Taking Rights Seriously

(What is law? What is it for? How should judges decide nov...)

What is law? What is it for? How should judges decide novel cases when the statutes and earlier decisions provide no clear answer? Do judges make up new law in such cases, or is there some higher law in which they discover the correct answer? Must everyone always obey the law? If not, when is a citizen morally free to disobey? A renowned philosopher enters the debate surrounding these questions. Clearly and forcefully, Ronald Dworkin argues against the “ruling” theory in Anglo-American law—legal positivism and economic utilitarianism—and asserts that individuals have legal rights beyond those explicitly laid down and that they have political and moral rights against the state that are prior to the welfare of the majority. Mr. Dworkin criticizes in detail the legal positivists’ theory of legal rights, particularly H.L.A. Hart’s well-known version of it. He then develops a new theory of adjudication, and applies it to the central and politically important issue of cases in which the Supreme Court interprets and applies the Constitution. Through an analysis of John Rawls’s theory of justice, he argues that fundamental among political rights is the right of each individual to the equal respect and concern of those who govern him. He offers a theory of compliance with the law designed not simply to answer theoretical questions about civil disobedience, but to function as a guide for citizens and officials. Finally, Professor Dworkin considers the right to liberty, often thought to rival and even pre-empt the fundamental right to equality. He argues that distinct individual liberties do exist, but that they derive, not from some abstract right to liberty as such, but from the right to equal concern and respect itself. He thus denies that liberty and equality are conflicting ideals. Ronald Dworkin’s theory of law and the moral conception of individual rights that underlies it have already made him one of the most influential philosophers working in this area. This is the first publication of these ideas in book form.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674867114/?tag=2022091-20

Taking Rights Seriously

( What is law? What is it for? How should judges decide ...)

What is law? What is it for? How should judges decide novel cases when the statutes and earlier decisions provide no clear answer? Do judges make up new law in such cases, or is there some higher law in which they discover the correct answer? Must everyone always obey the law? If not, when is a citizen morally free to disobey? A renowned philosopher enters the debate surrounding these questions. Clearly and forcefully, Ronald Dworkin argues against the "ruling" theory in Anglo-American law-legal positivism and economic utilitarianism and asserts that individuals have legal rights beyond those explicitly laid down and that they have political and moral rights against the state that are prior to the welfare of the majority. Mr. Dworkin criticizes in detail the legal positivists' theory of legal rights, particularly H. L. A. Hart's well-known version of it. He then develops a new theory of adjudication, and applies it to the central and politically important issue of cases in which the Supreme Court interprets and applies the Constitution. Through an analysis of Rawls's theory of justice, he argues that fundamental among political rights is the right of each individual to the equal respect and concern of those who govern him. He offers a theory of compliance with the law designed not simply to answer theoretical questions about civil disobedience, but to function as a guide for citizens and officials. Finally, Professor Dworkin considers the right to liberty, often thought to rival and even pre-empt the fundamental right to equality. He argues that distinct individual liberties do exist, but that they derive, not from some abstract right to liberty as such, but from the right to equal concern and respect itself. He thus denies that liberty and equality are conflicting ideals. Ronald Dworkin's theory of law and the moral conception of individual rights that underlies it have already made him one of the most influential philosophers working in this area. This is the first publication of these ideas in book form.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674867106/?tag=2022091-20

A Matter of Principle

(This is a book about the interplay of urgent political is...)

This is a book about the interplay of urgent political issues and hotly debated questions of moral philosophy. The controversies it joins are old; but history has given them fresh shape. For example, whether judges should and do make law is now of more practical importance than ever before, as recent presidents have appointed enough justices to the Supreme Court to set its character for a generation. With forceful style, Ronald Dworkin addresses questions about the Anglo-American legal system as protector of individual rights and as machinery for furthering the common good. He discusses whether judges should make political decisions in hard cases; the balancing of individual rights versus the good of the community; whether a person has the right to do what society views as wrong; and the meaning of equality in any framework of social justice. Dworkin strongly opposes the idea that judges should aim at maximizing social wealth. It is his conviction that the area of discretion for judges is severely limited, that in a mature legal system one can always find in existing law a “right answer” for hard cases. Dworkin helps us thread our way through many timely issues such as the rights and privileges of the press under the First Amendment. He reviews the Bakke case, which tested affirmative action programs. These essays also examine civil disobedience, especially in nuclear protests, and bring new perspective to the debate over support of the arts. Above all, this is a book about the interplay between two levels of our political consciousness: practical problems and philosophical theory, matters of urgency and matters of principle. The concluding essay on press freedom expands the discussion of conflict between principle and policy into a warning. Though some defenders of the press blend the two in order to expand freedom of speech, the confusion they create does disservice to their aim and jeopardizes the genuine and fragile right of free speech. We stand in greater danger of compromising that right than of losing the most obvious policy benefits of powerful investigative reporting and should therefore beware the danger to liberty of confusing the two. The caution is general. If we care so little for principle that we dress policy in its colors when this suits our purpose, we cheapen principle and diminish its authority.

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Bill of Rights for Britain: Why British Liberty Needs Protection (Chatto Counterblasts)

(Dworkin shows how liberty has been eroded steadily in Bri...)

Dworkin shows how liberty has been eroded steadily in Britain over the last ten years - through a more restrictive Official Secrets Act, through political censorship of broadcasting, through the intolerance of public demonstrations and protest, through a Prevention of Terrorism Act which allows suspects to be detained incommunicado for two days, and then for a further five days without being allowed to see a lawyer in private. He also shows how the government have imposed moral restrictions which result in outrages such as Clause 28. He argues that Britain needs a written constitution, on line with the European Charter of Human Rights. This is a polemic against the British record on civil rights, and a powerful argument for legal intergration with Europe. The author also wrote "Taking Rights Seriously" and "The Philosophy of Law".

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0701136014/?tag=2022091-20

Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality

( Equality is the endangered species of political ideals...)

Equality is the endangered species of political ideals. Even left-of-center politicians reject equality as an ideal: government must combat poverty, they say, but need not strive that its citizens be equal in any dimension. In his new book Ronald Dworkin insists, to the contrary, that equality is the indispensable virtue of democratic sovereignty. A legitimate government must treat all its citizens as equals, that is, with equal respect and concern, and, since the economic distribution that any society achieves is mainly the consequence of its system of law and policy, that requirement imposes serious egalitarian constraints on that distribution. What distribution of a nation's wealth is demanded by equal concern for all? Dworkin draws upon two fundamental humanist principles--first, it is of equal objective importance that all human lives flourish, and second, each person is responsible for defining and achieving the flourishing of his or her own life--to ground his well-known thesis that true equality means equality in the value of the resources that each person commands, not in the success he or she achieves. Equality, freedom, and individual responsibility are therefore not in conflict, but flow from and into one another as facets of the same humanist conception of life and politics. Since no abstract political theory can be understood except in the context of actual and complex political issues, Dworkin develops his thesis by applying it to heated contemporary controversies about the distribution of health care, unemployment benefits, campaign finance reform, affirmative action, assisted suicide, and genetic engineering.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674008103/?tag=2022091-20

Justice in Robes

(How should a judge’s moral convictions bear on his judgme...)

How should a judge’s moral convictions bear on his judgments about what the law is? Lawyers, sociologists, philosophers, politicians, and judges all have answers to that question: these range from “nothing” to “everything.” In Justice in Robes, Ronald Dworkin argues that the question is much more complex than it has often been taken to be and charts a variety of dimensions—semantic, jurisprudential, and doctrinal—in which law and morals are undoubtedly interwoven. He restates and summarizes his own widely discussed account of these connections, which emphasizes the sovereign importance of moral principle in legal and constitutional interpretation, and then reviews and criticizes the most influential rival theories to his own. He argues that pragmatism is empty as a theory of law, that value pluralism misunderstands the nature of moral concepts, that constitutional originalism reflects an impoverished view of the role of a constitution in a democratic society, and that contemporary legal positivism is based on a mistaken semantic theory and an erroneous account of the nature of authority. In the course of that critical study he discusses the work of many of the most influential lawyers and philosophers of the era, including Isaiah Berlin, Richard Posner, Cass Sunstein, Antonin Scalia, and Joseph Raz. Dworkin’s new collection of essays and original chapters is a model of lucid, logical, and impassioned reasoning that will advance the crucially important debate about the roles of justice in law.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674027272/?tag=2022091-20

Is Democracy Possible Here?: Principles for a New Political Debate

( Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perh...)

Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhaps as never before. In Congress, the media, and academic debate, opponents from right and left, the Red and the Blue, struggle against one another as if politics were contact sports played to the shouts of cheerleaders. The result, Ronald Dworkin writes, is a deeply depressing political culture, as ill equipped for the perennial challenge of achieving social justice as for the emerging threats of terrorism. Can the hope for change be realized? Dworkin, one the world's leading legal and political philosophers, identifies and defends core principles of personal and political morality that all citizens can share. He shows that recognizing such shared principles can make substantial political argument possible and help replace contempt with mutual respect. Only then can the full promise of democracy be realized in America and elsewhere. Dworkin lays out two core principles that citizens should share: first, that each human life is intrinsically and equally valuable and, second, that each person has an inalienable personal responsibility for identifying and realizing value in his or her own life. He then shows what fidelity to these principles would mean for human rights, the place of religion in public life, economic justice, and the character and value of democracy. Dworkin argues that liberal conclusions flow most naturally from these principles. Properly understood, they collide with the ambitions of religious conservatives, contemporary American tax and social policy, and much of the War on Terror. But his more basic aim is to convince Americans of all political stripes--as well as citizens of other nations with similar cultures--that they can and must defend their own convictions through their own interpretations of these shared values.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0691138729/?tag=2022091-20

La democracia posible/ Is Democracy Possible Here?: Principios para un nuevo debate politico/ Principles for a New Political Debate (Estado Y Sociedad/ State and Society) (Spanish Edition)

(Roland Dworkin, considerado uno de los filósofos político...)

Roland Dworkin, considerado uno de los filósofos políticos y del derecho más importantes del mundo, identifica y define en La democracia posible, los principios fundamentales de moralidad política y personal que todos los ciudadanos pueden compartir. Muestra que el reconocimiento de estos principios comunes puede posibilitar el planteamiento de un debate político sustancial y ayudar a remplazar el desprecio por el respeto recíproco. Sólo entonces puede realizarse plenamente la promesa de la democracia en Norteamérica y en cualquier parte. « Concebido de forma sorprendente y aderezado con chocantes observaciones sobre la actual política exterior e interior de Estados Unidos, el libro de Dworkin constituye un desafío que los conservadores no pueden ignorar.» Michael Smith, Princeton University

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8449320844/?tag=2022091-20

Is Democracy Possible Here?: Principles for a New Political Debate by Dworkin, Ronald (2006) Hardcover

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Is Democracy Possible Here?: Principles for a New Political Debate by Ronald Dworkin (21-Jul-2008) Paperback

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[(Is Democracy Possible Here?: Principles for a New Political Debate)] [Author: Ronald M. Dworkin] published on (July, 2008)

(Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhap...)

Politics in America are polarized and trivialized, perhaps as never before. In Congress, the media, and academic debate, opponents from right and left, the Red and the Blue, struggle against one another as if politics were contact sports played to the shouts of cheerleaders. The result, Ronald Dworkin writes, is a deeply depressing political culture, as ill equipped for the perennial challenge of achieving social justice as for the emerging threats of terrorism. Can the hope for change be realized? Dworkin, one the world's leading legal and political philosophers, identifies and defends core principles of personal and political morality that all citizens can share. He shows that recognizing such shared principles can make substantial political argument possible and help replace contempt with mutual respect. Only then can the full promise of democracy be realized in America and elsewhere. Dworkin lays out two core principles that citizens should share: first, that each human life is intrinsically and equally valuable and, second, that each person has an inalienable personal responsibility for identifying and realizing value in his or her own life. He then shows what fidelity to these principles would mean for human rights, the place of religion in public life, economic justice, and the character and value of democracy. Dworkin argues that liberal conclusions flow most naturally from these principles. Properly understood, they collide with the ambitions of religious conservatives, contemporary American tax and social policy, and much of the War on Terror. But his more basic aim is to convince Americans of all political stripes--as well as citizens of other nations with similar cultures--that they can and must defend their own convictions through their own interpretations of these shared values.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NBKIQ2A/?tag=2022091-20

A Badly Flawed Election: Debating Bush v Gore, the Supreme Court, and American Democracy (Hardback) - Common

(Einfuhrung in Die Geschichte Der Altcatalanischen Littera...)

Einfuhrung in Die Geschichte Der Altcatalanischen Litteratur: Von Deren Anfangen Bis Zum 18 Jahrhundert (1893)

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Sovereign Virtue Publisher: Harvard University Press

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[(Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality )] [Author: Ronald Dworkin] [Mar-2002]

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Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality by Dworkin, Ronald (2002) Paperback

(Trade Paperback Edit)

Trade Paperback Edit

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Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality Trade Paperback Edit edition by Dworkin, Ronald (2002) Paperback

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[(Justice in Robes )] [Author: Ronald Dworkin] [May-2008]

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[(Justice in Robes )] [Author: Ronald M. Dworkin] [Apr-2006]

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Justice in Robes by Dworkin, Ronald (2006) Hardcover

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Justice in Robes

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Taking Rights Seriously (text only) by R. Dworkin

(Taking Rights Seriously [Paperback]Ronald Dworkin (Author))

Taking Rights Seriously [Paperback]Ronald Dworkin (Author)

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[(Taking Rights Seriously )] [Author: Ronald Dworkin] [Jun-2013]

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[(Taking Rights Seriously )] [Author: Ronald Dworkin] [Nov-1978]

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Taking Rights Seriously 5th Printing edition by Dworkin, Ronald (1978) Paperback

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Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality   [SOVEREIGN VIRTUE] [Paperback]

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Taking Rights Seriously

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002KWJ1QU/?tag=2022091-20