Rights and Intentions in Value Modeling - Intentional Perspectives on Information Systems Engineering - page 194

2.3 Hohfeld's Classification of Rights

A central component in any value exchange is the transfer and creation of rights.
The rights being created can be of different kinds, and it is easy to confuse what
rights can mean and how they can be distinguished. In order to clarify the role of
rights in value exchanges we will make use of the work of W. N. Hohfeld [ 8, 9] ,
who proposed a classification identifying four broad categories of rights: claims,
privileges, powers, and immunities.

•

One actor has a claim on another actor if the other actor is required to act in a
certain way for the benefit of the first actor, typically by carrying out some action.
Conversely, the second actor is said to have a duty to the first actor. An example is
a person who has a claim on another person to pay an amount of money, implying
that the other person has a duty to pay the amount. Claims always exist within a
social structure that is able to monitor and enforce them.

• An actor has a privilege on an action if she is free to carry out that action without

any interference from a social structure. Some examples of privileges are free
speech, free movement, and free choice of marriage partner, which mean that
a person is able to talk, move, and choose a marriage partner without interfer-
ence from the state. Another example is that a person owning some goods has
privileges to use the goods in various ways.

• A power is the ability of an actor to create or modify a relationship. An example

is that a person owning a piece of land has the power to sell it to someone else,
thereby creating a new ownership relationship for that piece of land.

• Immunity is about restricting the power of an actor in creating formal relation-

ships for other actors. For example, a native people can have an immunity for state
legislation concerning their property rights, meaning that the state does not have
the power to legislate laws that modify the existing property rights of members
of the native people.

Most relationships consist of a combination of several of these rights. For exam-
ple, if you own a car it means that you have privileges on using it and you also
have the power to lend the car or sell it, i.e. creating new ownerships involving other
actors.

3 Value Context Model

In this section, we introduce a conceptual model that provides a context for the
basic notions of value models. This value context model will include actors car-
rying out value exchanges and the social structures that form the background of
the exchanges. Furthermore, the model will represent how actions carried out by
actors can be combined into joint actions that communicate intentions and may
result in creating and modifying social relationships. These relationships will be