In-Person | Rethinking Rights

Please note that the time allocated for this colloquia will be devoted to discussion.

Speaker: Prof Japa Pallikkathayil (University of Pittsburgh)

About the Session: Talk of rights permeates philosophical, legal, and everyday discourse. And yet there is surprisingly little agreement about what rights are. This debate has long been dominated by two main accounts of rights – Interest Theory and Will Theory. I argue that the most common counterexamples to both theories are less significant than their detractors generally take them to be. I suggest a different way of evaluating competing accounts of rights, one that is less focused on the search for counterexamples and more focused how the respective theories construe the role of rights in our practical deliberations. I then propose a distinctive account of rights, which I call Action Theory. I argue that Action Theory captures the role of rights in our practical deliberations better than either of its rivals.  

About the speaker

Japa Pallikkathayil is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work focuses on issues at the intersection of moral and political philosophy. She has written on topics including coercion, consent, and political legitimacy. Her current research focuses on rights.

About the Institute

The Institute brings together political and legal theorists from Law, Political Science and Philosophy and organises regular colloquia in terms 2 and 3. Read more about the Institute's work.

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