ABSTRACT
For Robert Nozick a strictly limited set of near absolute individual rights constitute the foundations of morality. The moral landscape which Nozick explicitly presents contains only rights and is empty of everything else except possibly the moral permissibility of avoiding what he terms catastrophe. The only alternative to the Nozickian philosophy of right is an unrestricted maximising utilitarianism which respects not persons but only experiences of pleasure or satisfaction; and this is of course a false dilemma. Professor Ronald Dworkin's theory at first sight seems to be, like Nozick's, implacably opposed to any form of utilitarianism; so much so that the concept of a right which he is concerned to vindicate is expressly described by him as "an anti-Utilitarian Concept." Dworkin's strong "anti-Utilitarian" sense, just because restriction or abolition of specific liberties might properly be imposed if it advanced general welfare.
