“Demand” theories complement the idea that, as Feinberg (1973, 58-59) puts it, “a right is something a man can stand on, something that can be demanded or persisted without embarrassment or shame.” For Darwall (2006, 18), a right of complaint implies “a second personal authority to resist, complain, protest and perhaps use coercive measures of another type, including perhaps to obtain compensation for violations of the right.” In the case of Skorupski (2010, XII.6, XIV.2–3), the rights specify what the right holder may require of others, where the “request” implies the lawfulness of mandatory performance or set-off for non-performance. Like the theory of will, these theories of demand focus on the capacity of the rights holder to act. They do not oppose the power of the rightholder over the duty of others, so they do not share the difficulty of the theory of will with indispensable rights. However, they may have more difficulty declaring rights of authority. Demand theories also share the challenges of the theory of will in explaining the rights of the incompetent and explaining privileged rights. In this passage, Blackstone articulates the two statements that form the theoretical core of classical naturalism: 1) There can be no legally valid norms that contradict natural law; and 2) all valid laws derive their power and authority from natural law. From this point of view, to paraphrase Augustine, an unjust law is not a law at all. The basis of natural law is the belief in the existence of a natural moral code based on the identification of certain fundamental and objectively verifiable human goods. Our enjoyment of these basic goods must be ensured by the possession of natural rights that are as fundamental as they are objectively verifiable. Natural law was seen as pre-existing real social and political systems.

Natural rights were also represented as rights that individuals possessed regardless of society or politics. Natural rights were presented as valid in the last resort, whether they had obtained the recognition of a particular political leader or a particular assembly. The embodiment of this position was the 17th century philosopher John Locke and in particular the argument he made in his Two Treatises of Government (1688). At the heart of Locke`s argument is the assertion that individuals have natural rights, regardless of the political recognition granted to them by the state. These natural rights are exercised independently and before the formation of a political community. Locke argued that natural rights derive from natural law. Natural law comes from God. The precise discernment of God`s will has provided us with an ultimately authoritative moral code.

Basically, each of us owes God a duty of self-preservation. To successfully fulfill this commitment to self-preservation, each individual had to be free from threats to life and liberty while needing what Locke represented as the fundamental and positive means of self-preservation: personal property. Our duty to preserve ourselves before God included the necessary existence of fundamental natural rights to life, liberty, and property. Locke further argued that the primary purpose of the investiture of political authority in a sovereign state is to provide and protect the fundamental natural rights of the individual. For Locke, the protection and promotion of the natural rights of the individual was the only justification for creating a government. The natural rights to life, liberty and property impose clear limits on the authority and jurisdiction of the State. States were portrayed as existing to serve the interests, the natural rights of the people, not a monarch or a ruling cadre. Locke even went so far as to argue that individuals have a moral right to take up arms against their government if it systematically and deliberately fails in its duty to ensure possession of the individual`s natural rights.

Low rights are a problem for utilitarianism because its emphasis on maximization makes it indifferent to certain facts about how benefits are distributed among individuals. However, utilitarianism is not the only type of instrumental theory. The powers raise another question. Many authors (e.g. Hohfeld 1919, Hart 1973) have considered it a kind of right. By legal force, we mean the ability to make changes to the law or its application (as well as other conditions). As a rule, of course, when granting a power, the legislator also grants the right to exercise it, but this is sometimes not the case, for example: whether the exercise of the right itself would be a felony or a tort. In English law, for example, until a recent change in the law, a thief had the legal authority, in certain special circumstances, to transfer ownership of stolen property to a third party, even if he had committed a civil and possibly criminal fault. This seems to indicate that powers should not be considered rights themselves.

The theoretical position at the end of this school of thought is called “specificationism” (Shafer-Landau 1995, Oberdiek 2008). The prescriber believes that each right is defined by an elaborate set of reservations that indicate when it applies and when it does not apply: a set of qualifications that define the “space” of the right. Many of these categories have subcategories. For example, natural rights are the subclass of moral rights that humans have by nature. Or, the rights to political expression are a subcategory of the rights to freedom of expression. In French and German, the same word (law, law) serves as a noun, referring to both legal norms and the rights created by them, which is why disambiguation is necessary. Punishment is unique among supposedly legitimate actions, as it is aimed at causing discomfort to the recipient; An act that is unable to cause minimal discomfort to a person cannot be called punishment. In most contexts, committing an act for the purpose of causing discomfort is morally problematic because of its resemblance to torture. For this reason, institutional punishment requires sufficient moral justification to distinguish it from other practices of deliberately causing discomfort to others. The idea that certain actions are bad and therefore forbidden has a strong intuitive appeal. And we can easily make a list of the types of actions that are wrong, at least ceteris paribus: telling lies, breaking promises, intentionally killing or hurting an innocent person, stealing, etc.

For some purposes, a simple list of errors may suffice. But philosophers and legal theorists are unlikely to settle for a list. Why not? Because the content of the list is likely to be controversial. Lies belong to the list, but what about not making a full disclosure to a stranger in a business transaction? Assault and battery are on the list, but should the exception of self-defence be extended to the protection of property? Human rights have a long historical legacy. The most important philosophical basis of human rights is the belief in the existence of a form of justice valid for all people everywhere. In this form, contemporary human rights doctrine has moved to the centre of geopolitical affairs. The language of human rights is understood and used by many peoples in very different circumstances. Human rights have become indispensable for contemporary understanding of how people interact with each other and through national and international political bodies. Human rights are best seen as potential moral guarantees for every human being to lead a minimally good life. The extent to which this aspiration has not been realized represents a glaring failure of today`s world to establish a morally binding order based on human rights. The philosophical foundations of human rights have been repeatedly criticized. While some aspects of the ensuing debate between philosophical supporters and opponents of human rights remain unresolved and perhaps intractable, the general argument for human rights remains morally powerful.

Probably the most convincing motivation for man`s existence can be based on the exercise of imagination. Imagine a world without human rights! According to the thesis of conventionality, it is a conceptual legal truth that legal validity can ultimately be explained on the basis of criteria that are decisive on the basis of some kind of social convention. For example, H.L.A. Hart (1996) argues that the criteria for legal validity are contained in a recognition rule that establishes rules for the creation, amendment, and jurisdiction of the law. According to Hart, the recognition rule based on an agreement between public servants is decisive in considering their criteria as standards governing their conduct as civil servants.