Introduction: Equal Citizenship and Social Inequality

Abstract

The idea that individuals have rights which are prior to, and compelling over, governments has a long and well-established tradition in political theory, especially within families of thought with liberal affiliation. Although it has never ceased to be a controversial tradition, its acceptance seems to have enlarged during the second half of the twentieth century. And yet, this apparently growing acceptance has not brought controversies to an end. Somehow, it has produced only a metamorphosis in the framework within which the discussion evolves: now, not so much between those who do and those who do not accept the idea that individuals have rights, but mainly between different interpretations of this idea; and also between different views on what should or should not be the realm of rights.

Should we welcome the extension of the traditional idea of the rights of man to the political and social field? Or should we deplore that those rights have lost (or seem to have lost) their unconditional and even sacred character? We should probably accept both conclusions: our epoch has the merit of having extended the number of subjects and objects of rights which are claimed to be universal, but this extension has weakened these rights.

Raymond Aron, Political Studies, 1972