The legal authority and the dead hand of the past. Dworkin?s Law?s Empire and Plato?s Laws on legal normativity

ANDRÉS ROSLER

Ancient Philosophy Today: DIALOGOI

Edinburgh University Press

Lugar: Edinburgh; Año: 2022 vol. 5 p. 1 - 19

2516-1156

According to Ronald Dworkin?s mature views on legal normativity, those who hold that ?propositions of law describe decisions taken by people or institution in the past? and that ?The law is the law. It is not what the judges think it is, but what it really is. Their job is to apply it, not to change it to fit their own ethics or politics?, are simply wrong. Plato, however, seems to take the contrary position. In what follows I would like to explain why, given the popularity of Dworkin?s jurisprudential account in this day and age, Plato?s Laws, for all its outdated appearance and quite a bit of its content, still offers a refreshing account of the normativity of law and its preconditions. I shall start by offering a brief account of Dworkin?s interpretivism and some of its shortcomings. I shall then move on to Plato?s account of legal normativity, especially his views on the authority of law, law as preservation, and finally the politics of law in the light of the debate between conservatism and progressivism.