This is the first publication of these ideas in book form. 'It is a rare treat--important, original philosophy that is also a pleasure to read.

With incisiveness and lucid style, Dworkin has written a masterful explanation of how the Anglo-American legal system works and on what principles it is grounded. Law’s Empire is a full-length presentation of his theory of law that will be studied and debated for years to come.

Natural Law and Natural Rights is widely recognised as a seminal contribution to the philosophy of law, and an essential reference point for all students of the subject. This new edition includes a substantial postscript by the author responding to thirty years of comment, criticism, and further work in the field.

This collection of essays by one of the most prominent and internationally respected philosophers of action theory is concerned with deepening our understanding of the notion of intention. In Bratman's view, when we settle on a plan for action we are committing ourselves to future conduct in ways that help support important forms of coordination and organization both within the life of the agent and interpersonally. These essays enrich that account of commitment involved in intending, and explore its implications for (...) our understanding of temptation and self-control, shared intention and shared cooperative activity, and moral responsibility. The essays offer extensive discussions of related views by, among others, Donald Davidson, Hector-Neri Castañeda, Christine Korsgaard, Harry Frankfurt, and P. F. Strawson. This collection will be a valuable resource for a wide range of philosophers and their students. (shrink)

The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832) is a classic of nineteenth-century English jurisprudence, a subject on which Austin had a profound impact. His book is primarily concerned with a meticulous explanation of most of the core concepts of his legal philosophy, including his conception of law, his separation of law and morality, and his theory of sovereignty. Almost a quarter of it consists of an interpretation and defence of the principle of utility. This edition includes the complete and unabridged text (...) of the fifth (1885) and last edition. The comprehensive introduction discusses Austin's life, the main themes of his book, leading criticisms of his ideas, and recent interpretations of his legal philosophy. The edition also includes an up-to-date bibliography and biographical synopses of the principal figures mentioned in the text. (shrink)

I offer a new argument against the legal positivist view that non-normative social facts can themselves determine the content of the law. I argue that the nature of the determination relation in law is rational determination: the contribution of law-determining practices to the content of the law must be based on reasons. That is why it must be possible in principle to explain what makes the law have the content that it does. It follows, I argue, that non-normative facts about (...) statutes, judicial decisions, and other practices cannot themselves determine the content of the law. A full account must appeal to considerations independent of the practices that determine the relevance of the practices to the content of the law. Normative facts are the best candidates. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that there is a picture of how law works that most legal theorists are implicitly committed to and take to be common ground. This Standard Picture (SP, for short) is generally unacknowledged and unargued for. SP leads to a characteristic set of concerns and problems and yields a distinctive way of thinking about how law is supposed to operate. I suggest that the issue of whether SP is correct is a fundamental one for the philosophy (...) of law, more basic, for example, than the issue that divides legal positivists and anti-positivists, at least as the latter issue is ordinarily understood. The goals of the paper are fourfold: 1) to identify and articulate in some detail the Standard Picture; 2) to show that SP is widely held and has important consequences for other debates in the philosophy of law; 3) to show that SP leads to a serious theoretical problem; 4) to sketch an alternative picture that promises to avoid this problem. I emphasize the modesty of these goals in one respect. I make no claim to refute SP or to fully develop and defend an alternative picture. (shrink)

For the past four decades, Anglo-American legal philosophy has been preoccupied – some might say obsessed – with something called the “Hart-Dworkin” debate. Since the appearance in 1967 of “The Model of Rules I,” Ronald Dworkin’s seminal critique of H.L.A. Hart’s theory of legal positivism, countless books and articles have been written either defending Hart against Dworkin’s objections or defending Dworkin against Hart’s defenders. My purpose in this essay is not to declare an ultimate victor; rather it is to identify (...) precisely the core issue around which the debate is organized. Is the Hart-Dworkin debate, for example, about whether the law contains principles, as well as rules? Or does it concern whether judges have discretion in hard cases? Is it about the proper way to interpret legal texts in the American legal system? Or is it about the very possibility of conceptual jurisprudence? Although trying to capture the essence of a philosophical debate can be tricky, I think that there is an important unity to the Hart-Dworkin debate that can be described in a relatively straightforward manner. I suggest that the debate is organized around one of the most profound issues in the philosophy of law, namely, the relation between legality and morality. Dworkin’s basic strategy throughout the course of the debate has been to argue that, in one form or another, legality is ultimately determined not by social facts alone, but by moral facts as well. This contention directly challenges, and threatens to undermine, the positivist picture about the nature of law, in which legality is never determined by morality, but solely by social practice. As one might expect, the response by Hart and his followers has been to argue that this dependence of legality on morality is either merely apparent or does not, in fact, undermine the social foundations of law. The Hart-Dworkin debate, I also try to show, is not a monolithic entity. In the second half of the paper, I describe how Dworkin modified his critique to circumvent the responses of Hart’s followers, thereby inaugurating a new phase in the debate. Virtually no attention, however, has been paid to this latter challenge, which is especially surprising given that none of the previous positivistic defenses are helpful against it. I then sketch out a possible response positivists might offer to this extremely powerful objection. (shrink)

Lays out basics of planning theory of law. Roughly, characterizes the internal point of view as a complex planning intention rather than a response to a recurring coordination problem. We are not responding to such a problem per se, but rather to a cooperation problem - and thus the structure of the attitude or intention must be different. It is officials who have the relevant attitude. Does not reject conventionalism, but argues that the convention is of a different sort than (...) is typically thought. Considers the basic commitment of legal positivism to be a commitment law as social fact. (shrink)

It is hard to think of a more banal statement one could make about the law than to say that it necessarily claims legal authority to govern conduct. What, after all, is a legal institution if not an entity that purports to have the legal power to create rules, confer rights, and impose obligations? Whether legal institutions necessarily claim the moral authority to exercise their legal powers is another question entirely. Some legal theorists have thought that they do—others have not (...) been so sure. But no one has ever denied that the law holds itself out as having the legal authority to tell us what we may or may not do. (shrink)

Scott Shapiro recently suggested that Ronald Dworkin’s critique in Chapter 1 of Law’s Empire represents the greatest threat currently facing legal positivism. Shapiro had in mind, not the semantic sting argument (‘the SSA’), but rather what I call ‘the argument from theoretical disagreement’ (or ‘the ATD’). I contend that Shapiro was right to focus on the ATD, but that even he underestimated just how serious a challenge it poses to positivism (and perhaps to other theories of law as well). The (...) ATD, I argue, is an objection to any theory of law that denies that legal officials can engage in theoretical disagreement—that is, disagreement about the grounds of law. The SSA then seeks to explain why so many legal philosophers adopt such theories. I argue that the SSA is an implausible explanation of why many legal philosophers deny that theoretical disagreement exists, but that this does not undermine the ATD’s contention that they are wrong to do so. Indeed, given the variety of forms that theoretical disagreement can take, Dworkin’s positivist critics face a very significant challenge in seeking either to explain away the appearance of theoretical disagreement or to develop forms of positivism that can allow for such disagreement. (shrink)

Many philosophers take the view that, while coercion is a prominent and enduring feature of legal practice, its existence does not reflect a deep, constitutive property of law and therefore coercion plays at best a very limited role in the explanation of law's nature. This view has become more or less the orthodoxy in modern jurisprudence. I argue that an interesting and plausible possible role for coercion in the explanation of law is untouched by the arguments in support of the (...) orthodox view. Since my main purpose is to clear the ground for the alternative, I spell out the orthodox view in some detail. I then briefly sketch the alternative. Finally, I turn to Jules Coleman's discussion of the alternative. (shrink)

I offer a new argument against the legal positivist view that non-normative social facts can themselves determine the content of the law. I argue that the nature of the determination relation in law is rational determination: the contribution of law-determining practices to the content of the law must be based on reasons. That is why it must be possible in principle to explain what makes the law have the content that it does. It follows, I argue, that non-normative facts about (...) statutes, judicial decisions, and other practices cannot themselves determine the content of the law. A full account must appeal to considerations independent of the practices that determine the relevance of the practices to the content of the law. Normative facts are the best candidates. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a new argument against inclusive legal positivism. As I show, any theory which permits morality to be a condition on legality cannot account for a core feature of legal activity, namely, that it is an activity of social planning. If the aim of a legal institution is to guide the conduct of the community through plans, it would be self-defeating if the existence of these plans could only be determined through deliberation on the merits. I (...) also argue that, insofar as inclusive legal positivism was developed as a response to Ronald Dworkin's critique of H. L. A. Hart's theory of law, it was founded on a mistake. For once we appreciate the role that planning plays in legal regulation, we will see that Dworkin's objection is based on a flawed conception of legal obligations and rights and hence does not present an objection that inclusive legal positivists were required to answer. (shrink)