RONALD DWORKIN’S CONCEPTUALIZATION OF LAW AND THE REFUTATION OF LEGAL POSITIVISM

Abstract

There have always been disagreements among philosophers on the right conceptualization of law, especially in relation to morality. While the separation thesis of the legal positivists tends to make strong waves, Ronald Dworkin’s conceptualization of law as integrity, presents a strong opposition to the said thesis. This study employs analytic and hermeneutic methods to expose the major claims of Dworkin’s conceptualization of law and its refutation of legal positivism. Legal positivism first and foremost strives to understand what the law is. It is a theory about the nature of law, and not about the obligation to obey it. The question of whether there is an obligation to obey the law is a separate kind of question, in philosophical jurisprudence, introduced by Dworkin, one which is quite obviously moral. To what extent will the Dworkinian position be proven as true forms the major problem of this study. This study thus provides a theoretical forum for a middle ground between natural law theory and legal positivism. It finds that holding firmly to the positivists’ principle of law as “what it posits” would warrant us to hold a crime as acceptable in the face of this principle.