The view has often been expressed that we humans possess inherent or “natural” rights (as expressed in many Bills of Rights) but this does not stand up to critical scrutiny. The English utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham (early 19th century) proposed that individual rights (while all very pleasing to reformers and liberals of the time fighting an unjust aristocratic British political system) were ultimately secondary to the common good or what he dubbed “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”. How to decide when rights clashed with greater good or responsibility? Bentham said by empirical enquiry. If people spouting the right of free speech, for example, shouted for insurrection or this led to damaging civil disorder (as in recent events in the Trump Congress riot) this was not justifiable on Benthamite grounds. The overall good should prevail. In only there were more utilitarians around these days to counter what Jeremy called “nonsense on stilts” that we find constantly in the media. More talk of responsibility and less of “I have a right to do such and such”.