The Death of Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Dworkin, one of the most celebrated legal theorists in the world and an outspoken liberal thinker, died today of complications from leukemia. Born in the U.S. he was a phenomenal student of the law and clerked for famous judge Learned Hand before teaching at Oxford, University College, London, and New York University, among other schools. Many essays by him for The New York Review of Books, for whom he frequently wrote, are available online.

I refer to Dworkin as a "liberal" because many of the ideas he embraced square with both traditional notions of liberalism and what is typically thought of liberal today. The essays you can read a The New York Review of Books, as well as Dworkin's famous books such as Taking Rights Seriously, Law's Empire, Freedom's Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution, Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality, and Justice for Hedgehogs. You don't have to be a lawyer, by the way, to read and understand these books.

Some of what I will be addressing in the legal parts of The "Program" (see the tab at the top right below this blog's title) is a critique of Dworkin's work -- pro and con -- for he was deeply influential on me as he should be on anybody with an interest in legal systems. But for now, this video as a tribute (note -- it's more than an hour long but to get to the Dworkin part skip to 10:30 after the start -- via MetaFilter):