Ronald Dworkin — LLMpedia

Ronald Dworkin
David Shankbone · CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Name	Ronald Dworkin
Birth date	July 11, 1931
Birth place	Worcester, Massachusetts, United States
Death date	February 14, 2013
Death place	London, England, United Kingdom
Alma mater	Harvard University, Magdalen College, Oxford, Yale Law School
Occupation	Philosopher, legal scholar, author
Notable works	"Taking Rights Seriously", "Law's Empire", "Justice for Hedgehogs"
Influences	H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant

Contents

Ronald Dworkin was an American philosopher and scholar of law whose writings on constitutional law, jurisprudence, and political philosophy reshaped debates in Anglo-American legal thought. He served as a professor at Oxford University and New York University School of Law and was widely known for arguing that rights are grounded in moral principles rather than positivist rules. His books and essays engaged with figures such as H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., influencing courts, legislatures, and academic debates in the United States and United Kingdom.

Early life and education

Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, he attended Harvard University where he studied classics and philosophy, interacting with scholars linked to Princeton University and Yale University. After Harvard he received a Rhodes Scholarship to Magdalen College, Oxford, engaging with debates connected to Oxford University philosophy and encountering thinkers in the tradition of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell. He completed legal studies at Yale Law School, where he overlapped with figures associated with the Legal Realism tradition and contemporary scholars connected to Columbia Law School and Stanford Law School.

Dworkin held faculty positions at the University of Oxford, where he was a professor at Magdalen College, Oxford, and at New York University School of Law as the Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy. Earlier appointments included posts at Harvard Law School and visiting fellowships at institutions such as Princeton University and King's College London. He delivered lectures at venues like the British Academy and the American Philosophical Society, and his affiliations connected him to scholars at Yale University and the University of Cambridge.

Dworkin's jurisprudence developed as a critique of legal positivism associated with H. L. A. Hart and built upon normative frameworks influenced by Immanuel Kant and John Rawls. In "Taking Rights Seriously" he challenged the analytic approach of scholars linked to Cambridge School philosophers and argued for a principled reading of statutes similar to interpretive practices discussed by jurists at the Supreme Court of the United States and the House of Lords. "Law's Empire" advanced his constructive interpretation theory and debated concepts raised by Jeremy Bentham and proponents of utilitarianism at institutions like University of Chicago Law School. In "Freedom's Law" and "Justice for Hedgehogs" he synthesized views on equality that dialogued with the work of Ronald Coase, Amartya Sen, and Jürgen Habermas. His writings engaged judicial decisions from the United States Supreme Court, featured critiques of doctrines arising from Common law courts, and informed scholarship at law schools including Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley.

Dworkin wrote on public issues such as abortion debates in the context of cases like Roe v. Wade and constitutional interpretation relevant to decisions from the United States Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. He participated in public discourse alongside figures from The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and The New York Times, and engaged with policymakers linked to United Kingdom and United States institutions. His correspondence and exchanges involved contemporaries such as Anthony Kenny, Jeremy Waldron, and Joseph Raz, and he contributed to discussions that reached audiences at the Brookings Institution and the Oxford Union.

Critics from schools associated with legal positivism, including scholars influenced by H. L. A. Hart and Joseph Raz, challenged Dworkin's rejection of rule-based accounts and his reliance on moral judgment in adjudication. Debates with philosophers like John Rawls and Amartya Sen critiqued aspects of his distributive justice claims, while commentators from the Chicago School of Economics and legal theorists at Harvard Law School assessed his critiques of utilitarianism and cost-benefit analysis. Despite criticism, his influence extended to judges and legal academics at institutions such as the United States Court of Appeals, the European Court of Human Rights, Yale Law School, and NYU School of Law, and his texts are standard reading in courses at University of Oxford and Harvard University.

Dworkin married and had family ties with legal scholars and public intellectuals connected to New York City and Cambridge, England. He received honors associated with bodies like the British Academy and awards that placed him among scholars recognized by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Princeton University visiting chairs. After his death in London, his archives and papers informed research at repositories linked to New York University and Oxford University, and his books remain central in curricula at law faculties including Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, and Yale Law School.

Category:1931 births Category:2013 deaths Category:American legal scholars Category:Philosophers of law