In this paper I hope to show that a conception of human rights requires a view of the social ideal and the good life, and requires a view of the nature of human community. But what I say in favor of these points hardly amounts to a demonstration. Instead I try to exhibit how we think and talk about rights in general, and what the presuppositions of such thought and talk are. Throughout, I emphasize the pragmatic side of rights-discourse and (...) I try to establish some of the contexts in which such discourse can be significantly employed. Much of what I say is motivated by the consideration that an historically important factor in the generation of various rights, their acknowledgement and implementation, and their extension to increasingly larger segments of the population, has been the claims put forward and the demands made by individuals and groups against individuals and groups. This factor constitutes a suggestive clue for the development of a theory of rights. The treatment here, however, is largely programmatic and fragmentary. The space allotted does not permit more. Moreover, I lead up to—but do not go into—the social ideal and the human community. The title of this essay indicates its limited scope. The above points are, of course, hardly novel; many older writers laid great stress upon them. But of late they have not received the attention that they in my view deserve. What does it mean for someone to maintain a conception of human rights? How is this conception given any concrete content? The answers to these questions, I believe, ultimately lead to a consideration of social ideals and the human community. What follows is meant to stimulate new thinking on these old-fashioned topics. (shrink)

The idea of equality exerts considerable influence on our moral imaginations, yet it has remained philosophically elusive. Although men and women have thought equality worth dying for, philosophers have been largely unable to give any systematic account of its importance as a moral ideal, or of its function in moral and political theory.

1. In this essay I want to try out some ideas: about the notion of a right—how it works and the terms of its meaningful application; about a distinction between institutional and noninstitutional rights; in regard to noninstitutional rights, about specific, nonspecific, general, and so-called universal rights; in relation to ‘universal’ institutional rights, about the notions of ‘natural’ and ‘human’ rights; about certain classes of noninstitutional rights which are variously regarded as basic, fundamental, inalienable, etc.; and about certain problems concerning (...) what is sometimes referred to as the metaphysics of rights: problems about their reality or existence, their eternality or historicity. Throughout I shall feel quite free to move back and forth between so-called analytical questions about rights and questions of a more substantive nature. I shall be aiming both at a clarification of my thinking about rights and at a determination of those noninstitutional rights which, in my book, are to be taken most seriously. This essay is thus written, in the first instance, for my own edification. To others I offer it as an invitation to colloquy and to further reflection. But such colloquies and reflections will not serve their purpose unless they are funded back into the practical deliberations and decisions of ordinary life. (shrink)