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Hard cases

Open access

Abstract

On the one hand, legal doctrine seems indeterminate, but it may be maintained that even in “hard cases”, judges only “constantly talk about the answer they already knew in advance.” Legal philosophers are divided in this respect. Dworkin provided a very convincing answer for the “one answer” model, whereas both inclusive and exclusive positivists and Critical Legal Studies and legal realists presented plausible responses to the “no one answer” model. This article provides a new insight into legal reasoning by linking Dworkin’s theory with French existentialism. It tackles with most common criticisms of Dworkin’s argument and states which facets of this criticism are most cogent.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output:
Contribution to journal
Article
 Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 240-266

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

The University of Manchester Student Law Review (Volume 2, Issue 10)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 2013

Publication status

Published - 2013

Publication IDs

  • ORCID: /0009-0002-1104-3826/work/212417448

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