The answer to the question that arose at the end of Chapter Five, the question as to what Dworkin's work might teach us about the nature of just that understanding of social justice that seems to be violated in the persistence of the famished situation of such destitute children as Paris street children, is this. Dworkin's work offers much to learn about the nature of those values that are at the interpretive heart of social justice. We explore this matter now in Chapter Six.

The general idea of interpretation for Dworkin derives from his concern to justify judgments about value – to see how they may be correct – in various domains and not just in the domain of law. For example, “to understand the meaning of a work of art is to engage in an interpretive exercise that seeks to account for the work's artistic features in terms of a view of its value. To interpret a statute [that is, according to the ODE, a ‘written law passed by a legislative body’] is to explain the meaning of its clauses in terms of an account of the values underlying the legal system in general. Moral justification is yet another special case of this interpretive exercise.” All of this now requires closer attention.

Law as an Interpretive Concept

For Dworkin, the practice of law, whether by individuals such as lawyers or by institutions such as courts, is pre-eminently an interpretive practice.