He and others worry that laying claim to individual rights conflicts with the Buddhist doctrine of ‘no-self’ (anātman): if there is ultimately no self, the argument goes, then who or what is the bearer of the rights in question? This is a complex issue, but a defender of rights might point out that the doctrine of no-self (anātman) only denies the existence of a transcendental self (ātman), not of a phenomenal, empirical self. It does not deny the existence of human individuals with unique self-shaped identities, and if such identities provide a foundation stable enough for the attribution of duties, as the Buddha clearly believed, presumably they also do for rights.