The Practice of Rights

In this book, first published in 1977, Richard Flathman sets out to provide a systematic understanding and an assessment of individual rights. He pursues the first objective primarily by analysing the salient characteristics of the uses of ‘rights’ in ordinary language. Establishing, exercising, respecting and violating rights are treated as activities forming a social ‘practice’. This practice consists of an interrelated set of rules, norms and beliefs that are generally accepted and acted upon by persons who participate in the practice. Both the form and the content of the practice change substantially over time. The author’s analysis of civic individualism casts doubt both on the communitarian conceptions of the proper relationship between the individual and society and on the strongly a- or anti-political individualism (and the right to private property it has emphasised) that has occupied a significant place in political philosophy from Hobbes to Nozick.