ABSTRACT
'Rights' are so often appealed to in contemporary moral, political, and legal discourse that it is of great importance to clarify people's ideas on the subject. Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld noted four distinct referents for the phrase 'right' in legal parlance. Using different labels to distinguish them one from another, he called these referents 'rights', 'privileges', 'powers' and 'immunities'. To avoid further ambiguity he also used the word 'claim' as equivalent to 'right' in the above list. This chapter focuses on claims or, as they are now often called, claim-rights. The canonical set of claim-right ascriptions includes the ascription of rights to those who make unimpeachable everyday agreements - rights to the actions specified in the agreement. Looking only at the will and interest theories, one can see that different accounts of directed duties will have very different consequences in terms of the position accorded to the right-holder. The chapter argues that joint commitment is a source of claim-rights.
