Life's Dominion

by Ronald Dworkin

Internationally renowned lawyer and philosopher Ronald Dworkin addresses the crucially related acts of abortion and euthanasia in a brilliantly original book that examines their meaning in a nation that prizes both life and individual liberty. From Roe v. Wade  to the legal battle over the death of Nancy Cruzan, no issues have opened greater rifts in American society than those of abortion and euthanasia. 
At the heart of Life's Dominion is Dworkin's inquest into why  abortion and euthanasia provoke such controversy. Do these acts violate some fundamental "right to life"? Or are the objections against them based on the belief that human life is sacred? Combining incisive moral reasoning and close readings of indicidual court decisions with a majestic interpretation of the U.S. Constitution itself, Dworkin gives us a work that is absolutely essential for anyone who cares about the legal status of human life.

Genres: Philosophy, Law, Nonfiction, Politics, Medical Ethics, College

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 11, 1993

About the author

Ronald Dworkin, QC, FBA was an American philosopher of law. He was a Jeremy Bentham Professor of Law and Philosophy at University College London, Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law at New York University, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the University of Oxford. An influential contributor to both philosophy of law and political philosophy, Dworkin received the 2007 Holberg International Memorial Prize in the Humanities for "his pioneering scholarly work" of "worldwide impact." His theory of law as integrity is amongst the most influential contemporary theories about the nature of law.

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Life's Dominion" is basically an argument for individual moral and legal liberty to intentionally destroy innocent human life. A more apt title might be "The Individual's Dominion Over Life."

I would not recommend reading this book no matter what your stance is on the topics of abortion and euthanasia. If you agree with Dworkin, you may be blinded by your beliefs to embrace his skewed logic -- and if you disagree, you will get a bad impression of the actual arguments his side could give.

[Alex Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a legal argument in favor of abortion taking the stance that the majority of people do not consider a fetus a full person, but rather see human life as intrinsically sacred.

There were a lot of interesting points and I did find this book really worthwhile overall. Dworkin talked about the value of human life and how people who place equal value on it can hold such different beliefs. He made several arguments relating to abortion that I'd never heard phrased in quite those ways before that I found fascinating and well constructed.

I also really enjoyed the discussion on dementia at the end. I did expect more on euthanasia based on the title, but it was relegated to one chapter at the end with an additional chapter on dementia, relating to both euthanasia and bodily autonomy, which was my favorite of the book.

However, it felt very repetitive. It felt like he reiterated his point on no one believing the fetus is an actual person every other page. He'd say things like 'but this belief holds no weight if you take into account my prior statement, that most people do not see a fetus as a person.' Like my dude when we're fifty pages into the book you don't need to keep telling me what your main point is. By that point I've got it.

There was also a fair amount of ableism, which may or may not have been intentional based on the topic and the fact that eugenics was also briefly covered. He also spent a lot of time telling you what you believe, whether you're in favor of abortion or not, and that what you think you believe is wrong. And then he went off on a lot of weird tangents, like when he talked about the commonly held belief that a ten year old dying is sadder than a three year old dying. Like I'm not even judging that one, I'm just so confused because I'm fairly certain I've never heard that before. If he wants to make that statement, sure, but is it really such a commonly held belief as he kept reiterating? I have no idea.

I think I would have really enjoyed this had it been condensed into a fifty page essay or something. There was so much repetition and so much extraneous tangents that despite large portions of the book being worthwhile, overall my experience wasn't that enjoyable. I'm still glad I read it, though.

[Samuel Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

The classic elaboration of the liberal (ie focus on individual as locus of meaning) account of the sanctity of life. He argues a few things, some more persuasively than others but all with great care and power. First, abortion should be seen as a religious act (because it expresses one's specific views about the balance between natural/divine and human sources of life's sanctity) hence a religious freedom protected by the bill of rights. He makes a similar argument about euthanasia, especially for demented people, although he also advances the argument that we have "critical" interests in the shape of our lives (roughly, moral convictions about what our lives ought to look like, in sum) that provide a mandate for honoring precommitments refusing medical treatments in the event of certain states of disability and/or diminished consciousness. I found myself disagreeing with him at many different points but pleased that he had actually made an argument that was elegant and mostly internally consistent. The book is required reading to be informed on the abortion and euthanasia debates, even if you find the axioms of his arguments sometimes rather tangled and less persuasive than he hopes.

[Kamala · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dworkin spends a bit too much time going over the same principles -- it's like he intended for the book to be read in isolated chapters rather than as a whole. The abortion section is a bit repetitive in that sense (yes, we get it, life's intrinsic value), but still useful, especially if you have trouble reconciling peoples' views on abortion and the sanctity of life. But what makes this book really worth reading is the euthanasia section, which is fantastic.

[Gabriela Rondon · Rating 4 out of 5]

47 anos de Roe v. Wade hoje, e é impressionante como o livro ainda revela a genealogia moral do debate de 2020.

[Leonardo]

...si nos alejamos del estado actual del derecho constitucional estadunidense y tratamos la libertad religiosa como parte de la independencia ética, la posición liberal se vuelve obligatoria. Lo mismo sucede con la igualdad de género en el matrimonio. He hablado en favor de estas opiniones en otra obra y, aunque incluso esta declaración sumaria puede generar consternación, no repetiré aquí mis argumentos ni los ampliaré.

Religión sin dios Pág.90

Dworkin escribe en lenguaje técnico eso de que "con la legalización del aborto nadie te obliga a abortar". Demasiado basado en la idea de que el feto no es sujeto de derecho, para mi gusto.

[Daniel Hageman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An overall well-balanced approach of philosophical and judicial considerations when making cases from either side regarding both abortion and euthanasia. This sort of perspective is a must read for those that feel passionately about the issues, as it effectively highlights the juxtaposition of rhetoric surrounding debate and the inherent beliefs that people actually hold.

[Sarah Hackley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found Dworkin's argument both compelling and refreshing, though it assumes an inherent sacredness I don't believe exists and that he failed to prove.

[Pollo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Espectacular ensayo. Pienses lo que pienses sobre el aborto o la eutanasia. Cambia tu mirada de ver las cosas. O al menos, conmigo lo hizo.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for my Constitutional Law class, and therefore it took me awhile to get through because forced reading reduces my motivation to absolutely 0%.
Once I got into it, however, Dworkin makes some very well thought out arguments and analyzes the deeply-rooted beliefs that many of us hold. He argues for liberal abortion and euthanasia laws, relates the two issues together, and cites the Constitution throughout the book. I found his writing to be more accessible than many other philosophers, but perhaps that is also why I was left very unconvinced by many of his points. I agreed with almost all of his conclusions, but I thought his logic was flawed in many cases, particularly in his analysis of why our Constitution should be viewed as fluid and why we should restrict the autonomy of the demented. His strongest arguments were of course about abortion, as that was the primary focus of the book, but I wished he'd delved deeper into the euthanasia part of the spectrum (and not just because that's what my term paper is about).
The end of the book also left me very unconvinced, as the last chapter is on the rights of Alzheimers patients. To be fair, this is a very difficult issue, but his argument was unclear and he also did not acknowledge the incredibly slow decline that demented people encounter. It is easy for him to claim that a completely demented person should not be free to exercise their right to autonomy, but it is much more difficult to pinpoint the exact timeframe in which a person no longer has the capacity to know what is in their own best interest. He tries to address this issue but his argument, while logically sound, is realistically flawed.
Overall, the book certainly made me think and it introduced some great questions. I just think the answers he gave to many of the questions were convoluted and flawed.

[Hope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really provocative look into the arguments for and against abortion.

- Breaks the debate down into two views: detached (rights of a fetus) vs derivative (sacred/intrinsic value of a fetus) objection to abortion.
- Is the Constitution a limited list of rights or a commitment to abstract ideals?
- Is a fetus a person? A constitutional person?
- Consistent Ethic of Life: a doctrine that "insists that people who oppose abortion must show a consistent respect for human life in their views about other social issues" (49).
- "Do the states of the United States have the power to decide for everyone that abortion insults the intrinsic value of human life and to prohibit it on the ground?" (154)

Only two chapters out of 8 were devoted to euthanasia, so the title's a bit misleading, and sometimes, Dworkin's arguments aren't the clearest. However, the book was still really interesting!

[Parker Bolstad · Rating 5 out of 5]

I still go back and forth a lot on how I view the issue of abortion and the ethics surrounding it. It's a prenial problem that really suffers from a "where do you draw the line" argument.

Dworkin's book did not fully answer this question for me, but it did lay out a very strong framework for a justification of abortion under certain criteria.

I found his analytical reasoning to be thorough and persuasive. And suprisingly, the book had a few good digs at originalism as well.

I really enjoyed this book. No surprise: I think Dworkin is a once in a generation mind.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was hard to read and not what I expected. Thought it would be an overview of the state of the law (I still want to read THAT book) but this is more philosophy.

The source of our conflict about abortion and
Euthanasia has more to do with what we share -our beliefs in the intrinsic value of human life.

[Seike Liu]

Ronald Dorwkin，果然无论他些论文还是写书，都写的不是我能懂的句子。因为法哲学的讨论草草翻完了一遍，学到了生命价值可以分为具体的个人的权利和利益，还有神圣的超然的生命价值。生命体验也可以分为体验权益与关键权益。还有很多关于��胎关于安乐死的论证和思想实验。
不要说宪法怎么规定，是写成positive还是negative rights，想到要自己承担起自主权，承担起确定自己的关键权益的责任的时候，真的还是很想交白卷啊。
“真正的尊严是出自于个人自由，而非高压强迫；真正的尊严是出自于法律制度以及某种特定的态度—这种态度鼓励每个人为自己做出的与其生死有关的种种决定。”
果然是提出法律诠释主义的德沃金。

[Emilio Abiusi]

Incredibly prescient

[Donna · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The greatest insult to the sanctity of life is indifference or laziness in the face of it's complexity."

[Desmond Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book from almost thirty years ago is essential for understanding the abortion debate. Ronald Dworkin's first goal is to clarify that the debate is not about whether or not a fetus is a person, with all the rights of a person; he shows that even the most ardent anti-abortion advocates fail to accept the implications of that position. He shows that the debate is really about different versions of belief in the sanctity of life, and how best to respect it, a belief that has all the characteristics of a religious belief. How the state should treat abortion is then not about protecting the rights of the fetus, but rather about how it should reconcile different ways of balancing respect for fetal life with other important values. According to Dworkin, even those who feel strongly about the sanctity of life may still believe that "a decision whether to end human life in early pregnancy must nevertheless be left to the pregnant woman, the person whose conscience is most directly connected to the choice and who has the greatest stake in it."

Dworkin, who died in 2013, writes with great clarity and precision, as might be expected from a giant of philosophy and jurisprudence. He writes, as he puts it, "from the inside out," starting with a practical problem and trying to identify the philosophical and moral issues that it raises. Dworkin reviews the history of court decisions about abortion, and Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas make a brief but chilling appearance. This review helps to put the recent Supreme Court decision in perspective, and makes the perfidy of the conservative justices even more clear.

Dworkin was an intellectual hero to me, a cheerful and humorous public intellectual defending the thoughtful liberal approach to law and life. He is sadly missed at this critical time, but it would be helpful for many people to read this book.

[Adam Lubin]

An interesting book that, at the very least, makes an attempt at clarifying the issue. Plenty would argue with the distinctions Dworkin makes, and I do, in the end, find him to be in line with the majority of 'liberal' writers who discuss abortion, in their inability take somewhat more seriously the pro-life position. Nonetheless, a rhetorically well argued book.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

An easy philosophical read, this book changed the way I looked at life- I say this as a new student to realm of philosophy and bioethics.

It touched upon controversies such as abortion and death, and how the "sacredness" of human life should affect the choices we make in regards to these controversies.

All in all, it was an interesting read.

[Cowology · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dworkin's stuff is just very, very clear.