appearance of logic is doing swift service for what are, at bottom,
substantial theses which require careful argument and considered
application in the circumstances of their employment. It is at least
open to argument that one may have rights but no duties. In
essence, this is how Hobbes characterized the position of the sov-
ereign vis-à-vis the citizens – the sovereign has rights against the
citizens but no duties to them. The citizens have duties to the sov-
ereign, but no rights, other than the residual right of nature,
which they can claim against the sovereign who threatens their
lives. This is as clear a characterization of absolute sovereign
power as any. The thesis, Hobbes’s thesis, that a rational agent
would endorse this asymmetrical pattern of rights and duties, can-
not be repudiated by any logical thesis to the effect that rights
entail duties on the part of the rights holder.
In the case of claim rights, a clear logical thesis is available.
Claim rights are, logically, correlative to duties. This correlativity
thesis is what distinguishes claim rights from liberty rights. In the
case where P’s right to x entails a duty on the part of Q not to
interfere with P’s x-ing, we have a right of the classical liberal
form, a right of non-interference. Thus one who claims a right of
free speech claims that the state (and, no doubt, other citizens
severally) have a duty not to prevent her making her opinions
known to other citizens. They may not have a duty to listen, but
they do have a duty not to shut her up. Rights of this sort have been
termed negative rights and rights of action.^6
By contrast, claim rights of provision (positive rights, rights of
recipience) engage a different dimension of correlativity. This is
the case where P’s claim right to x imposes a duty of service on
some Q. P’s right that Q fulfil a contract is of this sort. Amongst
human rights, such rights as those to education, decent working
conditions and health-care impose a duty of service provision on
the appropriate governmental (or international) agencies.
The correlativity of rights and duties in the case of claim rights
should not be taken as a thesis asserting the analyticity of the
corresponding claims concerning rights and duties. In insisting
that P’s claim right to x imposes a duty on some Q, we suggest (and
most certainly do not preclude) a justicationary thesis to the effect
that Q’s duty may be derived from P’s right, that P’s right is
the ground of Q’s duty.^7 Exactly how the derivation may be
RIGHTS