What if Rights Theories can only draw Sustenance from Natural Law Theories?
Now to all of these newly developing rights theories, which in their different ways might be thought to lead to the establishment of a genuine Libertarian philosophy, one can only say “Bravo!” And yet isn’t there one fly in the ointment? For these rights that Rawls, Dworkin, and Nozick have been so vigorous in championing are not held to be natural rights; nor are the various duties and side-constraints, that are correlative with the asserted rights of individuals, to be regarded as having any foundation in nature. Yet if rights and duties cannot be shown to have any basis in nature or in fact, what reason is there to suppose that they have any basis at all? True, we may feel strongly about them; and nothing is easier than to get human beings to warm to affirmations of their individual rights and freedoms. But mere warmth of feeling can hardly be a substitute for rational justification. And if rights and duties are not held to be natural rights and duties, what is there that is rationa
