Abstract

This thesis argues that elements of Dworkin's political ideal of "integrity" can be explained by Hegel's account in the Phenomenology of the dialectical transformation of "perception" to "understanding." Chapter one argues that while Dworkin rejects the idea of a transcendental Idea that develops through history, he thinks political debate reflects an internal principle of development that is the source of political legitimacy. ;Chapter two considers the non-transcendental theory of moral development implicit in Dworkin's critique of H. L. A. Hart's legal positivism. According to Dworkin, legal positivism is incoherent as an "inside" account of the everyday practice of law, which he thinks is better captured in the idea of ongoing, deep, moral debate. Chapter two rejects Dworkin's claim that integrity offers an account of debate necessarily superior to that of legal positivism. ;Chapter three applies to the Hart-Dworkin debate Hegel's distinction between "pure" and "scientific" empiricism. Chapter three concludes that understood as a principle of scientific empiricism, law as integrity does not support the idea of political community based on moral debate. ;Chapters four and five consider a different interpretation of law as integrity, one based squarely on Hegel's account of the dialectical conflict underlying all forms of empiricism. Chapter four argues that Hegel's theory of sense perception offers an account of how law as integrity might be viewed as a synthesis of the competing forms of empiricism represented by scientific and pure empiricism. ;Chapter five applies the suggestion developed in chapter four to specific features of law as integrity, including Dworkin's idea of reflective equilibrium, his idea that law consists of long term interpretive trends, and his suggestion that law as integrity is second order "program" of ongoing interpretation. It argues that these features are not continuous features of the same theory of law, as Dworkin suggests, but instead represent a dialectical progression of opposed ontological assumptions about the nature of the "real" law. Chapter five concludes, however, that none of these three conceptions of the "real" law is sufficient to ground Dworkin's egalitarian conclusions