At the very start of this inquiry, I confronted a fundamental objection to any utilitarian theory of moral rights. How can a strong commitment to individual moral rights coexist with an affirmation of the overriding claims of general welfare? After all, moral rights are commonly taken as trumping the claims of general welfare-as, in other words, framing moral constraints on the pursuit of utility. Mill himself alludes to the question in the last chapter of Utilitarianism: To have a right, then, is, I conceive, to have something which society ought to defend me in the possession of. If the objector goes on to ask, why it ought? I can give him no other reason than general utility.’22 How is this fundamental challenge to be countered?