The American language of rights.

In this new addition to the ongoing debate over "rights talk, " Richard Pri mus uses a set of historical case studies to criticize the writings of lead ing contemporary philosophers who assume that rights have an ontological st atus independent of the particular historical and political contexts in whi ch their nature and extent are debated. Rights talk is best understood, Pri mus suggests, as a social practice in which substantive political commitmen ts and the identification of particular adversities unleash a process of "c oncrete negation " that seeks both to manipulate and transform existing ide as of rights. Professor Rakove and Ms. Beaumont argue that Primus uses his historical case studies effectively to challenge the idea that rights have a fixed, ontologically independent status, but they question whether in emp hasizing the elitist, trickle-down nature of rights talk, he overlooks how much rights talk depends on the existence of a robust vernacular idiom.