Ronald Dworkin: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Ronald Dworkin (born 1931) is a philosopher, especially noted for his contributions to legal, political, and moral philosophy. His theory of law as integrity is one of the leading contemporary views of the nature of law.

Biographical Sketch

Ronald Dworkin was born in 1931 in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America. He received a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and another from Oxford University, where Dworkin was a student of Sir Rupert Cross at Magdalen College. Dworkin then attended Harvard Law School at Harvard University and subsequently clerked for Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeal for the Second Circuit. After working at Sullivan and 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.

In 1969, Dworkin was appointed the Chair of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford, in which position he succeeded H.L.A. Hart. After retiring from Oxford, Dworkin assumed a Chair at University College in the University of London. For many years, Dworkin has also taught at New York University, where he has led a seminar with his distinguished colleague Thomas Nagel.

Dworkin is most famous for his critique of Hart's positivism, which is given its fullest statement in his book Law's Empire. Dworkin's theory is interpretive. He argues, with the positivists, that there are legal rules that guide legal practice and in this statement shares Hart's positivist analysis of law. However, Dworkin argues, here moving away from positivism, that moral principles also are law in the positivist sense when they are applied by judges and practitioners in instances of discretion. In this sense, moral principles are not separable from law. Dworkin derives principles from legislative intent and political history. The United States Supreme Court opinion in Glucksberg v. Washington provides a concrete example of this theoretical approach.

Dworkin's use of principles moves him away from positivism, and a survey of Dworkin's work demonstrates his changing position on the nature of law. Dworkin's notion of principle is also deeply related to Hart's notion of the Rule of Recognition. 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 positited by traditional natural law.

Dworkin has also made important contributions to what is sometimes called the equality of what debate. In a famous pair of articles and his book Sovereign Virtue he advocates a theory he calls 'equality of resources'.

Dworkin is also 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

Works by Ronald Dworkin

• Taking Rights Seriously (1977)
• A Matter of Principle (1985)
• Law's Empire (1986)
• Philosophical Issues in Senile Dementia (1987)
• A Bill of Rights for Britain (1990)
• Life's Dominion (1993)
• Freedom's Law (1996)
• Sovereign Virtue (2000)

Works about Ronald Dworkin

• Stephen Guest, Ronald Dworkin (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1991).