By Prof Adina Preda, published January 2026
Intro:
Matthew Kramer is the foremost contemporary proponent of the Interest theory of rights, and his latest monograph is a definitive statement and defense of that theory. While some of the arguments in Rights and Right-Holding are familiar to rights theorists, some novel ones are introduced in order to complete his account of right-holding. Since it is impossible to do justice to this rich and carefully argued book in such a short review, I will focus on the fresh ideas presented here.
Let me start with a short exposition of the two main accounts of right-holding. The literature on rights is divided between theorists who subscribe to the Hohfeldian framework of deontic relations and those who don’t; Kramer is firmly in the first camp, while many other interest theorists explicitly or implicitly reject it. Within this Hohfeldian camp, however, there is a long-standing divide between Choice theorists and Interest theorists.