On The Legitimacy Of The Law

The relation between law and morality is a permanent topic in both theory and practice field. Human beings have never giver up the just seek in law. The theoretical pattern of people in the west is represented by natural law school. However, people began to doubt, even contempt the value and finally it from 1850s to the beginning of 1900s, with their being more convinced of the authentic proof, of modern law concepts and with their analysis of the philosophy's thriving. In the law realm, worth problem is excluded from the law study for people's belief that law has nothing to do with morality. But then the introspection on World War II and the savage act of Nazi makes people rethink just law problem, which leads to the decline of legal positivism and revive of natural law.Ronald Dworkin is a chief member in the above academic campaign in which he advocates maximizing law legitimacy by basing law on morality.Dworkin's morality concept displays a contemporary justice of law with new worth in liberal law, which regards an individual's rights as prime, has its core on equality, guided by political liberalism.Dworkin holds that the prime value is individual worth-destiny and dignity. Then two rules for individual morality are proposed by him. The principle of equal importance demands that government should be concerned about and respect an individual equal. The rule itself is also the internal essence of just government and legitimate law. The other one is the principle of special responsibility ,which demands an individual should be independently responsible for his own affair without any interfere from the government. Dworkin envisaged an ideal market system that meets the above two basic demands to realize the just distribution which is also called equal resource distribution by viewing opportunity cost as its core, a hypothetical insurance market as its means. Once the political law system which acts as a means of redistribution realizes equality of resources rather than equality of welfare, people's fine life will be adequately assured. As to Dworkin, liberal equality is law's core and foundation stone.Rights are the birthplace of Dworkin's moral law. He comes up with rights in law by criticizing Hart for his legal positivism. Dworkin conceives that Rule builds up law', in which it indicates that people enjoys rights not only specifically entitled to them but political rights that is prior to the law itself rights that can also be termedas compulsorily moral rights which revolt against the government and the country. Right is not a pocket property for any individual, but is against government. Naturally, Dworkin thinks the rights he advocates are different from previous 'endowed rights' and 'natural rights'. What rights he advocates are without any metaphysical features, but are people's authentic rights in real society, more specifically, in the political society. His proposition is that philosophic basis for rights is human equality in dignity and politics. He greatly emphasizes individual prime rights and opposes individual rights in the name of 'social rights'. To him, 'social rights' is illusory.Concept of law as integrity of creative interpretation is an adequate prove and explanation for liberal worth law from philosophical hermeneutics .Dworkin considers that 'Law is an interpretive concept', 'law's empire is defined by attitude, not territory or power or process'. He specifies that in law practice, people's debate of law problem is not an empirical disagreement, but a theoretical disagreement. Therefore, his view is strongly against two wrong ways of interpretation for law legitimacy: First is called conventionalism; the second is pragmatism. To Dworkin, law legitimacy is not a technological problem or a scientific problem, but a moral one. He proposes all moral and legal problems have 'the only interpretation' on the condition that people abandon 'correspondent conception of truth' and accept his creative conception of truth. On the basis of the model, he criticizes the internal and external skepticism to the moral law theory respectively.Constitution concept is an important aspect in Dworkin's moral law theory, which is also a spot for his law's 'practical way of saying'. Dworkin thinks that American constitution which integrates law and moral law theory can also be called a practical model on law legitimacy, the best footnote for American rights and liberal traditions. So Dworkin advocates a particular way of the moral reading of American constitution and at the same time, he opposes historicism, negativism and originalism. And strictism which lead to wrong interpretations on American constitution. Then Dworkin points out further that moral reading of constitution and democratic constitution bear the same essence. And so, he opposes the majoritarian conception of supreme democracy. Dworkin holds that the majority conception doesn't challenge the moral interpretation on constitution in any way. In order to explain the rationality of reading American constitution from a moral point of view, Dworkin considers Roe case in American constitutional history as an example to be...