This assignment includes the end of one section and the beginning of the next. The two will highlight the differences between the ways Dworkin thinks a judge should regard the products of legislative action (i.e., statutes) and the products of judicial actions (i.e., precedents).

• In §IV.A.2, think about Dworkin’s sample interpretation of the statute in the “celestial marriage” case (p. 1085) and the interpretation of the bridge charter indicated by the quotation from Justice Morton’s opinion (in note 21 of p. 1086). How do these fit Dworkin’s description of such interpretation in the footnoted sentence on p. 1086? Dworkin fills out this description in the first of the two points he goes on to make (p. 1087). The second point is an important comment on the role of “canonical” language in statutes; note its connection with the difference between policy and principle and with Dworkin’s earlier discussion of political responsibility (on p. 1064).

• In §IV.B.1, Dworkin sets out his view of the differences between statutes and precedent. He first argues that a precedent has a “gravitational force” that goes beyond the “enactment force” determined by the language used to state a rule (pp. 1089-1090). He then argues that this gravitational force must derive from considerations of fairness (pp. 1090f) and that this implies that precedent applies to new cases only by way of arguments of principle and not by way of arguments of policy (pp. 1091-1093).