Cutting to the heart of the argument, I can only say that this misconstrues the significance of moral theory. Moral theory's practical value is its instruction to judgment as to the nature, good or evil, of a given course of action.

Not having read much (if any) moral theory, I really can’t comment on this.

And again, I am not saying that the concept of rights is devoid of all usefulness. As best I grok, in my current hurried and harried state, your observations regarding the “Catallactic positivists” sound similar to some of the observing and thinking that led to this post, which should be taken as more of a thought experiment and exploration than a position paper, even though I did write it more in the latter style. I hope we can continue the conversation when I am less hurried and harried; I suspect your “jazz” will help clarify my thinking.