Logical Quantification and the Hohfeldian Analysis of Rights

Ever since the American legal philosopher Wesley Hohfeld published his analyses of rights in the second decade of the twentieth century, numerous philosophers and legal theorists have grappled with his matrix of legal positions. Very seldom, however, have the commentators on Hohfeld recognized the importance of logical quantification for any endeavor to elaborate the categories of that matrix fully. This paper will mull over a few of the manifold ways in which quantification is operative in the legal relationships that Hohfeld delineated. After furnishing a short conspectus of the Hohfeldian analytical framework which distills those relationships, this paper will briefly discuss the two most prominent logical quantifiers and will then explore how one's awareness of the workings of those quantifiers can sharpen one's grasp of the Hohfeldian analysis.