Modern analytical and empirical

Law as Integrity (Interpretivism)

Law includes the moral principles that best justify a community's legal practice.

1960s to 2010s · United States and United Kingdom. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.

Read this first. This is a first map of a large subject. Each school is a family of views, and its thinkers often disagree with one another, so every summary simplifies. We describe each school in terms its own followers would accept and give the strongest criticism beside it. Read the original works before you cite anyone, and check your own course's reading list. This is general information, not legal advice.

What is law?

Law is not only rules: it also contains principles. Judges should interpret the whole practice (statutes and precedents) in its best moral light, as a coherent story of the community's principles that Dworkin compared to a chain novel.

Law and morality

Linked through interpretation: the right answer is the one that best fits and best justifies the legal materials.

Where does its authority come from?

Fit with past decisions and the moral justification of the practice as a whole.

How should judges decide?

There is usually a right answer even in hard cases, found by interpretation. Dworkin's imaginary judge Hercules shows the method.

The question it asks

Is there a right answer in a hard case?

Main criticism

Critics call Hercules unrealistic, deny that there is a single right answer, and say the approach hides judges' politics.

Legacy today

Modern arguments about rights in constitutional law, and the Hart–Dworkin debate, one of the central disputes of the philosophy of law.

Key thinkers

Ronald Dworkin.

Ronald Dworkin (1931–2013)

Key works

Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (1977)
Dworkin, Law's Empire (1986)

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Read further

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: philosophy of law (an overview). For the exact arguments, go to the original works above.

TheLawToKnow Tools’s guide to schools of legal thought is an educational overview. It is not legal advice. Report a mistake.