It is often assumed that act-utilitarianism cannot account for human rights. In this thesis, I argue that an act-utilitarian derivation of human rights is possible. First, I show that most major...Show moreIt is often assumed that act-utilitarianism cannot account for human rights. In this thesis, I argue that an act-utilitarian derivation of human rights is possible. First, I show that most major objections to a utilitarian theory of rights can be tackled by using a plausible definition of rights that contains no unnecessary anti-utilitarian elements. However, one serious problem remains: in any adequate definition, rights must have moral force. Because act-utilitarianism only considers the consequences of acts, it appears to be unable to assign the force to human rights that they require. I argue that primitive rule-utilitarianism does not suffer from this problem: it makes human rights have major weight in utility calculations, which gives them significant moral force. However, David Lyons’ thesis of extensional equivalence between generalised and simple utility entails that act-utilitarianism can assign just as much force to human rights as primitive rule-utilitarianism can. I conclude that, in contrast to what is commonly assumed, human rights do have force in act-utilitarianism.Show less