ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that straightforward statements about moral rights can be analyzed in terms of moral obligations in the same way that statements about legal rights can be analyzed in terms of legal obligations. Many writers have held that the notion of a right must be analyzed in terms of duty or obligation—or, more generally, in terms of requirements or prohibitions on someone's behavior. Some remarks by Bentham suggest the view that a person with a right is a "beneficiary" in a narrower and more appropriate sense: he is supposed to benefit by or from the performance of another's obligation. According to the qualified beneficiary theory, then, a person with a right is not one who merely "stands to benefit" from the performance of another's obligation. Third-party beneficiaries are sometimes accorded rights in both morals and law. Third-party beneficiaries can have rights, but "only in virtue of moral or judicial policies and rules.".
