Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy 21st-century philosophy
Name	Ronald Dworkin
Birth	1931 in Worcester, Massachusetts
School/tradition	Jurisprudence, Political philosophy
Notable ideas	law as integrity, fit and justification in law, right answer thesis, legal interpretivism
Influenced by	Learned Hand
Influenced	Will Kymlicka

Ronald Dworkin, QC, FBA (born 1931) is an American legal philosopher, currently professor of Jurisprudence at University College London and the New York University School of Law, and former professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford. Queen's Counsel ( postnominal QC) &ndash known as King's Counsel ( KC) during the reign of a male sovereign  &ndash are The British Academy is the United Kingdom 's National academy for the Humanities and the Social sciences It was established by Royal Charter Year 1931 ( MCMXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the Jurisprudence is the Theory and Philosophy of Law. Scholars of jurisprudence or legal philosophers hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature Jurisprudence is the Theory and Philosophy of Law. Scholars of jurisprudence or legal philosophers hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature University College London ( UCL) is a multi-faculty university institution based in the United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London See also New York Law School The New York University School of Law ( NYU Law) is the The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the He is known for his contributions to legal philosophy and political philosophy. Jurisprudence is the Theory and Philosophy of Law. Scholars of jurisprudence or legal philosophers hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature Political philosophy is the study of questions about the City, Government, Politics, Liberty, Justice, Property, Rights His theory of law as integrity is one of the leading contemporary views of the nature of law. Law is a system of rules enforced through a set of Institutions used as an instrument to underpin civil obedience politics economics and society

Biographical sketch

Ronald Dworkin was born in 1931 in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Worcester (ˈwʊstɚ is a City in the state of Massachusetts in the United States of America. He studied at Harvard University and at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was a student of Sir Rupert Cross and a Rhodes Scholar. Magdalen College redirects here see also Magdalene College Cambridge Magdalen College (ˈmɔːdlɨn "maudlin" is one of the constituent The University of Oxford (informally "Oxford University" or simply "Oxford" located in the city of Oxford, Oxfordshire, England is the Sir Rupert Cross (born Alfred Rupert Neale Cross 15 June 1912 in Chelsea London &ndash died 12 September 1980, Oxford Rhodes Scholarship Rhodes scholar redirects here Rhodes Scholar redirects here Rhodes scholars Dworkin then attended Harvard Law School and subsequently clerked for the renowned Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Harvard Law School (also known as Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional Graduate schools of Harvard University. Billings Learned Hand (January 27 1872 – August 18 1961 The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is one of the thirteen United States Courts of Appeals. Judge Hand would later call Dworkin the finest clerk he ever employed, and Dworkin would recall Judge Hand as an enormously influential mentor. After working at Sullivan & Cromwell, a prominent law firm in New York City, Dworkin became a Professor of Law at Yale University, where he became the holder of the Wesley N. Hohfeld Chair of Jurisprudence. Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, an international Law firm headquartered in New York, is one of the world's most profitable and prestigious law firms The City of New York Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld (1879-1918 was an American Jurist. He was the author of the seminal Fundamental Legal Conceptions As Applied in Judicial Reasoning and Other Legal

In 1969, Dworkin was appointed to the Chair of Jurisprudence at Oxford, a position in which he succeeded H.L.A. Hart, and elected Fellow of University College, Oxford. Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (1907-1992 was an influential English-speaking legal philosopher of the twentieth century. University College (in full the The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as Univ) is one of After retiring from Oxford, Dworkin became the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, where he subsequently became the Bentham Professor of Jurisprudence -- a position he still holds. Quain Professor is the professorship title for certain disciplines at University College London, England Jurisprudence is the Theory and Philosophy of Law. Scholars of jurisprudence or legal philosophers hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature University College London ( UCL) is a multi-faculty university institution based in the United Kingdom and a constituent college of the University of London [1] He is also currently Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University School of Law and professor of Philosophy at New York University (NYU) [2], where he has taught since the late 1970s. See also New York Law School The New York University School of Law ( NYU Law) is the New York University ( NYU) is a private, Nonsectarian, Coeducational Research University in New York City. Dworkin has regularly contributed, for several decades, to The New York Review of Books. The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semimonthly Magazine on Literature, Culture, and current

Law as rule and principle

"Positivism's most significant critic rejects the theory on every conceivable level. He denies that there can be any general theory of the existence and content of law; he denies that local theories of particular legal systems can identify law without recourse to its merits, and he rejects the whole institutional focus of positivism. A theory of law is for Dworkin a theory of how cases ought to be decided and it begins, not with an account of political organization, but with an abstract ideal regulating the conditions under which governments may use coercive force over their subjects. " [3]

Dworkin is most famous for his critique of Hart's legal positivism; he sets forth the fullest statement of his critique in his book Law's Empire. Herbert Lionel Adolphus Hart (1907-1992 was an influential English-speaking legal philosopher of the twentieth century. Legal positivism is a school of thought in Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of law. Dworkin's theory is 'interpretive': the law is whatever follows from a constructive interpretation of the institutional history of the legal system.

Dworkin argues that moral principles that people hold dear are often wrong, even to the extent that certain crimes are acceptable if your principles are skewed enough. In order to discover and apply these principles, courts interpret the legal data (legislation, cases etc) with a view to articulating an interpretation which best explains and justifies past legal practice. All interpretation must follow, Dworkin argues, from the notion of "law as integrity" in order to make sense.

Out of the idea that law is 'interpretive' in this way, Dworkin argues that in every situation where people's legal rights are controversial, the best interpretation involves the right answer thesis. Dworkin opposes the notion that judges have such a discretion in difficult cases.

Dworkin's model of legal principles is also connected with Hart's notion of the Rule of Recognition. A central part of Herbert Hart 's theory on Legal positivism, in any legal system the rule of recognition is a master meta-rule underlying any legal system that defines Dworkin rejects Hart's conception of a master rule in every legal system that identifies valid laws, on the basis that this would entail that the process of identifying law must be uncontroversial, whereas (Dworkin argues) people have legal rights even in cases where the correct legal outcome is open to reasonable dispute.

While Dworkin moves away from positivism's separation of law and morality, his concept suggests that the two are related in an epistemic rather than ontological sense as posited by traditional natural law. Legal positivism is a school of thought in Jurisprudence and the Philosophy of law. Natural law or the law of nature ( Latin: lex naturalis) is a theory that posits the existence of a law whose content is set by Nature and that

The right answer thesis

"Suppose the legislature has passed a statute stipulating that 'sacrilegious contracts shall henceforth be invalid. ' The community is divided as to whether a contract signed on Sunday is, for that reason alone, sacrilegious. It is known that very few of the legislators had that question in mind when they voted, and that they are now equally divided on the question of whether it should be so interpreted. Tom and Tim have signed a contract on Sunday, and Tom now sues Tim to enforce the terms of the contract, whose validity Tim contests. Shall we say that the judge must look for the right answer to the question of whether Tom's contract is valid, even though the community is deeply divided about what the right answer is? Or is it more realistic to say that there simply is no right answer to the question?" (Dworkin, 1978)

One of Dworkin's most interesting and controversial theses states that there is only one right answer for most legal cases. Dworkin uses the metaphor of judge Hercules, an ideal judge, immensely wise and with full knowledge of legal sources. Metaphor (from the Greek: μεταφορά - metaphora, meaning "transfer" is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects A judge, or justice, is an Official who presides over a Court of law Hercules is the Roman name for the Mythical Greek hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. Hercules (the name comes from a classical mythological hero) would also have plenty of time to decide. Hercules is the Roman name for the Mythical Greek hero Heracles, son of Zeus and the mortal Alcmena. Acting on the premise that the law is a seamless web, Hercules is required to construct the theory that best fits and justifies the law as a whole (law as integrity) in order to decide any particular case. Hercules, Dworkin argues, would always come to the one right answer.

Dworkin does not deny that competent lawyers often disagree on what is the solution to a given case. On the contrary, he claims that they are disagreeing about the right answer to the case, the answer Hercules would give.

Dworkin's critics argue that not only law proper (that is, the legal sources) is full of gaps and inconsistencies, but also that other legal standards (including principles) may be insufficient to solve a hard case. Some of them are incommensurable. This article is about incommensurability in philosophy of science In any of these situations, even Hercules would be in a dilemma and none of the possible answers would be the right one. A dilemma (Greek δί-λημμα "double proposition " is a Problem offering at least two solutions or possibilities of which none are practically

Discussion of the right answer thesis

Dworkin defends his position saying that everyday judges, much like everyday people, find their way and choose between options and values that were supposed to be incommensurable. A personal and cultural value is a Relative ethic value, an assumption upon which implementation can be extrapolated Dworkin also argues that it is always possible to find out other rules or principles in order to solve the conflict between those we had in mind. The same counter-argument, however, regarding principles and moral standards that are incommensurable, would seem to apply to any further principles or rules we may discover in the process. In other words, the claim that there may always be more principles or rules to be taken into account proves nothing about the nature of those further principles, or about Dworkin's claim that the exercise, in the hands of the omnipotent Judge Hercules, will eventually come to a stop (when we have reached the right answer). In fact, the opposite conclusion could just as well be drawn from Dworkin's claim - that the exercise in question, under the guidance of such an omnipotent figure, would extend into infinity. Thus while a 'right' answer may be available at any given stage, no final right answer would ever be arrived at by Hercules. Or, there is nothing to suggest one way or the other.

Dworkin's metaphor of judge Hercules bears some resemblance to Rawls' veil of ignorance and Habermas' ideal speech situation, in that they all suggest idealized methods of arriving at somehow valid normative propositions. John Rawls ( February 21, 1921  &ndash November 24, 2002) was an American Philosopher, a Professor of The original position is a hypothetical situation developed by American Philosopher John Rawls as a Thought experiment to replace the imagery of a savage Jürgen Habermas (ˈjʏʁgən ˈhaːbɐmaːs born June 18, 1929 is a German Philosopher and Sociologist in the tradition of The key difference with respect to the former is that Rawls' veil of ignorance translates almost seamlessly from the purely ideal to the practical. In relation to politics in a democratic society, for example, it is a way of saying that those in power should treat the political opposition consistently with how they would like to be treated when in opposition, because their present position offers no guarantee as to what their position will be in the political landscape of the future (i. Politics Politics is the process by which groups of people make decisions Democracy is a form of government in which the supreme power is held completely by the people under a free electoral system In Politics, the opposition comprises one or more political parties or other organized groups that are opposed to the Government, party or group e. they will inevitably form the opposition at some point). Dworkin's Judge Hercules, on the other hand, is a purely idealized construct, that is if such a figure existed, he would arrive at a right answer in every moral dilemma. An ethical dilemma is a situation that will often involve an apparent conflict between Moral imperatives in which to obey one would result in transgressing another

Dworkin's right answer thesis turns on the success of his attack on the sceptical argument that right answers in legal-moral dilemmas cannot be determined. Dworkin's anti-sceptical argument is essentially that the properties of the sceptic's claim are analogous to those of substantive moral claims, that is, in asserting that the truth or falsity of 'legal-moral' dilemmas cannot be determined, the sceptic makes not a metaphysical claim about the way things are, but a moral claim to the effect that it is, in the face of epistemic uncertainty, unjust to determine legal-moral issues to the detriment of any given individual.

Theory of equality

Dworkin has also made important contributions to what is sometimes called the equality of what debate. Egalitarianism (derived from the French word égal, meaning equal) is a political doctrine that holds that all people should be treated as equals and have In a famous pair of articles and his book Sovereign Virtue he advocates a theory he calls 'equality of resources'. This theory combines two key ideas. Broadly speaking, the first is that human beings are responsible for the life choices they make. Moral responsibility can refer to two different but related things The second is that natural endowments of intelligence and talent are morally arbitrary and ought not to affect the distribution of resources in society. Moral luck is a phenomenon whereby a Moral agent is assigned moral blame or praise for an action or its consequences even though it is clear that said agent did not have full Natural resources are naturally occurring substances that are considered valuable in their relatively unmodified ( natural) form Like the rest of Dworkin's work, his theory of equality is underpinned by the core principle that every person is entitled to equal concern and respect in the design of the structure of society. Social equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect Dworkin's theory of equality is one variety of so-called luck egalitarianism. Luck egalitarianism is a view about Distributive justice espoused by a variety of Egalitarian and Left-wing Political philosophers According See also virtue jurisprudence. In the philosophy of law, virtue jurisprudence is the name given to theories of law related to virtue ethics.

Positive and Negative Liberty

In the essay "Do Values Conflict? A Hedgehog's Approach" (Arizona Law Review, Vol 43:2), Dworkin contends that the values of liberty and equality do not necessarily conflict. He criticizes Isaiah Berlin's conception of liberty as "flat" and proposes a new, "dynamic" conception of liberty, suggesting that one cannot say that one's liberty is infringed when one is prevented from committing murder. Sir Isaiah Berlin, OM (6 June 1909 &ndash 5 November 1997 was a philosopher and historian of ideas regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century Thus, liberty cannot be said to have been infringed when no wrong has been done. Put in this way, liberty is only liberty to do whatever we wish so long as we do not infringe upon the rights of others. Berlin, however, might reply by pointing out that Dworkin has merely constructed one (among others) "positive" conception of liberty. It is this type of exercise - defining liberty according to some other value, some conception of "right" and "wrong", to the exclusion of any notion of value-free, "negative" liberty - that has led precisely to the kinds of totalitarian nightmares seen in the 20th century that Berlin warns against (Liberty, Oxford University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-19-924989-X, expanded version of "Four Essays on Liberty"). The negative conception of liberty (represented by Isaiah Berlin) is however not satisfactory to Dworkin since it merely concerns itself with political processes (e. g. laws forbidding murder, limiting car usage etc. ). In Dworkin's view liberty must be understood as entailing certain considerations of equality, since it is not possible to exercise ones freedom without a considerable amount of resources (e. g. participating in the democratic process by voting is not possible without having the food, health, time or knowledge to do so). Liberty is therefore not only a question of process, but must also contain elements of substance.

One further criticism that can be leveled from the Berlinian enterprise is that the so-called "flat" conception of liberty does not entail the liberty to murder - rather, murder (when it does occur) is only a consequence of natural liberty. When one is prevented from murdering, one's liberty is not infringed merely because one is prevented from murdering, but because (more fundamentally) one is prevented from acting at all, by being restrained, handcuffed, put into prison, etc. The fact that one is thereby prevented from murdering is, again, merely a consequence of one's liberty being infringed. Thus Dworkin's argument can be recast as a deep-level consequentialist one.

Criticisms

It has been argued that Dworkin's theory of social equality lacks tangible "bite" in that it does not adequately address obvious examples of governments that have failed to implement political systems that entitle every citizen to be respected. Many tangible, controversial and everyday wrongs would have to be more visible to and subject to critique by someone like Dworkin who calls for "taking rights seriously".

Participant in Public Debate

Dworkin is noted for his avid participation in public debates over law and issues of fundamental rights. He has been a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semimonthly Magazine on Literature, Culture, and current

Awards

In September 2007, it was announced that Dworkin was to be awarded the Holberg International Memorial Prize. The Holberg International Memorial Prize was established in 2003 by the government of Norway with the objective of increasing awareness of the value of academic scholarship within the arts The prize, at approximately US$450,000, is awarded by the University of Bergen in Norway. The University of Bergen ( Universitetet i Bergen) is located in Bergen, Norway. The award citation of the Holberg Prize Academic Committee recognized that Dworkin has "elaborated a liberal egalitarian theory" and stressed Dworkin's effort to develop "an original and highly influential legal theory grounding law in morality, characterized by a unique ability to tie together abstract philosophical ideas and arguments with concrete everyday concerns in law, morals, and politics". ^[1]

The New York University Annual Survey of American Law honored Dworkin with its 2006 dedication. New York University ( NYU) is a private, Nonsectarian, Coeducational Research University in New York City. The New York University Annual Survey of American Law ( Annual Survey) is a student-edited Law journal at New York University School of Law. Each spring dating back to 1942 the NYU Annual Survey of American Law dedicates one of its volumes to a preeminent figure in American law. Contemporaries Thomas Nagel, Richard Posner, and Jeremy Waldron all presented in honor of Dworkin. Thomas Nagel (born July 4 1937 is an American Philosopher, currently University Professor and Professor of Philosophy and Law Richard Allen Posner (born January 11 1939 in New York City) is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago Jeremy Waldron (born October 13 1953 New Zealand) is a professor of law and philosophy at the New York University School of Law.

References

Bibliography

Works by Ronald Dworkin

• Dworkin, Ronald (1977). Taking rights seriously. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, xv, 293 p. Harvard University Press ( HUP) is a Publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in Academic publishing. LCCN 76-53134 LCC K240 .D9 1977 ISBN 9780674867109. The Library of Congress Control Number or LCCN is a serially based system of numbering cataloging records in the Library of Congress in the United The Library of Congress Classification ( LCC) is a system of Library classification developed by the Library of Congress. ISBN 0674867106. OCLC 2847963. The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is according to its website a "nonprofit membership computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose   (http://www.nybooks.com/articles/10713)
• Dworkin, Ronald (1981). "Is There a Right to Pornography". Oxford Journal of Legal Studies.  
• A Matter of Principle'' (1985) This book includes the article Is there really no right answer in hard cases? and Liberalism. Harvard University Press (1985). Harvard University Press ( HUP) is a Publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in Academic publishing.
• Law's Empire, Harvard University Press (1986)
• Philosophical Issues in Senile Dementia (1987)
• A Bill of Rights for Britain (1990)
• Life's Dominion (1993)
• Freedom's Law, Harvard University Press (1996)
• Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, Harvard University Press (2000)
• Justice in Robes, Harvard University Press (2006)
• Is Democracy Possible Here? Principles for a New Political Debate (2006)

Works about Ronald Dworkin

Most contemporary books on jurisprudence give attention to some or all of Dworkin's views and arguments. Harvard University Press ( HUP) is a Publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in Academic publishing. Harvard University Press ( HUP) is a Publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in Academic publishing. Harvard University Press ( HUP) is a Publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in Academic publishing. Harvard University Press ( HUP) is a Publishing house, a division of Harvard University, that is highly respected in Academic publishing. The following books are devoted to assessing Dworkin's views and arguments.

• Marshall Cohen (ed. ), Ronald Dworkin and Contemporary Jurisprudence. London: Duckworth, 1984.
• Stephen Guest, Ronald Dworkin. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991.
• Alan Hunt (ed. ), Reading Dworkin Critically. New York and Oxford: Berg, 1992.
• John J. A. Burke, The Political Foundation of Law: The Need for Theory with Practical Value (Austin & Winfield 1992) (a comparative analysis between the political, legal and economic theories of Dworkin and Unger).
• Justine Burley (ed. ), Dworkin and His Critics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
• Scott Hershovitz (ed. ), Exploring Law's Empire: The Jurisprudence of Ronald Dworkin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Arthur Ripstein (ed. ), Ronald Dworkin. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

See also

• Contributions to liberal theory
• Egalitarianism
• H.L.A. Hart
• Interpretivism (legal)
• Judicial activism
• Legal formalism
• Legal positivism
• Liberalism
• Philosophy of Law
• Equality

External links

• "Ronald Dworkin - Mr Justice: an article in the TLS, December 5 2007
• Dworkin's contributions to The New York Review of Books
• Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on Interpretation and Coherence in Legal Reasoning, by Julie Dickson
• Stanford Encyclopedia Entry on Interpretivist Theories of Law, by Nicos Stavropoulos
• NYU Law Faculty Profile
• The Conservative Phalanx Ruling the Supreme Court, by Ronald Dworkin