Interpretivism and its Critics

This book offers a fresh and comprehensive reassessment of interpretivism, one of the two main philosophical accounts of law’s nature.

Interpretivism is drawn from many different sources and traditions. Accordingly, it is relevant to various fields of inquiry. This volume presents a diverse range of perspectives on its central idea, first expressed by Ronald Dworkin, that law is a moral interpretation of a community’s past political decisions. It advances our understanding of interpretivism by restating, revising, and offering new defences and critiques of some of its main tenets.

This collection brings together established figures and rising stars from across legal, political, and other areas of philosophy. There are thirteen essays, each accompanied by a response. The result is a unique and insightful overview of the current state of debate in legal philosophy.