This assignment includes the conclusion of Dworkin’s discussion of his right’s thesis and the beginning of his application of it to specific aspects of the law—in this case, his account of the judicial interpretation of a constitution.

• The first paragraph of §III gives a fuller statement of Dworkin’s rights thesis. The reference to institutional rights, which he expands on in the rest of the section, is a key point for distinguishing Dworkin’s view from both legal positivism and a straightforward natural law theory. As will become clear later, although institutional rights need not coincide with background moral rights, considerations of morality can play a role in deciding what institutional rights are. This is because the selection of a conception to fill out a contested concept (see p. 1080) will involve deciding what construction of the character of an institution puts it in the best light. And in the case of legal institutions, that will involve asking what is best from the point of view of what Dworkin sometimes calls “political morality.”

• When reading the introduction to §IV.A (pp. 1082f), be sure to note why Hercules is given that name.

• The two longer paragraphs of §IV.A.1 (pp. 1083f) deal, respectively, with Hercules’ references to “institutional detail” and to “political philosophy” (to use the terms of Dworkin’s concluding paragraph). Think about the different roles the two play in Dworkin’s view and the difference between the roles he assigns to the two of them and the roles that would be assigned to them in a simple natural law theory.