An Introduction to Rights

William A. Edmundson is Regents' Professor of Law and of Philosophy at Georgia State University. He is the author of Three Anarchical Fallacies and is co-editor of The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory.

• Part I. The First Expansionary Era: 1. The prehistory of rights; 2. The rights of man: the enlightenment; 3. Mischievous nonsense?; 4. The nineteenth century: consolidation and retrenchment; 5. The conceptual neighborhood of rights: Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld; Part II. The Second Expansionary Era: 6. The universal declaration, and a revolt against utilitarianism; 7. The nature of rights: 'choice' theory and 'interest' theory; 8. A right to do wrong? Two conceptions of moral rights; 9. The pressure of consequentialism; 10. What is interference?; 11. The future of rights; 12. Conclusion.

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