PrepTest 111

Topic: Legal Studies

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Dworkin's view (judges embrace legal positivism because the only alternative, natural law, is worse)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Definition of "natural law": Judges should rule according to their moral convictions (second sentence)
  • Dworkin's view:
    • Judges are in danger of embracing the erroneous legal positivism because they mistakenly think the only alternative philosophy is natural law, which is an impermissible form of judicial activism (first and third sentences)

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Dworkin on legal positivism (legal questions resolved by consensus, like definitions)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Definition of "legal positivism": law and morality are completely separate; the meaning of the law is determined by social convention (first and second sentence)
  • Comparison, according to Dworkin:
    • Resolving legal questions under legal positivism is like identifying the definition of a word; the question/definition is based on whether there's a consensus on the topic (second and fourth sentence)
  • Dworkin's view
    • Under legal positivism, judges rule in trials based on what the consensus is, not on what's moral; if there's no consensus, there's no legal fact (third and fifth sentences)
    • The judge's job is to figure out if there is a consensus (last sentence)

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Dworkin's criticism of legal positivism (judges have to rule w/o consensus) and middle-ground proposal (use general principles/logic laws embody)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Dworkin's views:
    • Legal positivism doesn't square with the actual practice of judges, who have to make rulings when there is no consensus (first sentence)
    • Instead, judges should look to the laws' "internal logic" and general principles; these principles might involve moral judgments, but judges are still bound by the internal logic of the law (fourth through last sentences)
  • Author's attitude: "correctly sees as the error" (second sentence)

Paragraph 4

• Paragraph note
  • Author's view (Dworkin's approach allows us to improve our interpretation of the law)
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Author's views:
    • The legal positivists are wrong because the meaning of the law is more than just what people think it means (first sentence)
    • Dworkin's approach allows us to improve how we interpret the law (last sentence)
  • Author's attitude: "mistake" (first sentence), "possibility of improving" (last sentence)

Main Point: Dworkin's approach to legal interpretation — that the law should be interpreted according to its internal logic and general principles — is a promising middle ground between natural law and legal positivism.

Resolving a Debate: This passage utilizes a Resolving a Debate Meta-structure. In such structures, the author will do just that: lay out two sides of a debate and then insert their own opinion to resolve it.

Through the work of one Ronald Dworkin, this passage introduces us to a debate between two competing philosophies of how judges should interpret the law. One view, legal positivism, holds that laws should be evaluated based on how they compare to social conventions. The other side believes that judges should rely on their sense of morality. Then we get Dworkin's theory, a sort of middle ground. He says that laws operate on internal logic and general principles, and judges should rely on these principles to interpret the law.

In a passage with a Resolving a Debate Meta-Structure, the main point will be the author's opinion on or mediation/reconciliation of the debate. In this case, the author explicitly endorses Dworkin's middle ground in the final paragraph. So, our anticipated main point is, "Dworkin's approach to legal interpretation — that the law should be interpreted according to its internal logic and general principles — is a promising middle ground between natural law and legal positivism."

Once we have identified that the focus of the passage is a debate, it's of critical importance that we determine if the author agrees with either side. For the majority of this passage, the author is relatively "silent." There's not much to indicate which view (if either) the author holds ... until the final paragraph. In the last paragraph, the author makes an explicit endorsement. There, the author says that Dworkin's theory will open the door to better interpretations of the law. From this, we know that the author agrees with Dworkin and that is invaluable to our understanding of the passage's entire argument structure.