Introduction: Rights in the Conversation of Humanity p. 1
1.1 The Long History of Rights p. 1
1.2 Rights as Valuable Possessions p. 6
1.3 Rights and Revolution: Natural Rights; Human Rights p. 7
1.4 The Proliferation of Rights Talk p. 9
1.5 Contemporary Questions about Rights p. 9
1.6 The Focus of This Book p. 11
1.7 Going Forward p. 11
Part I A Problem Posed
1 Some Central Distinctions from Rights Theory p. 15
1 Hohfeld''s Pour-Fold Distinction p. 15
1.1 Claims p. 16
1.2 Liberties p. 18
1.3 Direction in the Hohfeldian scheme p. 19
1.4 Powers p. 20
1.5 Immunities p. 21
2 Powers and Immunities Revisited p. 21
3 Some Arguments for the Primacy of Claims p. 24
3.1 A common assumption: rights correlate with duties p. 24
3.2 A tendency to speak of "rights" only when claims are present p. 25
3.3 Thomson''s argument from conceptual priority p. 25
3.4 A genealogical argument p. 26
4 Asserting a Right p. 27
5 The Importance of Claims p. 27
2 Two Realms of Rights p. 28
1 Two Realms of Rights: Institutional and Moral p. 28
2 Legal and Other Institutional Rights p. 29
2.1 Legal rights as artifacts of legal systems p. 29
2.2 Institutional rights in general: ontology p. 30
2.3 Institutional rights in general: their (lack of) normativity p. 31
2.4 Institutional rights and rules p. 34
2.5 Institutional rights, moral criticism, and moral rights p. 35
2.6 Institutional rights: summary p. 35
3 Moral Rights: A Broad Conception p. 36
4 Morality: Some Central Features p. 36
4.1 Normativity p. 37
4.2 Independence of recognition p. 39
4.3 Morality versus moralities p. 39
4.4 Moral requirements and context-sensitivity p. 40
4.5 Morality and value p. 41
4.6 Morality, desires, and interests p. 41
5 A Partial Characterization of Morality p. 42
6 Morality, Decisions, and the Normative Realm p. 43
6.1 The normativity of decisions p. 43
6.2 Excluded considerations p. 45
7 Two Realms of Rights; Normativity and Epistemology p. 46
3 Hohfeld''s Claims and Thomson''s Doubts p. 47
1 Hohfeld''s Claims p. 47
1.1 The nature of equivalence p. 47
1.2 The object of a claim p. 48
2 Directed Duties; Their Relationship to Plain Duties Is at Best Unclear p. 49
3 Thomson''s Reductive Approach to Hohfeldian Directed Duties p. 50
3.1 Thomson''s fixed points p. 51
3.2 Thomson on Hohfeld p. 51
3.3 Note on the idea that rights "impose" constraints p. 54
3.4 Assessment of Thomson''s argument p. 54
4 Review and Prospect p. 54
4 Demand-Rights-and the Demand-Right Problem p. 56
1 Hohfeld on the Label "Claim" p. 56
2 Demanding p. 57
2.1 Standing versus justification p. 58
2.2 Demanding versus requesting p. 59
3 Demand-Rights: A First Equivalence p. 61
3.1 Demands versus commands p. 62
3.2 Demands and enforcement p. 62
4 Hart on the Rights of Promisees p. 64
4.1 General versus special rights p. 65
4.2 The language of rights p. 65
4.3 Directed obligation p. 66
4.4 Owing p. 68
4.5 Wronging p. 69
4.6 Waiving and releasing p. 70
5 Demand-Rights: More Equivalences p. 70
5.1 Standing to demand, directed obligation, and owing p. 70
5.2 A possible further equivalence p. 71
5.3 Demand-rights and ownership p. 74
5.4 Setting aside further equivalences p. 75
6 The Rights Assertion Argument for the Primacy of Claims p. 76
7 The Demand-Right Problem p. 77
5 Contemporary Rights Theories: The Problem Remains p. 80
1 Rights Theory and the Demand-Right Problem p. 80
2 Contemporary Rights Theory p. 81
2.1 The standard aim p. 81
2.2 The standard method p. 82
3 Duties Concerning a Person p. 83
4 Do Thomsonian Claims Support Demands? p. 85
4.1 Thomsonian constraints p. 85
4.2 The permissibility of verbal attempts p. 85
4.3 The matter of "release" p. 86
4.4 Thomson''s theory of claims and the standing to demand p. 87
5 Interest Theories p. 88
5.1 Beneficiary theories: Bentham p. 88
5.2 Raz''s theory p. 89
5.3 Another type of interest theory p. 93
6 Moral Status Theories p. 93
7 Choice Theory and Directionality p. 94
8 Demand-Rights and Contemporary Rights Theory p. 97
Part II The Problem Solved
6 Agreements and Promises: Hume''s Legacy p. 101
1 Two Special Demand-Right Problems p. 101
1.1 Agreements, promises, and rights p. 102
1.2 The literature on promises and agreements p. 103
2 Promising: Some Fixed Points p. 103
2.1 Promising without "I promise" p. 103
2.2 Promising versus expressing an intention p. 105
2.3 Promising versus predicting p. 106
2.4 The promisor cannot unilaterally rescind the promise p. 106
2.5 Promises and agreements are close cousins p. 107
2.6 Everyday agreements and promises versus contracts in law p. 107
3 The Role of Acceptance p. 108
3.1 The promisor''s input not conclusive p. 108
3.2 Acceptance as a form of concurrence p. 110
3.3 Motives for making and accepting promises p. 111
4 Promissory Obligation p. 111
4.1 Inevitability p. 112
4.2 Direction p. 114
4.3 Ancillary obligations p. 114
5 Historical Interlude: Hume on Promising and Its Obligation p. 115
5.1 No promising in a "state of nature" p. 115
5.2 The monological assumption p. 116
5.3 The nature of the obligation p. 116
5.4 Against the monological assumption (1): resolution, desire, willing p. 117
5.5 Against the monological assumption (2): "a manifest absurdity" p. 119
5.6 The turn to convention p. 121
6 After Hume p. 122
6.1 Two assumptions p. 122
6.2 The insufficiency of Hume''s argument for conventionalism p. 123
6.3 Two types of non-conventionalism p. 124
7 Problems with Moral Principle Accounts p. 126
1 Moral Principle Accounts of Promissory Obligation p. 126
1.1 Two types of moral principle account p. 126
1.2 Two problems of too many stages p. 127
1.3 A problem for some practice accounts p. 128
2 Scanlon''s Account p. 129
2.1 Scanlonian owing p. 129
2.2 The relevance of expectations p. 130
2.3 The content of a promisor''s obligation p. 131
2.4 Principle F p. 132
2.5 The consent clause p. 133
3 The Inevitability Problem p. 134
3.1 Clarifying the inevitability point p. 135
3.2 Moral requirement versus inevitability p. 135
3.3 Immoral promises p. 139
3.4 Rights-transfer theories p. 143
3.5 Conflicting obligations p. 144
3.6 On what is intuitive p. 145
3.7 The problem of promissory obligation and another classic problem p. 145
4 The Problem of Promisees'' Rights p. 146
5 Scanlon''s Principle and Promisees''Rights p. 146
5.1 The violation of a moral principle p. 147
5.2 The consent clause p. 148
5.3 The "right to rely" on performance p. 150
5.4 The interests of a promisee p. 151
6 Adding New Rules or Principles p. 151
6.1 A social rule permitting "rebukes" if Principle F is violated p. 152
6.2 Subsidiary moral principles p. 154
7 Rescuing Scanlon''s Principle-at a Cost p. 155
8 The Demand-Right Problem for Promises p. 157
8 A Fundamental Ground of Demand-Rights p. 159
1 The Argument of This Chapter with Some Reference to Kant and Hume p. 159
2 Preliminaries p. 161
2.1 Terminology p. 161
2.2 Commitment in general p. 161
2.3 Commitments of the will; personal commitments p. 162
3 Joint Commitment p. 164
3.1 Creation: participants p. 165
3.2 Rescission: participants p. 165
3.3 Content p. 165
3.4 Who or what is committed p. 166
3.5 Associated "individual" commitments p. 167
3.6 Creation: the process p. 167
4 Joint Commitment as a Ground of Demand-Rights p. 169
4.1 An intuitive judgment p. 169
4.2 A basis for the standing to demand p. 170
4.3 Demanding what is mine: an interpretation p. 172
4.4 Joint commitment, demand-rights, and ownership p. 173
4.5 A related sense of "my action" p. 174
4.6 Demand-rights and joint commitment p. 174
5 The Demand-Rights of Joint Commitment p. 175
5.1 Joint-commitment-based demand-rights and normative constraints p. 175
5.2 A function for demanding p. 176
5.3 The standing to demand what is wrong, all things considered p. 177
5.4 Demand-rights against the self p. 177
5.5 Waiving and releasing p. 178
5.6 Wronging p. 178
5.7 Who or what is owed conforming actions p. 179
6 Two Phenomena Akin to Joint Commitment p. 181
6.1 A different process p. 181
6.2 A different product p. 182
7 A Problem Solved-and a Conjecture p. 183
7.1 Joint commitment and the demand-right problem p. 183
7.2 The joint-commitment conjecture p. 183
7.3 Some implications of the conjecture p. 184
Coda: Kant on Contract Right p. 185
9 A Theory of Agreements and Promises p. 188
1 Agreements, Promises, and Demand-Rights p. 188
2 Agreements: Central Points p. 189
2.1 The inevitability of demand-rights p. 189
2.2 Performance and ancillary rights p. 190
2.3 Agreements are close cousins to promises p. 190
2.4 Only one party need have a performance right p. 191
2.5 Interdependent performance rights p. 191
2.6 Rescission p. 192
3 Toward a Theory of Agreements p. 194
3.1 Analogies between agreements and personal decisions p. 194
3.2 "We agreed" versus "We decided" p. 196
4 Agreements as Joint Decisions p. 197
4.1 The joint endorsement of a plan p. 197
4.2 The joint decision account of agreements p. 198
4.3 Note on the explicit expressions condition p. 199
5 Some Virtues of the Joint Decision Account of Agreements p. 200
5.1 It respects central pre-theoretical points p. 200
5.2 Advantages over moral principle accounts p. 201
5.3 A further virtue p. 203
6 Promises as Joint Decisions p. 203
6.1 The joint decision account of promises p. 204
6.2 Distinguishing promises and agreements p. 204
7 Some Virtues of the Joint Decision Account of Promises p. 206
7.1 It respects central pre-theoretical points p. 206
7.2 A response to Hume p. 208
8 Rescission of a Promise p. 209
8.1 The standard background p. 210
8.2 A promisor rejects rescission p. 211
8.3 A possible elaboration of the account p. 212
9 Agreements and Promises as Joint Decisions p. 213
9.1 Virtues of joint decision accounts p. 213
9.2 Another land of joint decision p. 213
9.3 Two special demand-right problems solved p. 214
9.4 Three dogmas rejected p. 214
10 The Ubiquity of Joint Commitment p. 217
1 Joint Commitment beyond Agreements and Promises p. 217
1.1 Pertinent points about joint commitments in general p. 218
1.2 Topics to be discussed p. 219
2 Shared Plans p. 219
3 Doing Things Together p. 222
4 Social Groups p. 223
4.1 Historic appeals to contracting p. 223
4.2 Different senses of "group" and "social group" p. 224
4.3 Social groups as comprising jointly committed persons p. 225
4.4 Political societies and political obligations p. 226
5 Mutual Recognition p. 226
6 Collective Attitudes p. 227
7 Commanding p. 229
8 The Ubiquity of Demand-Rights of Joint Commitment p. 231
Part III Demand-Rights, Morality, and Law
11 Are There Any Moral Demand-Rights? Part I p. 235
1 Morality and Demand-Rights p. 235
1.1 The status of joint-commitment rights p. 235
1.2 "Moral demand-rights" defined p. 237
1.3 Individualized versus generalized moral demand-rights p. 238
2 Individualized Moral Demand-Rights: Some Negative Considerations p. 239
2.1 Questioning the moral requirement thesis p. 239
2.2 Elemental moral demand-rights? The grounding problem p. 241
2.3 A preliminary conclusion p. 242
2.4 Some prominent skeptical discussions p. 243
3 Hart''s Transcendental Argument: Interpretation and Assessment p. 244
3.1 The argument as concerned with demand-rights p. 244
3.2 The proposed natural right p. 246
3.3 The argument p. 247
4 Some Arguments from Darwall p. 250
4.1 Darwall''s terminology p. 250
4.2 Darwall''s analogical argument p. 252
4.3 Presuppositions of serious address p. 254
4.4 A direct argument p. 256
5 Mutual Recognition Revisited p. 257
5.1 Darwall on returned address p. 257
5.2 Presuppositions of mutual recognition p. 258
6 Rights and Obligations in Mutual Recognition p. 259
7 Moral Demand-Rights: The Story So Far p. 260
12 Are There Any Moral Demand-Rights? Part II p. 262
1 Generalized Moral Rights p. 262
2 The Implications of Moral Language p. 264
3 The "Moral Community" p. 267
4 Moral Community and Joint Commitment p. 270
4.1 An empirical joint commitment? p. 271
4.2 An a priori joint commitment? p. 273
5 Generalized versus Individualized Moral Demand-Rights p. 276
6 Generalized Moral Demand-Rights: Conclusions p. 277
7 Some Other Interpretations of "Moral Demand-Rights" p. 278
8 Demand-Rights and Moral Theory p. 282
8.1 Moral rights in moral theory p. 283
8.2 Direct duties, etc., in moral theory p. 290
9 Conclusions of Chapters Eleven and Twelve p. 290
13 Demand-Rights, Law, and Other Institutions p. 293
1 Legal Rights in Rights Theory p. 293
2 Two Conceptions of Law p. 295
3 Demand-Rights in Legal Systems p. 296
3.1 Legal rights in general p. 296
3.2 Demand-rights p. 298
4 The Existence of a Legal System: Two Questions p. 299
5 The Existence of a Legal System: Criteria for an Adequate Account p. 300
5.1 Two baseline criteria p. 300
5.2 Further possible criteria p. 301
6 The Existence of a Legal System; Some Candidate Accounts p. 307
6.1 Invoking conformity, expectations, threats p. 309
6.2 Invoking Haitian rules or Lewisian conventions p. 311
6.3 Sustaining a legal system together: singularist approaches p. 316
7 A Joint Commitment Account-and the Two Questions p. 318
7.1 It satisfies all of the criteria p. 318
7.2 The population question p. 321
7.3 The demand-right-holder question p. 322
7.4 The law and enforcement p. 323
8 Conclusions: On Law and Demand-Rights p. 323
14 Human Rights in Light of the Foregoing p. 325
1 The Idea of a Human Right p. 325
2 Human Rights as Moral Rights p. 326
2.1 The Universal Declaration and other human rights documents p. 328
2.2 Demands and moral human rights p. 329
3 Human Rights as Legal Rights p. 333
3.1 Questioning the embodiment thesis p. 333
3.2 The standing to demand one''s legal human right p. 336
4 The Practice of Human Rights and Its Relation to Demand-Rights p. 337
4.1 What is a practice? Beitz''s discussion p. 338
4.2 Treaties, joint declarations, and joint commitment p. 339
4.3 The demand-rights of individuals p. 340
5 Human Rights, Demand-Rights, and Joint Commitment p. 342
Conclusion p. 343
1 Main Theses p. 343
2 Overview of the Discussion p. 343
3 Last Thoughts p. 347
Bibliography p. 349
Subject Index p. 361
Index of Names p. 368
