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)

Awareness of the morally significant distinction between research and innovative therapy reveals serious gaps in the legal provision for compensation in the UK for injured subjects of medical research. Major problems are limitations inherent in negligence actions and a culture that emphasises indemnifying researchers before compensating victims. Medical research morally requires compensation on a no-fault basis even where there is proper consent on the part of the research subject. In particular, for drug research, there is insufficient provision in the current (...) patient guidelines of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, since they make "no legal commitment" to paying compensation for injury to patient subjects. There is a need for the provision of both adequate insurance and contractual arrangements for making payments. The solution is for Local Research Ethics Committees (LRECs) to make use of their power to withhold approval of medical research where compensation is not legally enforceable. (shrink)

In "Justice for Hedgehogs," Ronald Dworkin boldly affirms the independence of arguments of value, arguments that remain securely within their own domain. Mostly, but not at all exclusively, he is concerned with moral value.

These excellent volumes show both the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary and serious Dworkin scholarship . Mostly the articles are new, although Susan Hurley's paper in the Hershowitz volume was first published in 1990. As to be expected with work on Dworkin, the division between political and legal theory is not distinct because – as is well-known – he integrates moral problems of politics both into the choice of legal theory and legal argument itself. But, some issues may be separated (...) and since there are excellent essays on both equality of resources and the relevance of ‘intrinsic’ values, I have separated my discussion into the two heads of ‘legal theory’ and ‘political theory’. Work on his political theory is not as advanced as it is on his legal theory and so I have largely directed my attention to the latter. I conclude that the most profitable work with Dworkin's legal theory lies in exploring the idea of the ‘interpretive concept’ and its connection with moral ideals, and in assessing the moral weight of integrity, particularly against the ideals of justice and fairness. Almost all the essays on legal theory show awareness of difficulties concerning these two issues although no one takes on interpretivism directly . However, Stephen Perry and Dale Smith in the Hershowitz volume and Sanford Levinson in the Ripstein volume push the boundaries some way with integrity. (shrink)

El presente artículo trata de las ideas de inte r pretación e int e g ridad s e gún D w orkin, al tiempo que considera e r róneo el posit i vismo jurídico y sostiene la e xistencia de la objet i vidad moral y jurídica. Así mismo, plantea que la idea de "tomar algo como propio" es esencial para la idea de inte r pretación, y conclu y e a f i r mando que la inte r pretación (...) en el derecho, como en la democracia, se basa en lo que la gente realmente cree. De ahí se deduce que considerar el proceso de e v aluación de las prácticas jurídicas un asunto de "inte r pretación const r uct i v a" resulte en g añoso, ya que lo más llamat i v o de la teoría de la inte r pretación de D w orkin reside simplemente en que ofrece una crítica moral (sólida) de las prácticas e xistentes en relación con una concepción muy abstracta de la igualdad. Esta conclusión se con f i r ma con la distinción que D w orkin esta b lece entre los a r gumentos de "ajuste" y "sustancia" en el razonamiento jurídico, pues está claro que los a r gumentos de ajuste son sólo a r gumentos de sustancia disfrazados. Los a r gumentos en torno al ajuste ganan peso gracias al principio moral basado en el cumplimiento de las e xpectat i v as razona b les y al principio democrático que se basa en la idea de que la l e gislatura tiene el derecho moral de l e gisla r . Las conclusiones generales a las que se ll e ga en el presente ar tículo son que la teoría de la int e g ridad de D w orkin está orientada en la práctica al mundo real y que, de este modo, constitu y e únicamente una teoría de la "s e gunda mejor opción", y que el derecho inspirado en el ideal de justicia si r v e mejor como modelo con el que comparar las teorías del mundo real. En pa r ticula r , en lo que se re f iere al modelo de justicia, jamás se les podría pedir a los jueces que mintieran (como reconoce D w orkin que podría ser el caso de la int e g ridad), se preser v aría la estrecha con e xión entre derecho y justicia en el entendimiento común, y los casos difíciles se entenderían mejor como llama mientos directos a la justicia. (shrink)