What Can Have Rights?
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Philosophers have come to different conclusions about the kind of being that can have moral rights. We almost all agree that adults have rights and rocks do not. What is the relevant difference? If someone says that a rock has rights it seems that he or she makes more than a simple mistake about the facts. It is not like saying that a rock weighs 10 pounds when it really weighs 15 pounds. Everyone agrees that a rock might weigh 15 pounds although the particular rock under discussion does not. But we don't think that some rocks have (or could have) rights even though some particular rock does not. A rock isn't the kind of thing that can have rights at all. Something is missing in the rock's makeup. But what?

Only beings with consciousness can have rights. Only beings with interests can have rights. Only beings that can be harmed or benefited can have rights. Only beings with the concept of X and a desire for X can have a right to X. Only beings that can feel pleasure and pain can have rights. Only beings with the potential to have any of the above properties can have rights. Only beings with an immortal soul can have rights. Only beings made in the image of God can have rights.

Remember that the question here is only about what something must be like in order to have rights. We are not asking what rights any particular kind of being actually has. Even if a fetus can have rights, it takes more argument to conclude that it has a right to life or to support from its mother or to anything else.

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