Taking Dworkin Seriously

Ronald Dworkin's legal essays have provoked considerable commentary on the nature of rights, law, and judging. Curiously unexplored, however, is the central claim of his work: that it presents a coherent and liberal theory of law. This article examines that claim and finds that Dworkin is most successful in establishing two propositions: (1) in “hard cases” at law there are “right answers” and (2) “articulate consistency” is the appropriate method of discovering and expressing them. Neither of these propositions, however, has any essential relation to the individual rights that he admonishes us to take seriously. Moreover, the right which Dworkin takes most seriously, “equal concern and respect,” rests upon a foundation incompatible with his argument on behalf of “right answers.” Thus, Dworkin's theory of law is neither coherent nor liberal.