These selections are from a book where Dworkin sets out his view of law at length. In that respect, they are analogous to the material from Hart’s The Concept of Law.

Dworkin labels his view “law as integrity,” but the term “integrity” will appear here less often than “interpretation.” Although many of the earlier chapters of the Dworkin’s book are, as in the case Hart’s book, devoted to criticisms of other theories of law, Dworkin has already said quite a bit about interpretation by the time he reaches ch. 7. Much of that earlier discussion is encapsulated in the idea that the aim of interpretation should be to “show something in the best light.” The role of integrity lies in what is involved in showing the law in the best light. Dworkin says something about this at the beginning of the first selection.

In ch. 6 of his book, Dworkin argued that the aim of making “the total set of laws morally coherent”—something he calls “legislative integrity”—is a central ideal of our politics. It follows that the central task in showing our law in the best light is showing that it does exhibit this sort of integrity, and he refers to this activity as “adjudicative integrity.” In earlier work, Dworkin spoke of a “doctrine of political responsibility,” and it played a role in his account of law that was somewhat analogous to the role played here by the ideal of integrity. So you might take the force of the term “integrity” to involve the idea of responsibility as well as that of coherence.

• After an initial description of his view (pp. 212-214), Dworkin explains the sort of interpretation he has in mind by way of an analogy with a literary genre he devises to have many of the features of the law (pp. 214-222). Dworkin not only presents this analogue to his view of the law but compares it with other possible views of this literary genre. Watch for views of this sort of interpretation that are analogous to legal positivism and American legal realism (what in this book he calls “conventionalism” and “pragmatism”).

• The core of Dworkin’s presentation of his view of law comes in a discussion of an example of legal interpretation, where he considers how a judge might decide a particular case, McLoughlin v. O’Brian (the editor describes this for you in a note to p. 212). He considers a series of six approaches to this case. He dismisses the first three (pp. 222-226) before turning to a discussion of the rest. His discussion of the third employs the distinction between principles (in the narrow sense) and policies that he made in “The Model of Rules I.” This distinction is an important part of his view of the law and, especially, of the different roles of legislators and judges, so be sure to think through the issues he raises regarding this interpretation.

• The second selection in the Culver anthology (pp. 230-232) is a summary from just a little later in the chapter. Dworkin goes on, in a later part of the chapter not included in Culver, to consider objections to his view, and you should think for yourself how someone might object to it.

We will spend two classes on Dworkin but the selections don’t divide neatly into readings for each of the two days. I encourage you to read as much of both selections as you can for Wednesday, but that first discussion is unlikely to go any further than Dworkin’s consideration of the third of the six interpretations (which ends on p. 226).