Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/zpfz.70.4.04
Exploring the Aspects of Law’s “Goodness” in Ronald Dworkin’s Critique of the Strong Natural-Law Theory
Petar Popović
; Faculty of Canon Law, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, Italy
Abstract
The scope of this paper is to explore certain aspects of Ronald Dworkin’s critique of the so-called “strong” natural-law theory. The author focuses on those aspects of Dworkin’s critique that gravitate toward the perspective of law’s “goodness”, namely, the question of how and to what extent Dworkin and the “strong” natural-law theory, each in its own way, allow the overlap between the concept of law and the evaluative viewpoint according to which substantive aspects of human moral good are pertinent to legal issues. In the first section of the paper, the author presents the central arguments of Dworkin’s legal theory by highlighting those theoretical elements that are often considered to be similar to the claims of the natural-law theory in a broad sense. The author then presents Dworkin’s main objections to the “strong” natural-law theory, as well as the evaluation of Dworkin’s “minimalist” natural-law account through the lens of the proponents of the “strong” theory. In the last section, the author analyses certain aspects of law’s “goodness” that have remained mostly implicit or underdeveloped in the debate between Dworkin and the “orthodox” natural lawyers.
Keywords
Dworkin; natural-law theory; legal interpretivism; political morality
Hrčak ID:
244585
URI
Publication date:
28.9.2020.
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