ABSTRACT
In this final essay I want first to consider briefly the career of the doctrine of human rights in the century or so since the publication of these attacks. How has it fared and how has it changed? At the moment rights have taken on a new importance in politics and political philosophy. But have the objections of Bentham, Burke and Marx been answered? Does the new commitment to rights differ from the old in any way that would make it a safer and more adequate basis for political thought and action? Secondly, I want to concentrate on some of the outstanding themes in the critique of human rights and of the liberal rights tradition, particularly as those themes have been taken up by theorists and philosophers who call themselves the ‘new communitarians’. 1 What are their criticisms of liberalism and rights-based philosophy? Are they justified? Or is there something that the liberal can say in response to their indictment?
