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Simone Weil was skeptical about the project of “rights.” They argued that obligations come before rights, and that rights only become real when obligations are recognized and lived. 

Weil believed the French Revolution made a foundational error by grounding society in rights rather than eternal obligations, creating a contradiction that still haunts liberal democracies today. Rights, Weil argues, carry a bargaining spirit and ultimately depend on force for enforcement, while obligations arise unconditionally from the mere fact of another person’s vulnerability. You owe something to others not because they’ve asserted a claim, but because they exist.

Drawing from Weil’s posthumous The Need for Roots, Matthew unpacks their critique of liberal rights discourse: that modern societies undermine their own moral claims by prioritizing abstractions over duties.

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