Relation to others· Power and justice
Rights from utility
Axis: Nature of rights — Where do rights come from?
Rights are neither inscribed in nature nor mere decrees: they are robust protections we recognise because securing them serves the well-being of all. Their force comes from their lasting usefulness, not from a supernatural origin.
Movements 1
Utilitarianismexplicit
If the sole criterion of the right is utility, no right can precede the law or limit it in the name of nature: to speak of rights prior to any institution is, for , nonsense, and of imprescriptible rights nonsense upon stilts. The movement does not abolish rights, it re-founds them: they are protections society secures precisely because their stable observance maximizes the general well-being. This derivation from consequences sets it squarely against theories of natural right and against , which hold certain rights to be primary constraints, independent of any reckoning of outcomes.
Bentham, Anarchical Fallacies; Mill, Utilitarianism, V
Philosophers 1
Millexplicit
Mill rejects natural rights prior to any society and grounds rights in utility: to have a right is to have something society ought to secure for us because doing so serves the general well-being, utility in the largest sense, grounded in the permanent interests of humanity.
Utilitarianism, ch. V; On Liberty