Ronald Dworkin

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Ronald Dworkin (2008)

Ronald Myles Dworkin (born December 11, 1931 in Worcester , Massachusetts , † February 14, 2013 in London ) was an American philosopher who is known primarily for his contributions to legal philosophy , political philosophy and moral philosophy . His theory of law as integrity is one of the most recognized contemporary theories about the nature of law .

Biographical overview

Dworkin was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1931. He earned a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and another from Oxford University , where he was a student of Sir Rupert Cross (1912-1980) at Magdalen College . Dworkin then attended Harvard Law School at Harvard University, where he studied with Lon Fuller . After joining Sullivan and Cromwell, a prominent New York City law firm , Dworkin became an Associate Professor of Law at Yale Law School in 1962, and Professor of Law in 1965. In 1968 he was appointed to the Wesley N. Hohfeld Chair of Law at Yale University .

1969 Dworkin succeeded HLA Hart on the Chair of Law at Oxford University. In 1994 he also took on the position of Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University Law School.

Dworkin later also taught at University College London and New York University .

Dworkin was a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society . In 1995 he was elected a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences . He has received numerous national and international awards, including the 2006 by the Foundation of Sparkasse Bielefeld in memory of Niklas Luhmann conferred Bielefeld Science Award , in 2007 the Holberg Prize , in 2012, the Balzan Prize for Theory and Philosophy of Law. He was awarded the Balzan Prize on the following grounds : "for his fundamental contributions to legal theory, which are characterized by profound analysis, original questions and clarity of argumentation and which result from the productive interaction with political and ethical theories as well as legal practice". The book Religion Without God was published after his death.

Legal philosophy

Dworkin advocates an interpretative theory of law, which according to this includes not only codified rules, but also general principles. The principle underlying all his work is the recognition of people as equals. Right from the start, his legal philosophy was intended as an alternative to HLA Hart’s right positivist teaching . In 1977 he programmatically proclaimed in his fundamental work Taking Rights Seriously (English title: civil rights taken seriously, abbreviated as "BE" in the running text):

"I want to make a general attack on positivism , and I will target HLA Hart's version when a specific target is required."

- Civil rights taken seriously, p. 54

Based on Immanuel Kant , Dworkin takes a position of the law of reason , for which morality forms the inextricable background.

Critique of Positivism

“Legal positivism rejects the notion that legal rights could exist before any form of legislation : that is, it rejects the notion that individuals or groups could have rights in judicial decision that are different from the rights explicitly stated in the collection of the explicit rights are given, which constitute the entire right of a community. "

- Civil rights taken seriously, p. 13

If law is only codified law, the law can be taken away from the citizen by the legislature. According to Dworkin, the citizen is thus exposed to the arbitrariness of the legislature. In fact, in his opinion, this is not the case, particularly in the area of ​​civil and human rights . From the experience of the jurisprudence he points out that in the application of the law the citizen can always assert a subjective right. This right is based on human dignity and the right to legal and political equality .

Legal rules and principles

According to legal positivism - according to Dworkin - legal assessments are made through the application of legal rules. These are if-then relationships that are determined deductively. If a situation is given, then it triggers a certain legal consequence. The task of a judge is to analyze the facts and the logical assignment ( subsumption ) under a rule. This can consist in a valid law or in comparable jurisdiction.

Dworkin, on the other hand, argues that in practice there are often difficult cases for which there are no clear legal rules (BE 56/57), and even simpler cases require an interpretation by the judge in order to reach a decision. This is already the case because laws often contain terms that need to be interpreted, such as “appropriate”, “negligent”, “proportionate” or “morality”. Judgments are based on judicial discretion . According to Dworkin, this discretion is not free, but must follow general principles of law. A legal principle "gives a reason which is an argument in a certain direction, but which does not require a certain decision." (BE 60) Such principles can include respect for the person, consideration of special circumstances, equality before the law or creation be a fair compensation. In contrast to rules, principles do not lead to either-or decisions, but rather have to be weighed and weighted on a case-by-case basis when they are applied. The highest of these principles can be understood as justice. In Germany, the legal philosopher Robert Alexy tied in his Theory of Basic Rights (1985) on Dworkin's distinction between legal rules and legal principles.

According to Dworkin, legal rules and principles are in each case parallel and jointly valid building blocks of law. They do not follow a social benefit, but are a yardstick, "compliance with which is a requirement of justice or fairness or some other moral dimension." (BE 55) Dworkin thus specifically opposes a utilitarian or economic interpretation of law.

Uniqueness of judgments

Dworkin believes that there is only one correct judgment for a judge in a specific case. To make this clear, he works with the image of a judicial "Hercules" who is endowed with extraordinary skills: extensive specialist knowledge, particular acumen and empathy (BE 105). Herkules is in a position to always correctly assess legal issues and to make a coherent decision based on the rules and principles of law after a self-developed update of the existing legal situation. A judge in legal practice must endeavor to come as close as possible to the ideal of Hercules in his decision. If he does this, there is only one judgment for him that can be right for him. Any other judgment would contradict a decision to the best of our knowledge and belief. "So at a certain point he has to rely on the substance of his own judgment in order to be able to judge at all." (BE 210)

Accordingly, Dworkin considers a separation of legal theory and legal practice to be wrong. A judge can only take principles into account and apply them if he includes considerations of legal philosophy in his judgment.

The uniqueness of the individual judgment leads to the phenomenon of "subjective objectivity". Because it may well be that another judge with a different background comes to a different judgment, although he also leads the legal situation, case law and legal principles without arbitrariness to a coherent judgment. Both judgments are objective when the judges refrain from personal opinions and try to take the position of Hercules.

Dworkin expressly opposes a discursive theory of law as advocated by Habermas and Alexy . Even in a discourse, one cannot justify the legal principles better. For this, one would have to be able to justify the position one takes in the discourse with other arguments. Dworkin rejects Habermas' criticism that his concept of the "Judge Hercules" is monological. The thought model of Hercules does not exclude that a judge is fully informed in legal practice and also seeks an exchange of ideas with other competent people.

Civil disobedience

For Dworkin any claim for a privilege to disobey applicable laws is inadmissible because it is unfair. But it is conceivable for him that someone disobeyed the law and followed his conscience and had good arguments for it.

“Sometimes, even if the Supreme Court ruled to the contrary, an individual may still reasonably believe that he or she has the law on his side; such cases are rare, but the greatest likelihood of occurrence is in constitutional law disputes involving civil disobedience. It has then turned out to be more likely that the Court will overturn its own past decisions if they have restricted important personal or political rights, and it is precisely these decisions that a dissident might want to question. "

- Civil rights taken seriously, p. 345

This assessment expresses the notion of an independent validity of morality within law, the difference between legality and legitimacy . Civil disobedience is a legitimate instrument in a democratic, pluralistic society if it is exercised responsibly. It serves to reflect on the correctness of the existing legal situation and thus has a positive effect on the further institutional development of the legal system. The legitimacy of positive law is only given if it is worthy of recognition.

Theory of Justice

Egalitarian liberalism

The primary measure of Dworkin's liberalism is equality. Every citizen has the right to equal concern and respect .

“It is a fundamental, almost defining quality of liberalism that the government of a political community should be tolerant of different, often contradicting beliefs of its citizens about the right way of life: that it should, for example, be neutral between citizens who need a good life is religious, and other citizens who fear religion as the only dangerous superstition. "

With the principle of equality as the basis of law, Dworkin ties in with Kant and deliberately distinguishes himself from libertarian liberalism, whose guiding principle is freedom . While Kant only formulated a negative principle that forbids unequal treatment, Dworkin demands that it be the task of the state to actively establish the principle of equality through social equalization.

The recognition of the autonomy of the person is expressed in equality . Specifically, Dworkin names two principles that are a prerequisite for a just society:

  1. Everyone should be able to lead a successful, not wasted life.
  2. The responsibility for the success of one's own life cannot be delegated.

Liberalism based on equality recognizes that people in a society have different preferences . The best place to realize these preferences is in the market and a representative democracy with majority voting. However, in practice these institutions lead to discrimination and inequalities.

"So the Liberals is based on the economic market and political democracy for various reasons that these institutions produce uneven results, as long as he is not his system (scheme) different types of individual rights adds. These rights serve as a trump card for the individual; they enable the individual to resist certain decisions, contrary to the fact that these decisions are made by the normal functioning of general institutions, which are not ends in themselves. "

The introduction of protective rights serves to guarantee equal consideration and respect for everyone. The state may only be morally neutral if it ensures equality. Dworkin thus represents a value-bound liberalism that is not based on procedural justice , as with Rawls or Habermas , but is substantially substantial.

Resource equality

For Dworkin, the equality requirement means that morally unjustified inequalities must be balanced out in a society. Since humans are responsible for their actions, the compensation cannot take place on the level of well-being, because this is also essentially dependent on the actions of those affected. Rather, the balance has to take place at the level of the resources , because these determine what a person can do with his life. Dworkin rejects both Rawls' principle of difference and Sen's concept of chances of realization , insofar as these take subjective goals into account.

“I don't think a distribution theory or a theory of economic justice has to think about how people can be equally empowered to be happy, because one of the moments that affects my ability to be happy is my ambition, my imagination of how I want to shape my life. "

To justify the criteria according to which the compensation should be made, Dworkin, like other theorists of justice , developed a fictitious thought model in which shipwrecked people on an island share the available resources among themselves. He proposes an auction as the procedure because this is the best way to take preferences into account. The auction leads to an equilibrium when he so called " Envy sample " ( envy test ) is negative, that is the moment when none of the parties would rather take the position of another party more.

To compensate for natural disadvantages as well as the influence of strokes of fate, Dworkin developed a multi-level concept of insurance in the thought model. Since nobody takes out such insurance in practice, he proposes a differentiated taxation system for the real world that takes the corresponding risks into account.

Practical ethics

Ronald Dworkin is one of the philosophers who has repeatedly commented on current fundamental issues in society. Since 1968 he has been commenting on American legal policy and in particular the case law of the Supreme Court in The New York Review of Books , his last contributions being on the dispute over Obama's health care reform. In particular, he spoke on the subject of abortion and euthanasia in the book "Life's Dominion" (The Limits of Life). On these questions, he takes the position that the value of life is a value that can conflict with other values. Accordingly, decisions in this area are decisions of conscience . A liberal state does not have to intervene in such value decisions of self-reliant citizens.

On the question of assisted suicide , he and five other well-known moral philosophers ( Thomas Nagel , Robert Nozick , John Rawls , Thomas M. Scanlon and Judith Jarvis Thomson ) published an open letter in 1997 in which the six were facing a decisive decision by the Supreme Court position. The following principles were developed in this letter:

  1. Every competent person has the right to make decisions about their own life on the basis of fundamental religious or philosophical beliefs.
  2. In a spontaneous situation under emotional pressure, decisions may conflict with long-term attitudes. It can therefore be justified that the state protects citizens against themselves from spontaneous suicide.
  3. It does not follow from this that a terminally ill patient should be forced to extend his life.

In practice, the philosophers advocate the expansion of palliative medicine and generally better advice and care for terminally ill patients.

With regard to freedom of expression , Dworkin is of the opinion that a democratic society must tolerate and protect even the anti-democratic hate speech of radicals. He considers the prohibition of neo-Nazi statements in Germany and Austria to be wrong, even if he understands this against the historical background. The restriction of freedom of expression hinders the free formation of opinion of the citizens. By analogy, he also rejects the prohibition of pornography called for by some feminists . Censorship is a sign of a totalitarian state with a thought police and a "synchronization of thinking and acting". Equality for women must be ensured and brought about in other ways.

Publications Ronald Dworkins

Books

  • Taking Rights Seriously . 1977 (German: Citizens' rights taken seriously . Suhrkamp, ​​1984, ISBN 3-518-57650-X ).
  • A matter of principle . 1985
  • Law's Empire . 1986
  • Philosophical Issues in Senile Dementia . 1987
  • A Bill of Rights for Britain . 1990
  • Life's Dominion . 1993 (German by Susanne Höbel: The limits of life. Abortion, euthanasia and personal freedom. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1994, ISBN 3-498-01297-5 )
  • Freedom's Law . 1996
  • Sovereign Virtue . 2000 (German: What is equality? Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-518-29486-4 )
  • Justice for Hedgehogs . 2011 (German: Justice for Igel. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-518-58575-7 )
  • Religion without God . 2013

Essays

Web links

Commons : Ronald Dworkin  - Collection of Images

multimedia

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Guardian
  2. ^ Member History: Ronald Dworkin. American Philosophical Society, accessed July 26, 2018 (with a short biography).
  3. ↑ Member entry of Ronald Dworkin at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on January 29, 2017.
  4. ^ Johann Braun: Philosophy of Law in the 20th Century. Beck, Munich 2001, p. 201.
  5. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: Morality and Law and the Problems of Equality and Freedom . Interview, in: Herlinde Pauer-Studer (Ed.): Constructions of practical reason . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2000, pp. 153-182, here 162 and 166.
  6. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: Civil rights taken seriously . Section: Civil Disobedience, pp. 337–363.
  7. ^ Ronald Dworkin: Foundations of Liberal Equity . In: Stephen Darwall (Ed.): Equal Freedom . Selected Tanner Lectures on Human Values, Ann Arbor / Mass. 1995, pp. 190–306, here 191 (own translation)
  8. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: Sovereign Virtue. The Theory and Practice of Equality . Cambridge / Mass. 2002, p. 240.
  9. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: A Matter of Principle . Cambridge (Mass.) 1985, here p. 198, quoted from Wolfgang Kersting: Theories of social justice . Metzler, Paderborn 2000, p. 179 (own translation)
  10. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: Morality and Law and the Problems of Equality and Freedom . Interview, in: Herlinde Pauer-Studer (Ed.): Constructions of practical reason . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2000, pp. 153-182, here 173.
  11. ^ Ronald Dworkin: What is Equality? Part 2: Equality of Resources, in: Philosophy and Public Affairs . 1981, pp. 194-206.
  12. ↑ Alexandra Kemmerer, From the duty to the good life. On the death of the legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin , Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 14, 2013 http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/zum-tod-des-rechtsphilosophen-ronald-dworkin-von-der-pflicht-zum-guten-leben- 1.1600595
  13. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: Life's Dominion: An Argument about Abortion, Euthanasia and Individual Freedon . Vintage, New York 1993, German: The Limits of Life: Abortion, Euthanasia and Personal Freedom . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1994.
  14. ^ Assisted Suicide: The Philosophers' Brief , The New York Review of Books , Volume 44, Number 5 • March 27, 1997.
  15. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: Morality and Law and the Problems of Equality and Freedom . Interview, in: Herlinde Pauer-Studer (Ed.): Constructions of practical reason . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2000, pp. 153-182, here 166.
  16. ↑ Ronald Dworkin: Morality and Law and the Problems of Equality and Freedom . Interview, in: Herlinde Pauer-Studer (Ed.): Constructions of practical reason . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 2000, pp. 153-182, here 168/69.
personal data
SURNAME Dworkin, Ronald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dworkin, Ronald M.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH December 11, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Worcester , Massachusetts , United States
DATE OF DEATH February 14, 2013
Place of death London