"The leading contemporary non-consequentialist theories are those which are framed in the language of rights. Following the Second World War, there has been an immense increase in “rights talk”, both in number of supposed rights and in total volume. Rights doctrine has progressed a long way since its original aim of providing “a legitimisation of … claims against tyrannical or exploiting regimes”. As Tom Campbell points out: The human rights movement is based on the need for a counter-ideology to combat the abuses and misuses of political authority by those who invoke, as a justification for their activities, the need to subordinate the particular interests of individuals to the general good."
January 1, 1970