I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues: An Egoist Conception of Rights

Abstract

Rights today are a jumble of conflicting and incompatible claims. Without correction, the concept of rights will be eroded and eventually abandoned. The loss would be tragic, because rights are essential to our long-term planning and success. Incompatible claims have arisen from incommensurable conceptual foundations. Historically and essentially, rights are egoistic. Attempts to justify rights according to other criteria - divine command, human dignity, altruism, utilitarianism - fail on their own terms. Egoism or self-interest is fully compatible with social responsibility and with regard for the interests of others. The nature of rights is examined and ethical diversity is defended. The evolution of rights is traced from Roman antiquity through medieval developments through modern refinements, with particular attention paid to the rights theories of Gerson, Grotius, Hobbes, and Locke. A will theory of rights is proposed based on contract rather than on natural law and teleology. This will theory is explained using state of nature theory, with reference to Olson's logic of collective action. It is contrasted with the egoistic theories of Rand and Smith, with the utilitarian will theories of Hart and Wellman, and with the interest theories of MacCormick and Kramer.