Law is the body of written rules that binds individuals and institutions. The word is also used to refer to a legislative act or other legal decision.
Generally, legal rights are the claims, privileges, powers, and immunities that people hold against others (Fitzgerald [Salmond] 1966: 339-344; Paton 1972: 319-320 & 433-485). These claims and/or privileges are often created by specific judicial decisions or legal rules (Raz 1994: 268).
There are two distinct types of rights: rights in personam and rights in rem. The former designate a definite right-object, such as the title to property or the power to make contracts; the latter are general legal claims that bind individuals to certain rules and actions.
The nature of rights in personam and in rem reflects a moral distinction between the legal roles that these kinds of claims and/or privileges play for their respective right-holders. For example, rights in rem are usually oriented towards the value that exclusive access, control over, security in, or integrity of a thing (such as a car) has for its owner or possessor, while rights in personam tend to be rooted in the broader interests that particular relationships have for their right-holders.
Some legal scholars treat rights as “reactionary” rather than as justifications or reasons in favor of a particular legal holding or rule (Raz 1970: 173-183; MacCormick 1977: 191-92). This view sees law as a response to a particular social problem that requires a legal solution, such as regulating a predatory slumlord or protecting the self-serving interests of people who take advantage of others.
This reactionary approach to the law is sometimes associated with a rejection of natural rights and deontology, which are typically associated with the idea that morality should reflect an ideal of a morality that is independent of enforcement or social convention. Bentham, for instance, famously argued that law should not be based on a transplanted notion of natural rights, which he saw as vague, dogmatic, antiquated, and moralistic (Bentham 1843b: 501).
While legal scholars sometimes treat rights as justifications or reasons in favor of certain legal holdings or rules, other writers have viewed them as outcomes in their own right. These are called “intermediate” outcomes or bottom lines of legal reasoning.
Those who view laws as reactionsary have often criticized legal rights as being “punch above their weight” in the sense of being qualitatively preceding or “punching” above other reasons, such as considerations of utility or public policy (Nozick 1974: 28-35; Dworkin 1977: xi, 91, 190-192, 269; 1984: 153).
In this sense, these critics find it easier to justify laws that punish or deny rights to those whose rights are deemed to be punched above their weight.
Other critics, on the other hand, have emphasized that rights are morally precious for their unique function of providing right-holders with claims for just treatment under the law (Feinberg 1991; Kramer 1998: 14-17).
These critics may be more inclined to embrace the Interest Theory (MacCormick 1977: 205-6), which argues that rights are in service to right-holders’ interests. This theory, however, is not without drawbacks. For example, it can lead to a deficiency in distinguishing between claim-rights and powers (Kramer 2013: 256) or to the misunderstanding that stand-alone privileges are indistinguishable from rights in any way.