ABSTRACT
Political developments in the eighteenth century, especially the revolutions in America and France, challenged prevailing social arrangements as violations of natural or human rights. Since then, the idea of a human right has been subjected to skeptical attack, which has sometimes been directed at the more general idea of a moral right. The author characterizes general challenges to moral rights as skeptical. According to recognition theorists, the existence of a moral right involves not one condition but two: a moral right must be socially recognized and the moral principles that support its ascription must be sound. Recognition and independence theorists can agree that legal rights are grounded in existing statutes, common law rules, or other legal doctrines, such as constitutional principles. This constitutes an essential aspect of the social recognition that recognition theorists believe is essential to legal rights. Recognition theorists go further by assuming that legal rights are generally recognized by courts and generally enforced by public officials.
