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I know that libertarians vary in the type of foundations they propose for individual rights. I think that some actually use a utilitarian foundation. But most try to establish libertarianism on some other basis. Some want to find a basis for their moral principles in reason alone without having to appeal to consequences. When consequences are not the basis of the argument the approach is called "deontological." These libertarians believe that reason can produce a set of natural rights that people have as individuals prior to society. I don't think this can be done. 

I can understand the attraction of natural rights. They can function as a limitation on what government (and people in general) can do to the individual. And I agree that there need to be moral limits on what government (and other people) can do. 

But it may be a mistake to think that natural rights are the only effective limit. I don't believe that is true. There can be other good prudential and moral reasons to limit what we can justifiably do to one another. To put it bluntly, I don't think we need a philosophy of natural rights.

To be honest, I'm not even sure what natural rights are. They always seem a little weird and metaphysical to me. Some people talk about people having natural rights as though people are born with them, like fingers and toes. Aren't rights something we create? 

At the very least if we are going to talk about rights we have to be clear on what they are and where they come from. And we need to ask ourselves what reasons are there to believe that people have any rights at all?