For republicans, rights ultimately are nothing but determinations of prevailing
political will, while for liberals, some rights are always grounded in a "higher law" of transpolitical reason or revelation . . . . In a republican view, a community's objective, common good substantially consists in the success of its political endeavor to define, establish, effectuate, and sustain the set of rights (less tendentiously, laws) best suited to the conditions and mores of
that community. Whereas in a contrasting liberal view, the higher-law rights provide the transactional structures and the curbs on power required so that pluralistic pursuit of diverse and conflicting interests may proceed as satisfactorily as possible.5