- Lived:
- 1931–2013 · Worcester, Massachusetts; New Haven; Oxford; New York; London
- Tradition:
- Anglo-American philosophy of law and politics; liberal egalitarianism
- The Big Idea:
- Law is not just a rulebook — it is an ongoing interpretive argument about what a community's principles require, which is why individual rights can trump even what the majority wants.
- In their words:
- "Rights are trumps."
- If you remember one thing:
- He argued that judges deciding hard cases are not filling gaps with their own preferences; they are reading the law in its best moral light — which makes law a branch of moral philosophy, whether lawyers like it or not.