title: Is there an alternative to hierarchical Spring security roles?
body: <p>Can Spring roles only be defined in relative hierarchical terms as in this example?</p>
  
  <p>Is there any way to define the roles in absolute terms?</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;beans:bean id="roleHierarchy"
      class="org.springframework.security.access.hierarchicalroles.RoleHierarchyImpl"&gt;
      &lt;beans:property name="hierarchy"&gt;
          &lt;beans:value&gt;
              ROLE_ADMIN &gt; ROLE_USER
              ROLE_USER &gt; ROLE_ANONYMOUS
          &lt;/beans:value&gt;
      &lt;/beans:property&gt;
  &lt;/beans:bean&gt;
  </code></pre>