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29 Ariz. St. L.J. 353 (1997)
In Praise of Theory

handle is hein.journals/arzjl29 and id is 365 raw text is: IN PRAISE OF THEORY Ronald Dworkin* I. INTRODUCTION I want to thank Professor Murphy very much for a really splendid introduction. I am very grateful. I am very grateful, too, for the opportunity to give the Order of the Coif Lecture, not just because of its remarkable auspices, but because the lecture was the culmination of my first visit to the American Southwest, which was spectacular. I saw everything there was to see, sometimes in the driving rain and sometimes in the bitter cold, but it was all marvelous. As Professor Murphy indicated, I am going to address the role of theory in legal reasoning and legal practice. Examples are better than anything, so I will start with some. Suppose that a woman has taken generic pills that turned out to have very damaging side effects. Many different manufacturers manufactured the pills, and she does not have any idea who made the actual pills she bought and took from one year to the next, and therefore no idea whose pills caused her injuries. Can she sue any or all of the drug manufacturers? Or do we insist that no one is liable in tort for damage that he or she or it did not cause? Lawyers have argued both sides. Some, including the California Supreme Court, have said that the drug manufacturers are jointly and severally liable.' Others insist that none of them is liable, and the woman's loss, sadly, is an uncompensable loss in law. Suppose (to provide a different example) that people burn American flags by way of political protest, and the question arises whether the government can make that a crime consistently with the First Amendment. Again, as you know, lawyers and others have taken different views. The Supreme Court replied no, but many lawyers continue to think it made a mistake of constitutional law. There are thousands of other examples of deep controversies about what the law is. The Supreme Court is about to hear a case on appeal from the Ninth Circuit in which an even more daunting question is raised: whether the Constitution grants some right, at least in * Professor of Jurisprudence, Oxford University, and Professor of Law and Philosophy, New York University. This essay is adapted from my Order of the Coif Lecture. 1. See Sindell v. Abbott Labs., 607 P.2d 924, 935-38 (1980).