Claims of Need*

Abstract

Abstract It has been felt for a long time that there must be some intimate connection between the needs of human beings and their abstract rights. H.L.A. Hart was giving voice to a strong and widespread intuition when he wrote: A concept of legal rights limited to those cases where the law... respects the choice of individuals would be too narrow. For there is a form of the moral criticism of law which ... is inspired by regard for the needs of individuals for certain fundamental freedoms and protections or benefits. Criticism of the law for its failure to provide for such individual needs is distinct from, and sometimes at war with, the criticism with which Bentham was perhaps too exclusively concerned, that the law often fails to maximize aggregate utility.