Wrongs and Rights Come Apart, by Nicolas Cornell. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2025. Pp xii + 291. In Wrongs and Rights Come Apart, Nicolas Cornell argues against what he claims is a widespread thesis in normative theory: that committing a moral wrong against someone (or simply ‘wronging’ them) necessarily amounts to violating their rights. I shall call this the ‘wrongs-entail-rights’ thesis. Cornell finds adherents of this thesis among notable figures of the common law – such as Blackstone, Holmes and Cardozo – as well as among prominent contemporary ethicists, including Darwall, Ripstein, Owens and Wallace. The book is dedicated to refuting the wrongs-entail-rights thesis and defending the view that wrongings and rights violations often come apart. Cornell supports this view by drawing on numerous examples from legal cases, canonical texts in Western literature, and ordinary life and popular culture. Various moral phenomena present in such examples, he argues, are best elucidated if we understand the domains of wrongings and rights as reflecting two distinct ways of morally relating to others …
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Crescente Molina, Wrongs and Rights Come Apart, by Nicolas Cornell, Mind. Published: 28 January 2026.
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