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Full Idea
Right, the substantive right, is the child of law; from real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws, from 'law of nature' can come only imaginary rights.
Gist of Idea
Only laws can produce real rights; rights from 'law of nature' are imaginary
Source
Jeremy Bentham (Anarchical Fallacies: on the Declaration of Rights [1796], II.523), quoted by Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice 17 'Ethics'
Book Ref
Sen, Amartya: 'The Idea of Justice' [Penguin 2010], p.361
A Reaction
I am coming to agree with this. What are called 'natural rights' are just self-evident good reasons why someone should be allowed a right. A right can, of course, come from an informal agreement. The question is: why award that particular legal right?
Related Idea
Idea 21004 Hart (against Bentham) says human rights are what motivate legal rights [Hart,HLA, by Sen]
| 20977 | Natural rights are nonsense, and unspecified natural rights is nonsense on stilts [Bentham] |
| 21003 | Only laws can produce real rights; rights from 'law of nature' are imaginary [Bentham] |
| 5271 | Prejudice apart, push-pin has equal value with music and poetry [Bentham] |
| 5934 | Of Bentham's 'dimensions' of pleasure, only intensity and duration matter [Ross on Bentham] |
| 3554 | Bentham thinks happiness is feeling good, but why use morality to achieve that? [Annas on Bentham] |
| 5901 | Is 'productive of happiness' the definition of 'right', or the cause of it? [Ross on Bentham] |
| 3777 | Pleasure and pain control all human desires and duties [Bentham] |
| 3778 | The community's interest is a sum of individual interests [Bentham] |
| 3779 | Unnatural, when it means anything, means infrequent [Bentham] |
| 3780 | We must judge a thing morally to know if it conforms to God's will [Bentham] |
| 3781 | The value of pleasures and pains is their force [Bentham] |
| 20280 | Large mature animals are more rational than babies. But all that really matters is - can they suffer? [Bentham] |