This is an examination of Ronald Dworkin's claim that the true theory of legal practice is the theory that puts legal practice in its ‘best light’. By ‘best light’ Dworkin means a measure of desirability or goodness: the true theory of legal practice, says Dworkin, portrays the practice at its most desirable. Now why would that be the case? What's between the desirability of a theory and its truth? The article examines the reasons leading Dworkin to this strange claim. It (...) then argues that the claim is ultimately unsustainable, but also that it contains much insight about legal practice: the true theory of legal practice need not put the practice at its most desirable, but there is much between maximizing desirability and the practice's standards. Dworkin's is another important effort to explain the normative aspect of legal validity—in a way that transcends both the crudeness of natural law, and legal positivism's attempt to wash its hands of this crucial aspect of law. (shrink)

This new book argues that at the core of legal philosophy’s principal debates there is essentially one issue judicial impartiality. Keeping this issue to the forefront,Raban’s approach sheds much light on many difficult and seemingly perplexing jurisprudential debates. Modern Legal Theory and Judicial Impartiality.