Abstract

The book’s argument divides into three parts. In the first, Wellman sets out an account of legal rights, and then uses it to work out an account of nonlegal institutional rights and noninstitutional moral rights. The second focuses on the question of whether various alleged right-holders are possible right-holders. The third then turns to conflicts of both rights and duties, and argues, on the basis of the conclusions of the first two parts, that although some conflicts between rights are real, many supposed conflicts can be dissolved once we recognize that one of the rights is unreal or is limited in some way. Because most of the controversial argumentative work is done in the first two sections, I will focus on them.