Wolterstorff's Justice: Chapters 12-17

The link to the previous chapter is here.

These chapters argue about how rights are not grounded and how they are grounded. Chapter 12 argues that rights are not grounded on duties that one has towards another person. The following chapter argues that rights are grounded on the worth of a person. An individual has different sort of rights that come about through different ways. But the most elementary form of right is the inherent right of a person. This sort of right emerges because the individual person has worth/dignity inherently. To deny this sort of right to the person is to treat the person as less than what his or her worth is. 

Nick underscores that this inherent right of a person that gives rise to the worth of the person cannot emerge from some sort of capacity that an individual possesses or can do. For example, if it's the capacity to reason, then the problem emerges with respect to those who are not able to reason. So capacity to reason is not the appropriate category that should serve as the ground that gives rise to the worth of  a person. Nick argues that this way, secular grounding of the worth of a person fails. Here he illustrates how, for example, Kantian way of grounding rights fails. He then argues that only a theistic grounding -- God's love (love as attachment) -- is the only sort that can ground the worth of a person for which the person possesses inherent right. Given this inherent right and other sorts of rights, a right theorist approach to justice can only provide a theory of justice.