Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: There is probably no conceptualization of rights more famous than Ronald Dworkin’s claim that they are “trumps.” This seems to stand in stark contrast to the dominant, proportionality-based strand of rights discourse, according to which rights, instead of trumping competing interests, ultimately have to be balanced against them. The goal of this article is to reconcile Dworkin’s work and proportionality and thereby make a contribution to our understanding of both. It offers a critical reconstruction of Dworkin’s theory of rights which does away with the misleading label of rights as “trumps” and shows that, far from being in conflict with proportionality, properly understood Dworkin’s work supports and supplements that doctrine and provides a much-needed account of its moral foundation as being about human dignity, freedom, and equality.
Source: Law & Ethics of Human Rights
Author: Kai Möller
Institution: London School of Economics and Political Science
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Akademie Věd České Republiky
OpenAlex ID: W2732374819