About the Author

Ronald Dworkin is the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College, London. He was formerly Professor of Jurisprudence at University College, Oxford, and he remains Professor at New York University.

Reviews

As an advocate Dworkin is tirelessly fluent and endlessly inventive. . . and this is a surprisingly fraternal book, open, busy, engaging and teeming with ideas. It will give many readers a great deal of pleasure and instruction.
*Times Literary Supplement*

Laws Empire stands out for intellectual deftness, elegance and surprisingness.
*New Society*

Laws Empire is a rich and multilayered work . . . unusually accessible for a work dealing with abstract questions at such a high level. It is an ambitious book, and it does not disappoint the expectations appropriate to a major work by an important thinker.
*London Review of Books*

Breaks new ground in a way that is both provocative and convincing.
*Times Higher Education Supplement*

As an advocate Dworkin is tirelessly fluent and endlessly inventive. . . and this is a surprisingly fraternal book, open, busy, engaging and teeming with ideas. It will give many readers a great deal of pleasure and instruction. -- John Dunn * Times Literary Supplement *
Laws Empire stands out for intellectual deftness, elegance and surprisingness. -- Alan Ryan * New Society *
Laws Empire is a rich and multilayered work . . . unusually accessible for a work dealing with abstract questions at such a high level. It is an ambitious book, and it does not disappoint the expectations appropriate to a major work by an important thinker. -- Thomas Nagel * London Review of Books *
Breaks new ground in a way that is both provocative and convincing. -- D.D. Raphael * Times Higher Education Supplement *

In this first full-length exposition of his theory of law, Dworkin, who teaches jurisprudence at Oxford University and New York University, maintains that society should ensure for all its members a legal system that functions in a coherent and principled manner. In prose accessible to the lay reader, he discusses at length several views of American constitutional law such as ``passivism'' and ``framers' intention.'' Rejecting both conventionalism and pragmatism, he advocates law as integrity which holds that propositions of law are true if they derive from justice, fairness and procedural due process in accordance with the community's legal practice. Citing examples, he further argues that law should be more than a collection of formal guidelines and that it should uphold more abstract moral principles, distinguishing between issues of policy and matters of principle affecting rights of the individual. Uniting jurisprudence with adjudication, Dworkin sees each judge as a link in a chain of law of which his or her judgment becomes a part. (May)