CONFLICTS OF RIGHTS AND DUTIES: A CRITIQUE OF JOSEPH RAZ’S THEORY

Abstract

The nature and sources of rights and duties have continued to generate interest among scholars and intellectuals across disciplines such as philosophy, law, political theory, and ethics. Joseph Raz is one of those scholars who theorized about rights and duties. According to him, there are two kinds of rights: Core rights and Derivative rights. He claims that Core rights are grounds for duties and duties impose a command for an action. Raz argues that interests justify rights, while rights justify duties, and that it is possible for duty-bearers to resolve dilemmas on account of attenuating circumstances, rather than on account of the grounding dependency of duty-bearing in relation to the rights-claim. This paper, therefore, investigates the conflict between Core and Derivative rights and examines the distinction between Core right in relation to the conflict of rights by Raz. It critically appraises the logic of resolving conflicts of rights and duties and argues that rights and duties cannot be mapped upon the logic of grounding. We shall argue that rights and interest do not share equivalence, but that rights certainly entail duties, and the grounds for duties need not follow from the interest of rights.