ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how rights play out in society. In Rights from Wrongs, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz compiles a list of many rights that recently have actually been claimed along with claimed counterrights. It is important to note and to remember that "liberalism" does not mean the same thing as "liberal" — at least what most people mean by "liberal" in today's political climate. Like liberals, communitarians fall along a spectrum and do not agree on all points or issues. They do, however, broadly agree on several criticisms of liberalism and on the significance of community. Communitarians embrace moral and legal rights as a crucial component of social interaction. Among communitarians, Mary Ann Glendon is particularly well known for her critique of rights talk. Liberalism's view of persons as unencumbered selves places a primary emphasis on individual rights with little or no concern for responsibilities to others.
