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The tension between utilitarianism and theories of natural right is an old one. Utilitarian theorists, seeking to be concrete and scientific, often saw theories of natural rights as mysterious, metaphysical, and even nonsensical. Between 1789 and 1795 various French assemblies and individuals published a series of declarations of rights. For example, in 1791 the French Constituent Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. Jeremy Bentham offered the following criticism. He first quotes from the declaration and then criticizes it:

Sentence 1. The end in view of every political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man.

More confusion -- more nonsense, and the nonsense, as usual, dangerous nonsense. The words can scarcely be said to have a meaning: but if they have, or rather if they had a meaning, these would be the propositions either asserted or implied:

1. That there are such things as rights anterior to the establishment of governments: for natural, as applies to rights, if it meant anything, is meant to stand in opposition to legal; to such rights as are acknowledged to owe their existence to government, and are consequently posterior in their date to the establishment of government.

2. That these rights can not be abrogated by government: for can not is implied in the form of the word impresciptible, and the sense it wears when so applied, is the cut-throat sense above explained.

3. That the governments that exist derive their origin from formal associations or what are now called conventions....

Such are the notions implied in this first part of the article. How stands the truth of things? That there are no such things as natural rights, no such things as rights anterior to the establishment of government, no such things as natural rights opposed to, in contradistinction to, legal; that the expression is merely figurative; that when used, in the moment you attempt to give it a literal meaning it leads to error, and to that sort of error that leads to mischief, to the extremity of mischief.

We know what it is for men to live without government and, living without government, to live without rights; we know what it is for men to live without government, for we see instances of such a way of life in abundance. We see it in many savage nations, or rather races of mankind; for instance, among the savages of New South Wales, whose way of living is so well known to us: no habit of obedience, and thence no government; no government, and thence no laws; no laws, and thence nor any such things as rights, no security, no property....

In proportion to the want of happiness resulting from the want of rights, a reason [exists] for wishing that there were such things as rights. But reasons fro wishing there were such things as rights, are not rights; a reason for wishing that a certain right were established, is not that right; want is not supply; hunger is not bread.

That which has no existence cannot be destroyed; that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from being destroyed. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, nonsense upon stilts. [Bentham's Political Thought, p. 267-269.]