A Note on Margaret Gilbert’s Rights and Demands

In her subtle and rigorous book, Margaret Gilbert develops a theory of what she calls ‘demand rights’. Demand rights are rights for which the right-holder has ‘the standing to demand the object of the right from the right’s addressee’ (p. 56). Part I identifies the problem of demand rights: ‘at the deepest level—is it possible for one person to accrue the standing to demand of another that he perform a given action?’ (p. 79). In Part II, Gilbert offers a positive account of demand rights. Gilbert argues that joint commitments are a fundamental ground of demand rights. Part III is a wide-ranging discussion of demand rights in morality, law, and human rights. Here I will restrict myself to commenting on some concerns I have about Gilbert’s account, especially her account of the relationship between directed duties and demand rights.