themselves.
They are pursued for their own sake, not for something else. That’s why they are irreducible, or basic. Basic goods differ from instrumental goods like money or transport, which are means to other ends.
- Basic goods are pre-moral
They exist before morality and can hence be pursued in good or bad ways. For example, a scientist who mutilates infants to cure cancer is pursuing the basic good of life, but through evil means. Thus, the pursuit of a good doesn’t justify every method used to obtain it.
- Basic goods are self-evident
Their value doesn’t need further proof. Denying them is like denying logic or reason – possible, but unreasonable.
- Basic goods are not based on convention or how strongly we feel about them
Even if not everyone recognises them, their value doesn’t come from consensus. They help us judge which desires are worth pursuing and are objective reasons for why we do things.
And that’s how we know what should rights protect.
What This Means for Modern Rights Claims
A right must protect basic goods because rights uphold what is essential for us to flourish. This is why we do have rights not to be assaulted and have promises fulfilled, since those rights protect the basic goods of life, truth, and friendship.
Conversely, that’s why these so-called ‘rights’ don’t hold up:
- Same-sex marriage: it undermines the basic good of marriage by distorting its meaning
- Abortion and assisted suicide: they undermine the basic good of life
If the unborn child is a human being, it has a right to life. The same applies to the elderly or terminally ill. No one has a right to deliberately kill, even with consent.
What Rights Really Are
Rights are not about what we want. They protect what we need to live well as human beings.
The Interest Theory tells us how rights work. The Basic Goods Theory tells us why they matter. Together, they help us recognise what are rights that are truly worth protecting.
In our final article, we’ll show how these moral rights operate in society, including how the state can recognise, uphold, or undermine them. Stay tuned.
