Defending Dworkin’s One-System Anti-Positivism

Abstract

In this article, I argue that Dworkin’s one-system view of law and morality is not as easy to refute or dismiss as some would suggest. In a recent article, Dindjer criticizes a new kind of opposition to legal positivism characterized by both its opposition to a two-system view of law and morality and its promotion of a one-system alternative picture. By re-examining Dworkin’s criticisms of the two-system view and by providing additional reasoning of my own, I show that Dworkin’s one-system interpretative approach is not just sensible but also promising in refocusing contemporary debates in general jurisprudence on a moral and political reading of the structural features of law.