University of Kansas, Spring 2005
Philosophy 674: Philosophy of Law
Ben Eggleston—eggleston@ku.edu

Study questions: Dworkin

The following questions are intended to guide your reading of the assigned texts by calling attention to key concepts, distinctions, principles, and other parts of the texts. The questions are listed in the order in which their answers should become evident to a close reader.

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  1. chapter 1: “What Is Law?” (based on questions written by Shandy Soleimani)
    1. What are the three main types of disagreement that Dworkin distinguishes?
    2. What are the two types of legal disagreement that Dworkin distinguishes?
    3. How, according to the plain-fact view, are questions of law to be answered?
    4. How does Elmer's case cast doubt on the plain-fact view?
    5. What are the two theories about legislative intent (Burger’s and Powell’s) illustrated by the snail-darter case?
    6. What considerations of policy arose in the McLoughlin case?
    7. What do theories that Dworkin calls semantic theories have in common?
  2. chapter 2: “Interpretive Concepts” (based on questions written by Jon Lacey)
    1. What are the two components of what Dworkin calls the interpretive attitude?
    2. What is creative interpretation?
    3. What makes interpretation constructive?
    4. How does the example involving Fellini illustrate Dworkin’s point that “even if we take the goal of artistic interpretation to be retrieving the intention of an author, . . . we cannot escape using the strategies of constructive interpretation” (p. 54)?
    5. Dworkin discusses the fact that, in different periods, artistic intention has been seen as having different levels of importance in artistic interpretation. How does this illustrate his point that “if we do take the goal of artistic interpretation to be discovering an author’s intention, this must be a consequence of having applied the methods of constructive interpretation to art, not of having rejected those methods” (p. 54)?
    6. The third prong of Dworkin’s reply to the objection having to do with intention is based on the claim that “interpreting the practice [must] be treated as different from understanding what other participants mean by the statements they make in its operation” (p. 55). Why does Dworkin think this is true?
    7. What are the three stages of the interpretive practice?
  3. chapter 7: “Integrity in Law”
    1. What condition does Dworkin say propositions of must law meet in order for them to be true?
    2. How does Dworkin use the idea of continuing a chain novel to illustrate the criterion of fit?
    3. The dimension of fit is the first dimension of interpretation. What is the second?
    4. Here’s a question you should be able to answer when you have reached the end of the subsection called “The Chain Novel” (and before you get into the “Scrooge” subsection): Why did Dworkin need to use the example of a chain novel, rather than the example of writing just a regular old novel?
    5. How is the situation of a person writing a chain novel neither one of “total creative freedom” nor “mechanical textual constraint”?
    6. What part of chapter 2 is recalled by Dworkin’s last remark in the “Scrooge” subsection?
    7. How, from the point of view of law as integrity, are judges in a very different position from legislators?
    8. How does Dworkin respond to the objection that the correct interpretation of a line of past decisions can always be discovered by morally neutral means?
    9. How does Dworkin respond to the objection that not all of what Hercules does can be explained by his commitment to integrity—that he does what integrity requires, and then goes beyond what it requires?