Justice for Hedgehogs
![handle is hein.journals/bulr90 and id is 475 raw text is: KEYNOTE ADDRESS
JUSTICE FOR HEDGEHOGS
RONALD DWORKIN*
Some of you, probably too many of you, have heard me talk about Learned
Hand's vision of heaven.' You will be relieved to know that I now have my
own vision of heaven: lots of people, including among them among the most
distinguished philosophers and lawyers in the world, have come together to
discuss a book of mine. As if that weren't good enough, they discuss it before
I've actually finished writing it so I can benefit from what they say. That isn't
the best part. The best part is that I don't even have to die.
I will use these opening comments to offer an advance summary of the
book, but with a difference. The book begins in questions of metaethics,
which are among the most technical philosophical topics of the book, and it
ends in an extended discussion of political morality.2 In these remarks, I will
proceed in the opposite direction. I'll start by describing the political
settlement I regard as required by justice. I'll then try to illustrate my claims
about the unity of value by showing how each part of that political settlement
fans out into a large variety of other questions, questions that meet one another
* Professor of Philosophy and Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York
University and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London. This is a
transcript of the Keynote Address I gave at the Boston University School of Law
Symposium, Justice for Hedgehogs: A Conference on Ronald Dworkin's Forthcoming
Book, September 25-26, 2009. A video of these remarks is available at
http://www.bu.edullaw/events/audio-video/hedgehogs.shtml.
I One account of Hand's vision of his first day in heaven describes it as such:
[H]e would say that in the morning there would be a baseball game, with the score 4-1
in favor of the opposing team in the bottom of the ninth. Hand's team then loads the
bases, and it is Hand's turn at bat; he promptly hits a home run, clearing the bases and
winning the game. In the afternoon, there is a football game between the evenly
matched teams, tied in a scoreless match. With a minute left to play, Hand catches a
punt, weaves his way down the sidelines, and scores the winning touchdown. The
highlight of the day is an evening banquet, with civilization's greatest minds -
Socrates, Descartes, Benjamin Franklin, and Voltaire - among the guests. The
designated speaker for the evening is Voltaire. After a few words from him, the
audience shouts, Shut up Voltaire, and sit down. WE WANT HAND!
GERALD GUNTHER, LEARNED HAND: THE MAN AND THE JUDGE 680 (1994).
2 RONALD DWORKIN, JUSTICE FOR HEDGEHOGS (forthcoming 2010) (Apr. 17, 2009
manuscript on file with the Boston University Law Review).
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Justice for Hedgehogs
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