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The Centrality of Practical Reason: Dworkin and Kant
The centrality of practical reason: Dworkin and Kant In one of his latest books Justice for Hedgehogs (2011) Ronald Dworkin presents a thorough critique of contemporary ethical discourse. Explicitly his arguments mostly seek to undermine the main premises of metaethics, especially, the assumption that it is possible to think and talk about ethics from a neutral Archimedian position and to find its grounding in scientific or metaphysical facts. Moreover, he aims to present his own position as a specific revolution – a position which questions all the ways of approaching ethics that dominate or influence the field of moral philosophy since modern times, namely Descartes. There have been many attempts to criticize, question and evaluate this critique, its accuracy and extent.1 However, much less effort have been made to properly and comprehensively evaluate the constructive and potential side of Dworkin’s position. The main question that his critique of contemporary ethical discourse raises is ‘How should we approach ethical questions and problems?’ or ‘How should we do moral philosophy?’ Such questions are essential for the discourse itself. They should determine not only the shape and methods, but also the future and raison d’etre of ethical theory as such. Dworkin himself takes Hume to be the inspiration for his revolution. According to Dworkin, Hume’s distinction between fact and value gives us a clear guidance as to how we should proceed in ethical discourse. Dworkin develops this distinction as his main argument that ethics is an independent domain of thought. However, my paper argues, that despite Dworkin’s appeal of Hume, his position cannot be seen as Humean and is much more akin to Kant as there are several substantial conformities between their theories and premises. -
"Suggestions for Further Reading." Censorship Moments: Reading Texts in the History of Censorship and Freedom of Expression
"Suggestions for Further Reading." Censorship Moments: Reading Texts in the History of Censorship and Freedom of Expression. Ed. Geoff Kemp. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 195–202. Textual Moments in the History of Political Thought. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 26 Sep. 2021. <>. Downloaded from Bloomsbury Collections, www.bloomsburycollections.com, 26 September 2021, 01:37 UTC. Copyright © Geoff Kemp and contributors 2015. You may share this work for non-commercial purposes only, provided you give attribution to the copyright holder and the publisher, and provide a link to the Creative Commons licence. Suggestions for Further Reading Given the substantial quantity of writing on most of the thinkers and many of the works covered in this volume, the following list is necessarily highly selective. For each work an attempt has been made to include a readily available reliable text in English (sometimes available online), in some cases a scholarly edition, and several works which help to contextualize the principal text and scholarly discussion of it. Plutarch’s Life of Cato Plutarch, ‘Marcus Cato’, in Plutarch’s Lives, accessible at www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/ text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a2008.01.0013 [accessed 18 May 2014]. Alan E. Astin, Cato the Censor (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1978). Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Free Speech and Athenian Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). Robin Waterfield, Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths (New York: Norton, 2009). Dana Villa, Socratic Citizenship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Tacitus’s Annals Tacitus, The Annals, translated by A.J. Woodman (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004). Shadi Bartsch, Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998). -
The Use of Philosophers by the Supreme Court Neomi Raot
A Backdoor to Policy Making: The Use of Philosophers by the Supreme Court Neomi Raot The Supreme Court's decisions in Vacco v Quill' and Wash- ington v Glucksberg2 held that a state can ban assisted suicide without violating the Due Process or Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. In these high profile cases, six phi- losophers filed an amicus brief ("Philosophers'Brief') that argued for the recognition of a constitutional right to die.3 Although the brief was written by six of the most prominent American philoso- phers-Ronald Dworkin, Thomas Nagel, Robert Nozick, John Rawls, Thomas Scanlon, and Judith Jarvis Thomson-the Court made no mention of the brief in unanimously reaching the oppo- site conclusion.4 In light of the Court's recent failure to engage philosophical arguments, this Comment examines the conditions under which philosophy does and should affect judicial decision making. These questions are relevant in considering the proper role of the Court in controversial political questions and are central to a recent de- bate focusing on whether the law can still be considered an autonomous discipline that relies only on traditional legal sources. Scholars concerned with law and economics and critical legal studies have argued that the law is no longer autonomous, but rather that it does and should draw on many external sources in order to resolve legal disputes. Critics of this view have main- tained that legal reasoning is distinct from other disciplines, and that the law has and should maintain its own methods, conven- tions, and conclusions. This Comment follows the latter group of scholars, and ar- gues that the Court should, as it did in the right-to-die cases, stay clear of philosophy and base its decisions on history, precedent, and a recognition of the limits of judicial authority. -
Critical Guide to Mill's on Liberty
This page intentionally left blank MILL’S ON LIBERTY John Stuart Mill’s essay On Liberty, published in 1859, has had a powerful impact on philosophical and political debates ever since its first appearance. This volume of newly commissioned essays covers the whole range of problems raised in and by the essay, including the concept of liberty, the toleration of diversity, freedom of expression, the value of allowing “experiments in living,” the basis of individual liberty, multiculturalism, and the claims of minority cultural groups. Mill’s views have been fiercely contested, and they are at the center of many contemporary debates. The essays are by leading scholars, who systematically and eloquently explore Mill’s views from various per spectives. The volume will appeal to a wide range of readers including those interested in political philosophy and the history of ideas. c. l. ten is Professor of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. His publications include Was Mill a Liberal? (2004) and Multiculturalism and the Value of Diversity (2004). cambridge critical guides Volumes published in the series thus far: Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit edited by dean moyar and michael quante Mill’s On Liberty edited by c. l. ten MILL’S On Liberty A Critical Guide edited by C. L. TEN National University of Singapore CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521873567 © Cambridge University Press 2008 This publication is in copyright. -
Human Dignity After Augustine's Imago Dei: on the Sources and Uses of Two Ethical Terms Matthew Puffer Valparaiso University, [email protected]
Valparaiso University ValpoScholar Christ College Faculty Publications Christ College (Honors College) Spring 2017 Human Dignity After Augustine's Imago Dei: On the Sources and Uses of Two Ethical Terms Matthew Puffer Valparaiso University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.valpo.edu/cc_fac_pub Recommended Citation Matthew Puffer, "Human Dignity After Augustine's Imago Dei: On the Sources and Uses of Two Ethical Terms" Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 37, 1 (2017): 65–82. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Christ College (Honors College) at ValpoScholar. It has been accepted for inclusion in Christ College Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ValpoScholar. For more information, please contact a ValpoScholar staff member at [email protected]. Human Dignity after Augustine's Imago Dei : On the Sources and Uses of Two Ethical Terms Matthew Puffer Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Volume 37, Number 1, Spring/Summer 2017, pp. 65-82 (Article) Published by The Society of Christian Ethics DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/sce.2017.0010 For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/665905 Access provided by Valparaiso University (16 Mar 2018 16:03 GMT) Human Dignity after Augustine’s Imago Dei: On the Sources and Uses of Two Ethical Terms Matthew Puffer This essay considers how Augustine’s writings on the imago Dei might shed light on contemporary human dignity discourse and on debates about the sources, uses, and translations of these two terms. Attending to developments in Augustine’s expositions of scriptural texts and metaphors related to the ima- go Dei, I argue that his writings exhibit three distinct conceptions of the imago Dei that correspond to three accounts of the imago Dei and human dignity offered by Pico, Luther, and Aquinas, respectively. -
Law, Politics, and the Claims of Community
Michigan Law Review Volume 90 Issue 4 1992 Law, Politics, and the Claims of Community Stephen A. Gardbaum Northwestern University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr Part of the Law and Philosophy Commons, Law and Politics Commons, and the Public Law and Legal Theory Commons Recommended Citation Stephen A. Gardbaum, Law, Politics, and the Claims of Community, 90 MICH. L. REV. 685 (1992). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol90/iss4/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Law Review at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LAW, POLITICS, AND THE CLAIMS OF COMMUNITYt Stephen A. Gardbaum * TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION • . • . • . • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • . • • • • • • • . • . • • • • . 686 I. COMMUNITY IN CONTEMPORARY MORAL AND POLITICAL THEORY. • . • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • . • . • • • 690 A. Three Communitarian Claims. 690 B. Three Communitarian Debates . 692 C. Fostering the Value of Community . 695 D. The Agency Debate . 701 E. The Metaethical Debate . 705 1. Rorty: Liberalism Goes Postmodern . 707 2. Walzer: Moral Philosophy as Interpretation . 710 3. Habermas: The Guardian of Rationality . 712 4. Metaethical and Strong Communitarianism . 717 F. The Political Debate: The Nature and Variety of Substantive Community . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 719 1. Conservative Community . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 719 2. Republican Community .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 723 a. General Features . 723 b. Altruism and Civic Virtue . 728 3. Communist Community .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 730 II. COMMUNITY IN CONTEMPORARY LEGAL THEORY • . • . 732 A. Antiatomism . 733 B. -
Ronald Dworkin
VOLUME 127 DECEMBER 2013 NUMBER 2 © 2013 by The Harvard Law Review Association IN MEMORIAM: RONALD DWORKIN The editors of the Harvard Law Review respectfully dedicate this issue to Professor Ronald Dworkin. Richard H. Fallon, Jr.∗ My first exposure to Ronald Dworkin came at Oxford, in the fall of 1975. Although I was there to study Philosophy, Politics, and Eco- nomics, not Law, friends told me that Professor Dworkin’s packed lec- tures on jurisprudence were not to be missed. They were right. Dworkin delivered the most commanding lectures that I had ever heard, at Oxford or anywhere else. Plainly relishing the engagement of his rapt audience, and speaking entirely without notes, he worked his way through, and demolished, various thinkers’ accounts of what made it the case, if it was the case, that “The law is that P.” The cri- tiques built inexorably to the conclusion that first made Dworkin fa- mous: decision of hard cases requires a process of interpretation in which principles, not just “pedigreed” rules, help to make it the case, if it is the case, that “The law is that P.” In one way, Dworkin was the very model of an Oxford philosopher. Though dense, his arguments were clear. He was a master of distinc- tions. But in another way, Dworkin was a gust of fresh air blowing through the ancient university during my two years there. To make his points, he used vivid, often funny examples. After skewering one position or another, he would pause to invite questions and challenges. Challenges came frequently because Dworkin’s largest target was his eminent predecessor as Oxford’s Professor of Jurisprudence, H. -
ARISTOTLE and the CONCEPT of LAW John T. Valauri
VALAURI_GALLEYS 5/10/2011 10:10:34 AM DIALECTICAL JURISPRUDENCE: ARISTOTLE AND THE CONCEPT OF LAW John T. Valauri* General theories of law struggle to do justice to the multiple dualities of the law.1 INTRODUCTION Western law, culture, and philosophy thought that they were say- ing goodbye to Aristotle as they entered into modernity, only now to find the ancient philosopher standing in wait as they leave mod- ernity and enter into post-modernity. But what use do we have for Aristotle at this time? He can perform a valuable service for us—he offers a therapy for the “bipolar disorder”2 in contemporary juris- prudence and philosophy.3 This disorder is manifested in the wide- spread tendency to approach and analyze philosophical topics as dueling dichotomies, incapable of resolution or reconciliation. It is all too often assumed at the outset that one is faced with a stark ei- ther/or sort of choice between alternatives, so participants in the philosophical debates arising out of this approach typically take one side of the dichotomy and see it as their task to marginalize and di- minish the other side of the dichotomy.4 H.L.A. Hart diagnosed one case of this disorder in his famous depiction of American jurispru- dence as torn between the noble dream that judges can always *- Professor of Law, Salmon P. Chase College of Law, Northern Kentucky University. B.A., 1972; J.D., 1975, Harvard. 1. JOSEPH RAZ, BETWEEN AUTHORITY AND INTERPRETATION 1 (2009). 2. In this Article, I will use the notion of a “bipolar disorder” in philosophy in a broader way to refer to a more general dichotomy problem common today in approaches to philoso- phical topics. -
Keynote Address
KEYNOTE ADDRESS JUSTICE FOR HEDGEHOGS ∗ RONALD DWORKIN Some of you, probably too many of you, have heard me talk about Learned Hand’s vision of heaven.1 You will be relieved to know that I now have my own vision of heaven: lots of people, including among them among the most distinguished philosophers and lawyers in the world, have come together to discuss a book of mine. As if that weren’t good enough, they discuss it before I’ve actually finished writing it so I can benefit from what they say. That isn’t the best part. The best part is that I don’t even have to die. I will use these opening comments to offer an advance summary of the book, but with a difference. The book begins in questions of metaethics, which are among the most technical philosophical topics of the book, and it ends in an extended discussion of political morality.2 In these remarks, I will proceed in the opposite direction. I’ll start by describing the political settlement I regard as required by justice. I’ll then try to illustrate my claims about the unity of value by showing how each part of that political settlement fans out into a large variety of other questions, questions that meet one another ∗ Professor of Philosophy and Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London. This is a transcript of the Keynote Address I gave at the Boston University School of Law Symposium, Justice for Hedgehogs: A Conference on Ronald Dworkin’s Forthcoming Book, September 25-26, 2009. -
Dworkin's Incomplete Interpretation of Democracy Alexander Latham
Washington University Jurisprudence Review Volume 10 | Issue 2 2018 Dworkin's Incomplete Interpretation of Democracy Alexander Latham Follow this and additional works at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence Part of the Judges Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Legal History Commons, Legal Theory Commons, and the Rule of Law Commons Recommended Citation Alexander Latham, Dworkin's Incomplete Interpretation of Democracy, 10 Wash. U. Jur. Rev. 155 (2018). Available at: https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_jurisprudence/vol10/iss2/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Washington University Open Scholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Washington University Jurisprudence Review by an authorized administrator of Washington University Open Scholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Washington University Jurisprudence Review VOLUME 10 NUMBER 2 2018 DWORKIN’S INCOMPLETE INTERPRETATION OF DEMOCRACY ALEXANDER LATHAM * ABSTRACT This essay mounts an immanent critique of Dworkin’s defense of judicial review. Taking Dworkin’s methodology of constructive interpretation as my starting point, I argue that when analyzing the role that political institutions play in democracy, Dworkin fails to take his own method far enough. In particular, he limits his constructive interpretation of democracy to the practice of voting, overlooking the distinctive democratic values implicit within the institutions and practices of legislation by representative assembly. Ironically, given his well-known critique of majoritarian democracy, this failure leads Dworkin to adopt majoritarianism as a starting point when assessing particular institutions. A more thoroughgoing interpretation of democratic practices would identify certain nonmajoritarian virtues of legislatures, making the case for judicial review less clear-cut than Dworkin’s incomplete interpretation suggests. -
The New Rawls and Constitutional Theory: Does It Really Taste That Much Better?
University of Minnesota Law School Scholarship Repository Constitutional Commentary 1994 The ewN Rawls and Constitutional Theory: Does It Really Taste that Much Better? Michael P. Zuckert Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/concomm Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Zuckert, Michael P., "The eN w Rawls and Constitutional Theory: Does It Really Taste that Much Better?" (1994). Constitutional Commentary. 751. https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/concomm/751 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Minnesota Law School. It has been accepted for inclusion in Constitutional Commentary collection by an authorized administrator of the Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE NEW RAWLS AND CONSTITUTIONAL THEORY: DOES IT REALLY TASTE THAT MUCH BETTER? Michael P. Zuckert* It used to be a major enterprise of philosophers to compete for the most striking way to describe the human differentia. Surely the most famous and long-lasting such effort was Aris totle's "the human being is the rational animal," but there have been other formulae of note put forward too: Plato's "the human being is the featherless biped" is memorable in its own way, as well as the definition I associate with Cicero, that the human be ing is the "beast with red cheeks," i.e., the only being that blushes, or has shame. Let me propose a new entry into the "human being is" ... sweepstakes: "the human being is the anni versary celebrating animal." So far as I know, the zoologists have discovered no other animal which shares this peculiar pro pensity with us, as, for example, the beaver and the bee share our technological proclivities. -
Value and Truth in the Legal Theory of Ronald Dworkin
Value and Truth In the Legal Theory of Ronald Dworkin Lynden Margaret Douglas LLB (Melb), LLM (Public Law) (QUT) A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2014 T. C. Beirne School of Law ABSTRACT Brian Leiter observes that Dworkin creates problems for his legal theorizing in maintaining on the one hand that moral values figure in the truth of propositions of law, at least in ‘hard cases’, but on the other had that there are right answers to be found for those ‘hard cases’.1 Moreover, Leiter stresses that while Dworkin was aware of these concerns, his responses ‘have attracted little attention from philosophers or jurisprudents over the years’.2 Yet, Dworkin’s approach to the objectivity of moral (and, therefore, legal) truth is critical to drawing a distinction between his work and that of other constructive interpretive theorists. It is the very aspect that sets his work apart from many other philosophers who might be sympathetic to his interpretive views. It is the aim of this thesis to clarify and contextualize this important aspect of Dworkin’s theoretical outlook. I propose that it is helpful to understanding Dworkin’s approach to objectivity and truth, and his theory as a whole, to situate his work within the canonical theories of David Hume and Immanuel Kant, but also I consider that it is equally helpful to situate Dworkin’s thinking on these matters, particularly his later thought, within the later theory of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Although Dworkin’s work is spattered with references to Wittgenstein, and although philosophers have noted the potential ‘quietism’ in Dworkin’s approach to metaphysics, few philosophers consider his work from a non-skeptical, Wittgensteinian perspective.