F. H. Bradley

“ He is the object of duties, not the subject of rights. Right is the universal in its relation to a will capable of recognizing it as such, whether it remain mere command or is also carried out in act. ”

“ Just so in morals there is a sphere of private liking, the sphere of indifferents, but this exists only because it ought to exist, only because duty is realized in its existence, though not by its particulars as particulars, i.e. as this one against that one. The sphere of private right has rights only so long as it is right and is duty. It exists merely on sufferance; and the moment the right of the whole demands its suppression it has no rights. Public right everywhere overrides it in practice, if not in theory. ”

“ To have rights is not merely to be the object with respect to which commands (positive or prohibitory) are addressed to others. If that were so, inanimate matter would have rights; e.g. the very dirt in the road would ‘have a right’ to be taken up or let lie—and this is barbarous. To have rights is to be (or to be presumed to be) capable of realizing the universal command consciously as such. ”

“ He has a duty to A, B, and C, but not a right to more than one, because it is wrong if he gives more than his indivisible limited sum. Hence there are more duties than rights. All that it comes to is that, when you look on duties as possible, they are wider than what, when actually done, is right and actual duty. Just so possible rights are wider than what is actually duty and actually right.
The reason why this is noticed on the side of rights, and not on the side of duty, is very simple. We saw above that in right the emphasis is on the universal side. ”

“ In the moral sphere, with which alone we are concerned, right means always the relation of the universal to the particular will. The emphasis is on the universal. Possibility of discrepancy with a conscious subject makes law here command. ”

“ When my will as the universal, and the universal as my will, calls for these acts, then I ‘have a right’ to them in the proper sense; but not otherwise. ↑ What is justice? I have no space to develope or illustrate, but will set down what seems to be the fact. The just does not = right; injustice does not = wrong. Justice does not = giving to each his deserts: ‘nothing but justice’ may be less or more than my deserts. Justice is not mere conforming to law: injustice is not mere acting against law ”