Changing Conceptions of Rights in the United States and the West

Among the most pronounced features of the American revolutionarygeneration, which culminated in the writing and adoption ofthe Constitution of the United States, were the introductionof the idea of individual rights as the basis for politicalorganization and the protection of those rights as a major taskof government.¹ This idea, which now is uncritically acceptedby conventional opinion, in itself represents only one conceptionof rights and must be understood as such. In this article, wewill examine what is a conception of rights and how rights arejustified. In this exploration, we have to understand how eachconception of rights is shaped by a particular view of the natureof man, a particular understanding of the sources of rights,and a particular direction for the expression of rights.