Bio-bibliography

USA

Ronald Dworkin

2012 Balzan Prize for Jurisprudence

For his fundamental contributions to jurisprudence, characterized by outstanding originality and clarity of thought in a continuing and fruitful interaction with ethical and political theories and with legal practices.

Biographical and Bibliographical Data

Ronald M. Dworkin, born in Worcester, Massachusetts [11 December 1931 – 14 February 2013], is a US citizen.
Professor of Philosophy in the Philosophy Department and Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at the School of Law, New York University; Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at Oxford University and University College London.
He received BA degrees from both Harvard College (1953) and Oxford University (1955), an M.A. from Yale University (1956) and an LLB from Harvard Law School (1957). Early in his career he clerked for Judge Learned Hand of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. After working at Sullivan & Cromwell, a law firm in New York City, Ronald Dworkin became a Professor of Law at Yale University (1962-1969), where he was appointed to the Wesley N. Hohfeld Chair of Jurisprudence. He was appointed to the Chair of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford in 1969 and elected Fellow of University College. After retiring from Oxford (1998), he became the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London and he subsequently became the Bentham Professor of Jurisprudence (Emeritus Professor since 2008).
He is a fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences He has several honorary degrees at American and international universities.
He is the author of a great number of scholarly articles in philosophical and legal journals as well as of articles on legal and political topics in the New York Review of Books.

Several of his books listed below have been translated into the major European languages as well as Japanese and Chinese:
– Justice for Hedgehogs. Harvard University Press, 2011.
– The Supreme Court Phalanx. New York Review Books, 2008.
– Justice in Robes. Harvard University Press, 2007.
– Is Democracy Possible Here? Principles for a New Political Debate. Princeton University Press, 2006.
– From Liberal Values to Democratic Transition: Essays in Honor of Janos Kis. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004.
– A Badly Flawed Election: Debating Bush v. Gore, the Supreme Court, and American Democracy. New York: New Press, 2002.
– Sovereign Virtue: The Theory and Practice of Equality. Harvard University Press, 2000.
–  Freedom’s Law: The Moral Reading of the American Constitution. Harvard University Press, 1986; Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 1997.
– Life’s Dominion: An Argument About Abortion, Euthanasia and Individual Freedom. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1993.
– A Bill of Rights for Britain. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990.
– Philosophical Issues in Senile Dementia. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1987.
– Law’s Empire. Harvard University Press, 1986.
– A Matter of Principle. Harvard University Press, 1985.
– The Philosophy of Law (Oxford Readings in Philosophy). Ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
– Taking Rights Seriously. Harvard University Press, 1977.

(September 2012)