Addressing the Addressive Theory of Rights

This article examines Rowan Cruft’s new Addressive Theory of Rights, put forward in his Human Rights, Ownership, and the Individual. We begin with an exposition of Cruft’s discussion of the nature of rights and directed duties. We see there are two elements to this: first, a series of arguments that no reductive account of rights succeeds and, second, an introduction to the Addressive Theory. I then offer three critical comments. First, that the two elements to Cruft’s discussion on the nature of rights and directed duties, the antireductivism and the introduction of the Addressive Theory, are independent. Second, that, because of the antireductivism, the Addressive Theory is unmotivated. Third, that part of the Addressive Theory itself, requiring first-personal thought on the part of capable right holders, is redundant. I conclude by considering what we can learn from these three comments: that we should rethink whether to combine the Addressive Theory with a reductive theory of rights, which grounds rights in features of right-holders as moral patients.