Ronald Dworkin Quotes
Ronald Myles Dworkin was an American legal and political philosopher and one of the most influential jurisprudential thinkers of the late twentieth century. Successor to H. The quotes below are attributed to Ronald Dworkin, organized by topic.
Browse Ronald Dworkin by topic
Ronald Dworkin on Death
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“Nixon is no longer president, and his crimes were so grave that no one is likely now to worry very much any more about the details of his own legal philosophy. Nevertheless in what follows I shall use the name 'Nixon' to refer, not to Nixon, but to any politician holding the set of attitudes about the Supreme Court that he made explicit in his political campaigns. There was, fortunately, only one real Nixon, but there are, in the special sense in which I use the name, many Nixons.”
Taking Rights Seriously (1978), p. 164
Ronald Dworkin on God
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“If we are to be morally and ethically responsible, there can be no turning back once we find, as we have found, that some of the most basic presuppositions of these values are mistaken. Playing God is indeed playing with fire . But that is what we mortals have done since Prometheus , the patron saint of dangerous discoveries. We play with fire and take the consequences, because the alternative is cowardice in the face of the unknown.”
Sovereign Virtue (2000), p. 446
Ronald Dworkin on Justice
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Attributed to Ronald Dworkin:
“Law is an interpretive concept.”
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Attributed to Ronald Dworkin:
“Rights are trumps over collective goals.”
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Attributed to Ronald Dworkin:
“Hard cases have a right answer, even if reasonable judges disagree.”
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Attributed to Ronald Dworkin:
“Equality of resources, not of welfare, is the proper egalitarian ideal.”
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“Nixon is no longer president, and his crimes were so grave that no one is likely now to worry very much any more about the details of his own legal philosophy. Nevertheless in what follows I shall use the name 'Nixon' to refer, not to Nixon, but to any politician holding the set of attitudes about the Supreme Court that he made explicit in his political campaigns. There was, fortunately, only one ”
Taking Rights Seriously (1978), p. 164 -
“Law's Empire (1986), Preface”
We live in and by the law . It makes us what we are: citizens and employees and doctors and spouses and people who own things. It is sword , shield, and menace: we insist on our wage, or refuse to pay our rent, or are forced to forfeit penalties, or are closed up in jail, all in the name of what our abstract and ethereal sovereign, the law, has decreed. And we argue about what it has decreed, even
Ronald Dworkin on Knowledge
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“Discretion, like the hole in a doughnut, does not exist except as an area left open by a surrounding belt of restriction. It is therefore a relative concept. It always makes sense to ask, "Discretion under which standards?" or "Discretion as to which authority?”
Taking Rights Seriously (1978), p. 31 -
“Pornography: An Exchange" , response to Catharine MacKinnon , New York Review of Books 41(5), (3 March 1994)”
She ends her letter, characteristically, by picturing me and her other critics as indifferent to the suffering of women. But many feminists, including several who wrote or spoke to me about my review, regret her single-minded concentration on lurid sex. They think that though it has predictably attracted much publicity, it tends to stereotype women as victims, and takes attention from still urgent -
“Perhaps MacKinnon should reflect on these suggestions that the censorship issue is not so simple-minded, so transparently gender-against-gender, as she insists. She should stop calling names long enough to ask whether personal sensationalism, hyperbole, and bad arguments are really what the cause of sexual equality now needs.”
Pornography: An Exchange", response to Catharine MacKinnon, New York Review of Books 41(5), March 3, 1994. -
“Pornography: An Exchange", response to Catharine MacKinnon, New York Review of Books 41(5), March 3, 1994.”
Perhaps MacKinnon should reflect on these suggestions that the censorship issue is not so simple-minded, so transparently gender-against-gender, as she insists. She should stop calling names long enough to ask whether personal sensationalism, hyperbole, and bad arguments are really what the cause of sexual equality now needs.
Ronald Dworkin on Politics
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“She ends her letter, characteristically, by picturing me and her other critics as indifferent to the suffering of women. But many feminists, including several who wrote or spoke to me about my review, regret her single-minded concentration on lurid sex. They think that though it has predictably attracted much publicity, it tends to stereotype women as victims, and takes attention from still urgent questions of economic, political, and professional equality.”
Pornography: An Exchange" , response to Catharine MacKinnon , New York Review of Books 41(5), (3 March 1994)
Ronald Dworkin on Virtue
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Attributed to Ronald Dworkin:
“Living well requires taking responsibility for the value of one's own life.”