Moreover, the sanction theory of rights has problems of its own. The sanction theory of rights treats the desirability of social enforcement as constitutive of the idea of a right. But this seems to get things backward. It is because we have rights that society ought to enforce them; it is not that we have rights to whatever society ought to enforce. The desirability of social enforcement seems consequential on the existence of the right. This is even clearer, because there are some claims that