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Secret Rights, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Since the seventeenth century, when the concept of rights first came into vogue, philosophers and social theorists have struggled to articulate an acceptable theory of individual rights, but their efforts remain largely unsatisfactory. Without exception, each effort falters when it attempts to describe the contours of the rights that are entitled to protection or to explain the ways in which competing claims of right should interact. This is true whether a theorist seeks to define a right through reference to its substantive content or through reference to the procedures by which the right can be recognized. Given the collective stature …