Dworkin argues that law is an interpretive concept.

According to his favoured conception of law, law as integrity, the content of law depends on more refined interpretations of the same legal practice it has begun to interpret. Hence, since (according to Dworkin) general theories of law are general interpretations of our own judicial practice, judges should decide what the law is by interpreting the practice of other judges deciding what the law is. In this way, law as integrity unites jurisprudence and adjudication. THE COMMUNITY OF COURTESY CONSTRUCTIVE INTERPRETATION STAGES OF INTERPRETATION APPLYING THIS TO THE LAW HERCULES OWN INPUT MISTAKES To introduce this interpretive attitude, Dworkin furnishes us with an example. THE COMMUNITY OF COURTESY Its members follow a set of rules, rules of courtesy (eg. courtesy requires that peasants take off their hats to nobility). For a time the rules are just there and are neither questioned or varied, but then all this changes. Everyone then develops an interpretive attitude towards the rules, an attitude that has two components: (1) the assumption that the practice of courtesy does not simply exist but has value, that it serves some purpose (ie. that it has a point). (2) the further assumption that the requirements of courtesy are not necessarily or exclusively what they have always been taken to be but are instead sensitive to its point, so that the rules must be understood, applied or modified according to that point. Once this interpretive attitude takes hold, the institution of courtesy ceases to be mechanical. People now try to impose meaning on the institution to see it in its best light and then to restructure it in the light of that meaning. How courtesy changes. Suppose that before the interpretive attitude takes hold, everyone assumes that the point of courtesy lies in the opportunity it provides to show respect to social superiors. When the interpretive attitude develops, this assumed point acquires critical power, and people begin to demand, under the title of courtesy, forms of deference previously unknown or to spurn forms previously honoured, claiming that true respect is better served by what they do than by what others did. Interpretation folds back into the practice, altering its shape, and the new shape encourages further reinterpretation, so the practice changes dramatically, though each step in the process is interpretive of what the last achieved. Peoples views about the proper grounds for respect may change from social standing to age, gender, etc. Or opinions may change along a different dimension, about whether respect has any value when it is for natural properties rather than to individuals for individual achievement. If respect of the former sort no longer seems important, or even seems wrong, then a different interpretation of the practice will become necessary.

We need some account of how the interpretive attitude works from the inside, from the POV of the interpreters. It is here that Dworkin offers a theoretical account particularly designed to explain interpreting social practices like courtesy. The interpretation of a social practice, Dworkin says, is like artistic interpretation. He calls them both types of creative interpretation (Both the applicability of constructive interpretation to artistic interpretation and the treatment of legal interpretation and artistic interpretation as analogous, are controversial claims). He goes on to say that creative interpretation is constructive interpretation of works of art and social practices, he argues, is essentially concerned with purpose not cause. But the purposes in play are not those of some author, but of the interpreter: Constructive interpretation is a matter of imposing purpose on an object or practice in order to make of it the best possible example of the form or genre to which it is taken to belong. CONSTRUCTIVE INTERPRETATION In making the practice the best it can be, the criteria Dworkin mentions most often are fit and moral value/justification: FIT
o It

does not follow that an interpreter can make of a practice or a work of art anything he would have wanted it to be (eg. that a citizen of courtesy who is enthralled by equality can in good faith claim that courtesy requires the sharing of wealth). The history of the practice or object constrains the available interpretations of it. Convictions about fit will provide a rough threshold requirement that an interpretation of some part of the law must meet if it is to be eligible at all. some interpretive questions, the answer may seem easy because only one theory shows adequate fit. Cases are easy because the constraint of fit makes prolonged investigation of the substantive dimension unnecessary (eg. whatever the morally right view may be about traffic law, only the particular speed limit which the legislation has laid down will pass the test of fit). where the pre-interpretive data is unsettled or inconsistent, there will be alternative theories with adequate fit (eg. one person might see in the practices of courtesy a device for ensuring that respect is paid to those who
merit it because of social rank or other status; another may see a device for making social exchange more conventional and therefore less indicative of differential judgments of respect).

o For

o However,

This is where the second element comes in.

MORAL VALUE/JUSTIFICATION Constructive interpretation depends upon being able to assign a distinctive value or purpose to the object of interpretation, by describing some scheme of principles the practice can be taken to express. In determining whether one interpretation of the object is better or worse than an alternative, each interpreters choice must reflect his view of which interpretation proposes the most value for the practice which one shows it in the better light from the standpoint of political morality, all things considered. EXAMPLE: CHAIN-NOVEL
Dworkin carries us through his theory using the notion of a chain novel as our vessel (where a group of novelists write a novel seriatim). He believes that constructive interpretation is also the proper approach to artistic and literary interpretation, and his writings frequently compare the role of a judge with that of a literary critic and novelist. Each author has the job of writing his chapter so as to make the novel being constructed the best it can be, and the complexity of this task models the complexity of deciding a hard case under law as integrity.

(1) THE MECHANICS OF WRITING A CHAIN-NOVEL must go through the stages of (1) fit and (2) substantive aesthetic judgments. The novelist may find that no single interpretation fits the bulk of the text, but that more than one does. The second dimension of interpretation then requires him to judge which of these eligible readings makes the work in progress best, all things considered (this involves substantive aesthetic judgments) (2) FREE OR CONSTRAINED JUDGMENT? to emphasise a judges input, Dworkin asks: is the novelists judgment about the best way to interpret and continue the sections he has been given a free or a constrained judgment? The answer is plain enough: neither of these two crude descriptions - of total creative freedom or mechanical textual constraint captures his situation. He will sense creative freedom when he compares his task with some relatively more mechanical one, like direct translation of a text into a foreign language. But he will sense constraint when he compares it with some relatively less guided one, like beginning a new novel of his own.

The applicability of constructive interpretation to artistic interpretation and the treatment of legal interpretation and artistic interpretation as analogous, are controversial claims. Harris suggests that the analogy with literature is a distraction legal theory could well do without. STAGES OF INTERPRETATION In refining the process of constructive interpretation into an instrument fit for the study of law as a social practice, Dworkin contends that the process of constructive interpretation is made up of three analytical stages: (1) PRE-INTERPRETIVE: the rules and standards that tentatively constitute the practice are identified. The equivalent stage in literary interpretation is identifying the text. [Dworkin notes, however, that some kind of interpretation is needed even at this stage, since social rules do not carry identifying labels. However, legal philosophers in western jurisdictions begin their work enjoying a fairly uncontroversial pre-interpretive identification of law (since we have statutes, constitutions, etc).] (2) INTERPRETIVE: the interpreter settles on some general justification for the main elements of the practice identified at the pre-interpretive stage. The justification need not fit every aspect of the practice, but it must fit enough for the interpreter to see himself as interpreting that practice, not inventing a new one. (3) POST-INTERPRETIVE: the interpreter adjusts his sense of what the practice really requires so as better to serve the justification he accepts at the interpretive stage.
[eg. an interpreter of courtesy may come to think that a consistent enforcement of the best justification of that practice would require people to tip their caps to soldiers returning from a crucial war as well as to nobles, or that it calls for a new exception to an established pattern of deference: making returning soldiers exempt from displays of courtesy, for example. Or perhaps even that an entire rule stipulating deference to a group or class must be seen as a mistake in the light of that justification.]

Note: Actual interpretation would be much less deliberate and structured than this analytical structure suggests. Peoples interpretive judgments would be more a matter of seeing at once the dimensions of their practice, a purpose or aim in that practice, and the post-interpretive consequence of that purpose. APPLYING THIS TO THE LAW What is the purpose/point/value of law?
[Just as we understood the practice of courtesy better by finding general agreement about the abstract proposition that courtesy is a matter of respect, we might understand law better if we could find a similar abstract description of the point of law (Dworkins arguments does not depend on finding an abstract description of that sort, but he gives one nevertheless).]

Dworkin states that the purpose of law is to constrain or justify the exercise of government power.