Relation to others· Power and justice
Legal positivism
Axis: Nature of rights — Where do rights come from?
There are no rights but those an authority actually establishes. To speak of natural rights prior to any law is, in Bentham's phrase, "nonsense upon stilts": a right with no institution to secure it is mere wishing.
Philosophers 1
Benthamexplicit
A right, for Bentham, is nothing but the benefit of an obligation that the law lays on others and backs by a sanction: no positive law, no obligation, hence no right. Natural rights prior to any law are therefore a contradiction in terms, a wish dressed up as a legal fact, and even a danger, since to invoke an imprescriptible right against the law opens the door to anarchy. The rejection is not nihilist but utilitarian: there are indeed rights, but it is utility, not nature, that should guide the legislator in creating them.
Anarchical Fallacies; Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation