Corelative
Legal philosophy
Correlative ("corelative," UK spelling) is the term adopted by Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld to describe the philosophical relationships between fundamental legal concepts in jurisprudence.
01Hohfeldian analysis
Hohfeld was concerned that there was some ambiguity in the explanation of the similarities and differences between concepts in law. Hence, with the focus on the nature of rights, he proposed a system of analysis based on "jural correlatives" and "jural opposites". A correlative is where two concepts are logically consistent and the one necessarily implies the other. When two concepts are Hohfeldian opposites (technically, logical contradictions), they are mutually exclusive.
Thus, if A has a right with regard to B, an analysis of their relationship from B's point of view must imply that B has a duty to A. An owner of land may hold four distinct entitlements: rights, privileges, powers, and immunities. Hohfeld linked each entitlement to a correlative and its opposite:
| Elements | Correlatives | Opposites |
| Right | Duty | No Right |
| Privilege or Liberty | No Right | Duty |
| Power | Liability | Disability |
| Immunity | Disability | Liability |
02In practice
Jurists such as Mickey Dias and Hohfeld have declared that rights and duties are jural corelatives, which means that if someone has a right, someone else owes a duty to him.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Corelative”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.