ABSTRACT

The language of rights is pervasive in moral, political and legal debates, but there is no clear consensus on what rights are and how they work. Do all rights have the same underlying function? Should a theory of rights be conceptual or normative? Can rights conflict with each other? I cannot tackle these questions in sufficient depth here, and I have to ignore many other interesting questions altogether. I will try, however, to provide a roadmap to a few of the central debates about rights-hopefully offering a clear picture of both what’s at stake in these debates and why philosophers have developed starkly different answers to the questions above.