Civic Virtues: Rights, Citizenship, and Republican Liberalism

Although few want to deny the importance of individual rights, many political theorists have recently complained that their importance has been greatly over-emphasized. The result, as they see it, is an excessive individualism that blinds people to the needs of the community or state to which they belong. We should be less concerned with our rights, in their view, and more concerned with our responsibilities. Those who advanced this view typically argue against liberalism. In Civic Virtues, a co…