Individuals, Groups, and Rights to Public Goods†

Abstract

Recent literature has elided these two questions and reached a sceptical conclusion. Joseph Raz, for example, thinks that it is at least unlikely that an individual can successfully claim a right to some sorts of public goods, while Neil MacCormick has argued that legal rights secure individuals in the enjoyment of individual goods but not in that of collective goods such as clean air. One particular feature of public goods is wrongly isolated as rendering implausible a claim of individual right. Firstly, the concepts of partial public goods and rule-defined public goods expand considerably the scope of goods which may be subject to Raz's substantive argument. Secondly, it points out that the feature of Raz's collective goods which makes them unsuitable to a claim of individual right is instantiated in certain group activities, such as the maintenance of a linguistic or religious community.