A selection of important writings which together suggest that legal philosophy is the nerve of legal reasoning.

A selection of important writings which together suggest that legal philosophy is the nerve of legal reasoning.

Bernard Williams articulated his later political philosophy notably in response to Ronald Dworkin, who, striving for coherence or integrity among our political concepts, sought to immunize the concepts of liberty and equality against conflict. Williams, doubtful that we either could or should eliminate the conflict, resisted the pursuit of conceptual integrity. Here, I reconstruct this Dworkin–Williams debate with an eye to drawing out ideas of ongoing philosophical and political importance. The debate not only exemplifies Williams's political realism and (...) its connection to his critique of the morality system. It also illustrates the virtues and hazards of contemporary efforts to ameliorate or engineer our concepts; it indicates what political philosophy might look to in appraising political concepts; it adverts to the different needs these concepts have to meet if they are to sustain a politics of pluralism, deal with polarization, and secure the consent of those who end up on the losing side of political decisions; and it presents us with two starkly contrasting conceptions of politics itself, of the place of political values within it, and of our prospects of reducing the uncomfortably conflictual character of those values through philosophy. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin’s ‘right answer thesis’ states that there are objectively right answers to most legal cases, even in hard cases where there is deep and intractable disagreement over what the law requires. Dworkin also believes that when deciding cases in law judges and lawyers must necessarily take moral considerations into account. This is problematic, however, for if moral considerations come into play when legal decisions are made, then there can only be a single right answer as a matter (...) of law if there is a single right answer to the relevant moral question; Dworkin’s right answer thesis implies that morality is objective. Arguing against Brian Leiter’s claim that the only plausible conception of objective truth in ‘evaluative’ domains is one modeled on the conception operative in ‘hard’ domains such as science. The following paper will show that this scientific understanding of objectivity is inappropriate for evaluative domains such as morality and law. I demonstrate that, contrary to people like Leiter and John Mackie, this conclusion does not preclude the possibility of objective moral truth. I argue that the conception of objectivity that Dworkin believes is appropriate for domains such as morality and law is a legitimate one, and also that it is one we ought to embrace so that we may indeed speak of objectively ‘right’ answers to legal cases, so that the possibility of law itself is not compromised, and so the state’s authority is made legitimate. (shrink)

One of Ronald Dworkin's most distinctive claims in legal philosophy is that law is an interpretative concept, a special kind of concept whose correct application depends neither on fixed criteria nor on an instance-identifying decision procedure but rather on the normative or evaluative facts that best justify the total set of practices in which that concept is used. The main argument that Dworkin gives for interpretivism about some conceptis a disagreement-based argument. We argue here that Dworkin's disagreement-based (...) argument relies on a mistaken premise about the nature of disagreement. We propose an alternative analysis of the type of disputeseeming variation casesthat Dworkin uses to motivate the idea of interpretative concepts. We begin by observing that genuine disagreements can be expressed via a range of linguistic mechanisms, many of which do not require that speakers literally assert and deny one and the same proposition. We focus in particular on what we call disputes in which speakers do not express the same concepts by their words but rather negotiate how words should be used and thereby negotiate which of a range of competing concepts should be used in that context. We claim that this view has quite general theoretical advantages over Dworkin's interpretivism about seeming variation cases and about the relevant class of legal disputes in particular. This paper thus has two interlocking goals: (1) to undermine one of Dworkin's core arguments for interpretivism, and (2) to provide the foundations for a noninterpretivist alternative account of an important class of legal disputes. (shrink)

Dworkin's theoretical disagreement argument, developed in Law's Empire, is presented in that work as the motivator for his interpretive account of law. Like Dworkin's earlier arguments critical of legal positivism, the argument from theoretical disagreement has generated a lively exchange with legal positivists. It has motivated three of them to develop innovative positivist positions. In its original guise, the argument from theoretical disagreement is presented as ‘the semantic sting argument’. However, the argument from theoretical disagreement has more than (...) one version. This article briefly discusses two versions and the leading replies to them, then focuses on the most influential version, directed at Hartian positivism. The article surveys the leading positivist rejoinders to the recast version, indicating key Dworkinian replies or assessing the strength of these rejoinders, and concludes with a rejoinder of its own, making a new case that the argument from theoretical disagreement isn't fatal for Hartian legal positivism. (shrink)

Dworkin respondeu afirmativamente à pergunta título do seu texto “Não existe mesmo nenhuma resposta certa em casos controversos?”. Posner criticou Dworkin e respondeu a mesma pergunta negativamente. Discute-se neste artigo as diferentes maneiras como cada filósofo entendeu a pergunta que acarreta diferentes respostas a ela, isto é, de que modo diferenças na concepção do que é o Direito acarretam diferenças a respeito da existência de respostas certas para questões jurídicas.

Ronald Dworkin’s theory of equality has exerted a strong gravitational force over Canadian equality rights doctrine for more than two decades. And although Dworkin is never cited in the Supreme Court of Canada’s equality rights cases, his shadow is plainly visible in the reception of the right to ‘equal concern and respect’ in Andrews (1989), and the ‘right to moral independence’ in Law v Canada (1999).Although this paper assesses the extent to which Dworkin’s theory of equality has (...) been received in Canadian law, it also engages in debates between Dworkin and his critics that developed as Dworkin defended and modified his theory of rights and equality over the years. The debates between Dworkin and his critics are invaluable for interpreting Canadian constitutional jurisprudence, I will argue, because the Supreme Court does not always adequately justify the conceptions of equality, dignity, etc. that it incorporates into constitutional law. Indeed, it is not always evident that the Court is aware that it is choosing among alternative conceptions, rather than straightforwardly interpreting a determinate constitutional text. The payoff from a parallel study of Dworkin and the equality rights doctrine of the Supreme Court is the identification of resources from the academic debate that can be commended for the development of a more sound and stable constitutional doctrine. (shrink)

_Dworkin and His Critics_ provides an in-depth, analytical discussion of Ronald Dworkin's ethical, legal and political philosophical writings, and it includes substantial replies from Dworkin himself. Includes substantial replies by Ronald Dworkin, a comprehensive bibliography of his work, and suggestions for further reading. Contributors include Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, Frances Kamm, Will Kymlicka, Philippe van Parijs, Eric Rakowski, Joseph Raz and Jeremy Waldron. Makes an important contribution to many on-going debates over abortion, euthanasia, the rule of (...) law, distributive justice, group rights, political obligation, and genetics. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Dworkin’s one-system view of law and morality is not as easy to refute or dismiss as some would suggest. In a recent article, Dindjer criticizes a new kind of opposition to legal positivism characterized by both its opposition to a two-system view of law and morality and its promotion of a one-system alternative picture. By re-examining Dworkin’s criticisms of the two-system view and by providing additional reasoning of my own, I show that (...) Dworkin’s one-system interpretative approach is not just sensible but also promising in refocusing contemporary debates in general jurisprudence on a moral and political reading of the structural features of law. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin’s argument for resource egalitarianism has as its centerpiece a thought experiment involving a group of shipwreck survivors washed ashore on an uninhabited island, who decide to divide up all of the resources on the island equally using a competitive auction. Unfortunately, Dworkin misunderstands how the auction mechanism works, and so misinterprets its significance for egalitarian political philosophy. First, he makes it seem as though there is a conceptual connection between the ‘envy-freeness’ standard and the auction, when (...) in fact there is none. Second, he fails to appreciate how idealized the conditions are that must be satisfied in order for his results to obtain. This leads him to draw practical conclusions from the thought experiment that do not follow, such as his claim that the principle of equality generates a presumption in favor of the market as a mechanism for the distribution of resources. The result is that Dworkin saddles resource egalitarianism with a set of commitments that are, in fact, inessential to that view. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin states in his preface to “Law's Empire” that he is doing a phenomenology of law. In regards to a phenomenology of law, I wish to investigate Dworkin's theory of law, and subsequently, what is left out in order for it to be considered a phenomenological account. In doing so, I will compare Dworkin's phenomenology of law to Schütz's phenomenology of the social world. The comparison between the two will illuminate what I believe is necessary for (...) law, and that is a Phenomenology of the Pre‐Legal. (shrink)

This article juxtaposes a jurisprudential thesis and a practical problem in an attempt to gain critical insight into both. The jurisprudential thesis is Dworkin’s rights thesis. The practical problem revolves around judicial resort to the floodgates argument in civil adjudication (or, more specifically, a version of this argument focused on adjudicative resources, which is dubbed here the FA). The analysis yields three principal observations: (1) Judicial resort to the FA is discordant with the rights thesis. (2) The rights thesis (...) is instructive in one way but mistaken in another. While Dworkin has highlighted some valid and sound reasons against judicial policymaking, his conclusive exclusion of judicial policymaking from civil law adjudication is erroneous. Civil law adjudication, it is argued, is an arena of ineliminable tension between principle and policy. (3) The FA is a type of policy argument particularly vulnerable to objections against judicial policymaking. There should, therefore, be a (rebuttable) presumption against judicial resort to it. (shrink)

Two deficiencies characterize the vast critical literature that has accumulated around Dworkin's theory of law. On the one hand, the main lines of the debate tend to get lost in the crossfire of objections by critics and rejoinders by Dworkin — with little dialogue between the critics, or any systematic interrelation or resolution of these largely isolated disputes. On the other hand, such arguments on various points of Dworkin's Jurisprudence tend to neglect or obscure underlying issues in (...) philosophical ethics. The present essay is a critical analysis addressing each of these deficiencies in an attempt both to clarify and to advance the debate. The analysis hinges on three basic propositions: (1) that this debate in Jurisprudence has overlooked relevant issues about the nature of moral values; (2) that theories of law, in general, are best assessed in terms of separate descriptive and normative issues, corresponding to a fact/value distinction in ethics; and (3) that the debate on Dworkinian rights has assumed a confused and historically superficial contrast with the utilitarian tradition, in ethical theory as well as in philosophy of law. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin argues on the basis of a theory of well-being that critical paternalism is self-defeating. People must endorse their lives if they are to benefit. This is the endorsement constraint and this paper rejects it. For certain kinds of important mistakes that people can make in their lives, the endorsement constraint is either incredible or too narrow to rule out as much paternalism as Dworkin wants. The endorsement constraint cannot be interpreted to give sensible judgements when people (...) change their minds about the value of their lives. And the main argument for the endorsement constraint, which is based on the value of integrity, does not support Dworkin's anti-paternalism. (shrink)

_Dworkin and His Critics_ provides an in-depth, analytical discussion of Ronald Dworkin's ethical, legal and political philosophical writings, and it includes substantial replies from Dworkin himself. Includes substantial replies by Ronald Dworkin, a comprehensive bibliography of his work, and suggestions for further reading. Contributors include Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, Frances Kamm, Will Kymlicka, Philippe van Parijs, Eric Rakowski, Joseph Raz and Jeremy Waldron. Makes an important contribution to many on-going debates over abortion, euthanasia, the rule of (...) law, distributive justice, group rights, political obligation, and genetics. (shrink)

Review of Ronald Dworkin, Religion without God , (Harvard University Press, 2013), 180 pages.

Egalitarian thinkers have adopted Ronald Dworkin’s distinction between brute and option luck in their attempts to construct theories that better respect our intuitions about what it is that egalitarian justice should equalize. I argue that when there is no risk-free choice available, it is less straightforward than commonly assumed to draw this distinction in a way that makes brute-luck egalitarianism plausible. I propose an extension of the brute-luck–option-luck distinction to this more general case. The generalized distinction, called the ‘least (...) risky prospect view’ of brute luck, implies more redistribution than Dworkin’s own solution (although less than called for by some of his other critics). Moreover, the generalized brute-luck–option-luck distinction must be parasitical on an underlying non-egalitarian theory of which sets of options are reasonable. The presupposed prior theory may be inimical to the claim that justice requires equality rather than some other distributive pattern. (shrink)

In a recent comment on H.L.A. Hart’s ‘Postscript’ to The Concept of Law, Ronald Dworkin claims that the meaning of legal and political concepts may be understood by analogy to the meaning of natural kind concepts like ‘tiger’, ‘gold’ and ‘water’. This article questions the efficacy of Dworkin’s claims by challenging the use of natural kinds as the basis for a semantic theory of legal and political concepts. Additionally, in matters of value there is no methodological equivalent to (...) the scientific method. Thus, there is little hope of finding hidden essences to explain the meaning of legal and political concepts. Finally, even if there are natural kinds, Dworkin’s arguments for their efficacy in jurisprudence are problematic and unpersuasive. The problem for Dworkin is that his embrace of natural kinds undermines the ‘fit’ side of the fit/justification model of adjudication that lies at the heart of his theory of law. (shrink)

CLS advocates renew Marx's critique of liberalism by impugning the rationality of formal rights. Habermas and Dworkin argue against this view, while showing how liberal polity might permit reasonable conflicts between competing principles of right. Their models of legitimate legislation and adjudication, however, presuppose criteria of rationality whose appeal to truth ignores the manner in which law is--and sometimes ought to be--compromised. Hence a weaker version of the CLS critique may be applicable after all. I begin by discussing Weber's (...) exclusion of morality from law. After criticizing economic and functionalist legal theory I show that the inconsistencies CLS scholars find in liberal doctrine are exaggerated. I conclude with a discussion of Dworkin and Habermas. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin occupies a distinctive place in both public life and philosophy. In public life, he is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books and other widely read journals. In philosophy, he has written important and influential works on many of the most prominent issues in legal and political philosophy. In both cases, his interventions have in part shaped the debates he joined. His opposition to Robert Bork's nomination for the United States Supreme Court gave new (...) centrality to debates about the public role of judges and the role of original intent in constitutional interpretation. His writings in legal philosophy have reoriented the modern debate about legal positivism and natural law. In political philosophy, he has shaped the ways in which people debate the nature of equality and has reframed debates about the sanctity of life. (shrink)

Born to secular Jewish parents and raised in Camden, New Jersey, Andrea Dworkin became a radical second-wave feminist. By Dworkin’s own account, her work is informed by a series of negative personal experiences, including sexual assault at age nine, again by doctors at the Women's House of Detention in New York in 1965, work as a prostitute, and marriage to a battering husband whom she left in 1971. While Dworkin self-identified as a lesbian, since 1974 she lived (...) with a gay male partner, writer John Stoltenberg, whom she married in 1998. Understandably, the main theme of Dworkin's work is male violence against women. This violence is a defining feature of our male-supremacist culture, in which rape, prostitution, and pornography are inevitable expressions of gender norms. Dworkin's writings are primarily aimed at social change rather than intellectualizing. She describes her first book as "a political action where revolution is the goal". What one finds in her writings is not so much philosophical theorizing as calls to action. Thus it is difficult to summarize the abstract theory to which she is committed and from which she draws arguments against the sexism she finds in our culture. What is clear is her desire to eliminate binary concepts of gender and their oppressive effects. In particular, Dworkin urges the destruction of a female gender role that involves masochism, self-hatred, and passivity. She sees male supremacy constructed and reinforced in our culture through the sexist structuring of public institutions and private interactions, locating three crucial foci of male supremacy in action: pornography, sexual intercourse, and rape. These are her central concerns. Her work includes seven monographs, three collections of essays and speeches, a memoir, two novels, and a book of short stories, all of which explore these themes. (shrink)

A full discussion on his understanding of rights as "trump cards" which privilege the individual claim over the group policy; the critique of legal positivism; the history of a legal institution according to the analogy of a chain novel; and the insistence upon a theory of adjudication that is both constructive and yet faithful to the deepest intentions of legal documents.

When patients have progressive and incurable dementia, should their advance directives always be followed? Contra Dworkin, Dresser argues that when patients remain able to enjoy and participate in their lives, directives to hasten death should sometimes be disregarded.

"Andrea Dworkin's Knowledge Strategies," a talk given at a symposium in memory of Andrea Dworkin, at Michigan State University, February 2006.

This is a lucid and comprehensive introduction to, and critical assessment of, Ronald Dworkin's seminal contributions to legal and political philosophy. His theories have a complexity, originality, and moral power that have excited a wide range of academic and political thinkers, and even those who disagree with him acknowledge that his ideas must be confronted and given serious consideration. His enormous output of books and papers and his formidable profusion of lectures and seminars throughout the world, in addition to (...) his teaching duties at Oxford and New York University, have made him a giant figure in contemporary thought. In short, Dworkin's theory of law is that the nature of legal argument lies in the best moral interpretation of existing social practices. His theory of Justice is that all political judgements ought to rest ultimately upon the injunction that people are equal as human beings, irrespective of the circumstances in which they are born. Dworkin does not fit into an orthodox category. his theory of law is radical in that it sees legal argument primarily about rights yet conservative in seeing it as constrained by history. He is libertarian both in valuing ambition and in asserting a right to pornography, yet socialist in believing that no person has a right to a greater share of resources than anyone else. in particular, he advocates a system that would tax people on the resources they accumulate solely through their talent alone. Because Dworkin writes for a number of audiences - sometimes the general public, sometimes academic lawyers, sometimes philosophers and economists - it is often difficult to identify the different strands of his thought. The book aims to make his theories clear and accessible and to give an overall picture of his thinking that is sympathetic yet rigorously argued. (shrink)

This essay is a review of Ronald Dworkin's recent essay on equality of resources. Many of the ideas discussed by Dworkin have also been examined by economists with, I believe, considerable insight. Unfortunately, economists tend to write for economists, not for philosophers, and their insights are seldom communicated properly to noneconomists. Of course, the same criticism can be levied on philosophers! But perhaps legal theorists are less subject to this criticism. One of the great contributions of Dworkin (...) is that he is very readable; and the quality of his exposition makes these ideas accessible to a wide audience of philosophers, lawyers, and social scientists in general. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin is one of the most important, and one of the most controversial, contemporary legal philosophers. This article elucidates the main aspects of Dworkin's theory of law, discussing both his key criticisms of legal positivism and his own positive views about law. The article also briefly examines some of the major controversies surrounding Dworkin's theory of law, such as the debates arising out of his right answer thesis and semantic sting argument.

Minimally helpful comparison of constructive interpretation with Gadamer, Derrida, and Habermas. Presents a somewhat imprecise account of Dworkin, a quite general discussion of his similarities with Gadamer, and a gloss of Derridean deconstruction with regards to the Declaration of Independence. Then offers an evaluation of Dworkin in terms of Gadamer and Derrida.

Un ouvrage qui rassemble les contributions des meilleurs spécialistes de la pensée de Ronald Dworkin sur des questions cruciales pour nos démocraties comme la discrimination positive, la neutralité de l'Etat, la liberté religieuse ou encore l'avortement et l'euthanasie.

Ronald Dworkin, beginning in about 1967, has written a series of articles attacking the dominant contemporary theory of law, the legal positivism of H. L. A. Hart. Dworkin’s articles, while largely critical, go far towards establishing his own theory of the law, a theory that while never explicitly and succinctly formulated can nonetheless be reconstructed from his critical remarks. The theory is a combination of positivism and natural law theory, and indeed has been named by one of its (...) critics, “The Third Theory of Law.”. (shrink)

There is probably no conceptualization of rights more famous than Ronald Dworkin’s claim that they are “trumps.” This seems to stand in stark contrast to the dominant, proportionality-based strand of rights discourse, according to which rights, instead of trumping competing interests, ultimately have to be balanced against them. The goal of this article is to reconcile Dworkin’s work and proportionality and thereby make a contribution to our understanding of both. It offers a critical reconstruction of Dworkin’s theory (...) of rights which does away with the misleading label of rights as “trumps” and shows that, far from being in conflict with proportionality, properly understood Dworkin’s work supports and supplements that doctrine and provides a much-needed account of its moral foundation as being about human dignity, freedom, and equality. (shrink)

This volume offers a critical interrogation of the widely influential legal and political philosophy of Ronald Dworkin. As the central figure in contemporary Anglo-American legal theory, he has been involved in various debates, in the past mainly with critics on the right, who took issue with his "radical liberalism". In contrast, the authors of this text challenge Dworkin's radical credentials not only with regard to his general political philosophy, but also with reference to his legal theory, his interpretive (...) method and his view of judging. This volume offers a critical interrogation of the widely influential legal and political philosophy of Ronald Dworkin. As the central figure in contemporary Anglo-American legal theory, he has been involved in various debates, in the past mainly with critics on the right, who took issue with his "radical liberalism". In contrast, the authors of this text challenge Dworkin's radical credentials not only with regard to his general political philosophy, but also with reference to his legal theory, his interpretive method and his view of judging. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin's Tanner Lectures, “Foundations of Liberal Equality,” have hardly elicited comment within the academic political theory community. This is surprising for a number of reasons. First, Dworkin is widely taken to be one of the leading liberal theorists in the English-speaking world, and “Foundations” is a major statement (120 pages in length) involving reflection upon issues of principle that are at the center of contemporary scholarly debate among liberals. Secondly, “Foundations” introduces a number of ideas and concepts (...) that are new in Dworkin's corpus and that serve to illuminate and clarify some of his wdely discussed earlier works, especially the famous article “Liberalism,” which sparked so much argument over the idea of neutrality and its place within liberal political theory. Finally, the lectures are interesting because of the approach they take to the matter of “defending liberalism,” an approach that departs in interesting and significant ways from those presently pursued by other leading liberal thinkers, notably John Rawls and Joseph Raz. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin’s unity of value thesis underlies his influential moral, political, and legal thought. This essay presents an interpretation of the unity thesis designed to isolate its distinctly ethical character, elaborate Dworkin’s fundamental ethical arguments for it, and to utilize this reconstruction to correct misinterpretations that, I argue, underlie recent criticism. This criticism largely depends on construing the unity thesis within a familiar dualistic meta-ethical framework according to which Dworkin’s theory of value is classified as either constructivist (...) or realist in character. Both options, however, misapprehend the epistemological framework within which Dworkin defends value judgments in general, and therefore fail to challenge his use of that framework in defending the unity of value in particular. Correcting this oversight is essential to a proper understanding of Dworkin’s novel account of moral epistemology and of the moral and political program that his unity thesis sponsors. The paper concludes by suggesting how more profitable criticism of the unity of value might proceed. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous cherchons à situer la position particulière du philosophe Ronald Dworkin à l’égard du droit naturel. Dworkin a formulé une critique du positivisme juridique, qui le rapproche du jusnaturalisme. Toutefois, Dworkin se refuse à fonder les droits sur un supposé ordre moral indépendant que le législateur ou le juge aurait pour tâche de découvrir lorsqu’il produit la loi. Dworkin substitue aux lois naturelles des principes du droit. Ces derniers ne sont pas des vérités (...) morales indépendantes, mais des critères moraux, qu’il est possible de construire rationnellement. Nous montrons ainsi que Dworkin élabore une forme de constructivisme moral, en partie inspiré de John Rawls, mais appliqué au domaine judiciaire au sein duquel les décisions présentes doivent être cohérentes avec les décisions passées, qui lui permet de redéfinir un droit naturel non transcendant. (shrink)

In the first part of this article, I raisequestions about Dworkin''s theory of theintrinsic value of life and about the adequacyof his proposal to understand abortion in termsof different ways of valuing life. In thesecond part of the article, I consider hisargument in ``The Philosophers'' Brief on AssistedSuicide'''', which claims that the distinctionbetween killing and letting die is morallyirrelevant, the distinction between intendingand foreseeing death can be morally relevantbut is not always so. I argue that thekilling/letting die distinction can (...) be relevantin the context of assisted suicide, but alsoshow when it is not. Then I consider why theintention/foresight distinction can be morallyirrelevant and conclude by presenting analternative argument for physician-assistedsuicide. (shrink)

Ronald Dworkin, né en 1931, est actuellement Professor of Jurisprudence à l’Université d’Oxford et Professor of Law à l’Université de New York. Après des études à Harvard College, à l’Université d’Oxford et à la Harvard Law School, il occupe le poste d’assistant auprès du juge Learned Hand, puis se..

Mi comentario se divide en tres partes que obedecen, sin método ni exhaustividad, a las tres facetas que más me han interesado de Dworkin y que esta biografía me permitió revisitar: su faceta de intelectual público, su liberalismo ético o perfeccionista y un breve colofón sobre su generosidad académica.

In the first part of this article, I raise questions about Dworkin's theory of the intrinsic value of life and about the adequacy of his proposal to understand abortion in terms of different ways of valuing life. In the second part of the article, I consider his argument in "The Philosophers' Brief on Assisted Suicide", which claims that the distinction between killing and letting die is morally irrelevant, the distinction between intending and foreseeing death can be morally relevant but (...) is not always so. I argue that the killing/letting die distinction can be relevant in the context of assisted suicide, but also show when it is not. Then I consider why the intention/foresight distinction can be morally irrelevant and conclude by presenting an alternative argument for physician-assisted suicide. (shrink)

This article explores and critiques Ronald Dworkin's arguments on the value of integrity in law. Dworkin presents integrity in both legislation and adjudication as holding inherent political value. I defend an alternative theory of the value of integrity, according to which integrity holds instrumental value as part of a legal framework that seeks to realise a particular set of basic values taken to underpin the legal system as a whole. It is argued that this instrumental-value theory explains the (...) value of integrity more satisfactorily than Dworkin's inherent-value account. The article concludes with a discussion of Dworkin's 'one right answer thesis'. Although the proposed theory of integrity does not support a strong version of Dworkin's thesis, it does suggest that there will be a single correct answer to legal questions more often than for normative deliberation generally. (shrink)