1. What Is Law? Why It Matters
Ronald Dworkin was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University.
Refreshing and rewarding… Law’s Empire is Dworkin’s framework for
the analysis of critical issues in law; and such are the elegance
and power of the book that one who has read it may find it hard to
return patiently to the stale and shallow categories…in which so
much argument about the role of judges is nowadays conducted.
*Washington Post Book World*
Rich and multi-layered… The first sustained, full-length treatment
of [Dworkin’s] general theory of law… It is an ambitious book, and
it does not disappoint the expectations appropriate to a major work
by an important thinker. Dworkin has developed a complex and
powerful system of ideas, and they are expounded here with the
clarity and elegance to which his readers are by now
accustomed.
*London Review of Books*
A 470-page vision of law accessible to the educated layman… An
unusual opportunity for laymen to…cross swords with the very
vibrant emperor of contemporary legal thought.
*Philadelphia Inquirer*
Law’s Empire is a challenging, important, and richly textured work
of legal philosophy written in the vivid and commanding style that
Dworkin’s readers have come to expect… [It offers] both a
conception of law that explains what our law is and an underlying
political theory that explains why we should conceive of our law in
that way… Dworkin seeks, ultimately, nothing less than a kind of
unified field theory of moral justification: a theory that would
unite—or at least connect—personal morality, legal justification,
and political legitimacy.
*Georgetown Law Journal*
Ronald Dworkin is America’s leading legal philosopher… [Law’s
Empire bears] testimony to his eminence, evidencing his analytical
ingenuity, powerful imagination, and elegant conceptualization. No
subject ever seems quite the same after one has read Dworkin’s
treatment of it.
*Journal of Philosophy*
Dworkin (Jurisprudence, Oxford; and Law, NYU) sets out a theory of how judges determine what the law is and its application in hard cases where no set tled or clear rule of law disposes of a matter, testing his theory in common law cases turning on statutes and con stitutional cases. He posits that propo sitions of law are correctly established not because they represent a consensus or an efficient means to social goals, but because they answer the require ment that a political community act in a coherent, just, and principled manner toward all of its members. An exceed ingly complex work which echoes cer tain of his previous writings, this vol ume will be of primary interest to scholars with an intense disciplinary in terest. For subject collections. Merlin Whiteman, Dann Pecar Newman Ta lesnick & Kleiman, Indianapolis
Refreshing and rewarding... Law's Empire is Dworkin's
framework for the analysis of critical issues in law; and such are
the elegance and power of the book that one who has read it may
find it hard to return patiently to the stale and shallow
categories...in which so much argument about the role of judges is
nowadays conducted. -- Edwin M. Yoder, Jr. * Washington Post Book
World *
Rich and multi-layered... The first sustained, full-length
treatment of [Dworkin's] general theory of law... It is an
ambitious book, and it does not disappoint the expectations
appropriate to a major work by an important thinker. Dworkin has
developed a complex and powerful system of ideas, and they are
expounded here with the clarity and elegance to which his readers
are by now accustomed. -- Thomas Nagel * London Review of Books
*
A 470-page vision of law accessible to the educated layman... An
unusual opportunity for laymen to...cross swords with the very
vibrant emperor of contemporary legal thought. * Philadelphia
Inquirer *
Law's Empire is a challenging, important, and richly
textured work of legal philosophy written in the vivid and
commanding style that Dworkin's readers have come to expect... [It
offers] both a conception of law that explains what our law is and
an underlying political theory that explains why we should conceive
of our law in that way... Dworkin seeks, ultimately, nothing less
than a kind of unified field theory of moral justification: a
theory that would unite-or at least connect-personal morality,
legal justification, and political legitimacy. -- Silas Wasserstrom
* Georgetown Law Journal *
Ronald Dworkin is America's leading legal philosopher... [Law's
Empire bears] testimony to his eminence, evidencing his
analytical ingenuity, powerful imagination, and elegant
conceptualization. No subject ever seems quite the same after one
has read Dworkin's treatment of it. * Journal of Philosophy *
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