The legal and political philosophy of Ronald Dworkin.

This thesis advances a comprehensive and coherent interpretation of Dworkin's ideas. It considers the main criticisms that have been levelled against them and supplies and considers others, concluding that the interpretation offered here provides, in general, a good defence. The thesis includes a biographical sketch, an evaluation of the context of Dworkinian jurisprudence and an exhaustive bibliography. In addition to the published writings, it draws upon unpublished materials and personal conversations. In particular, it is suggested that standard accounts of Dworkin's work tend to overstress his attacks on positivism. Dworkin is right in his characterisation of the "plain fact" view of law, but Hart's theory can be rescued from the claim that it is a plain fact theory and that it is a "semantic" version of it. Dworkin's claims to objectivity in legal reasoning outside of demonstration are also well-founded and his interpretive analogy with art provides important analytical insights. While the right to be treated with concern and respect is the principle underpinning the ideas of integrity and resources, Dworkin's idea that rights "trump" goals applies only to actual communal practices pursuing such goals. In an ideal World, Dworkin is right to abandon welfare as a metric of distribution, but his use of the alternative metric of resources does not strictly follow from the collapse of equality of welfare. Nevertheless, his resources analysis supports the intuition that economic analysis is relevant to legal argument. Further, given the role of resources, it is natural that Dworkin should assert liberty to be part of the market baseline governing distribution. Finally, Dworkin is right to view communitarian duties as continuous with personal ethics but there are problems in his denial of the idea, implicit in Rawls, that justice is an interpretive concept

Ensemble Concerts: Wind Symphony, November 19, 2009

Center for the Performing ArtsSunday AfternoonNovember 19, 20098:00 p.m

INTERPRETACIÓN, AJUSTE E IGUALDAD DIRECTA

This paper addresses Dworkin's accounts of interpretation and integrity while assuming both legal positivism to be false and legal and moral objectivity to be true. It claims that essential to the idea of interpretation is the idea of 'making something your own', and concludes that interpretation for law, as for democracy, grounds out on what people actually believe. It follows that calling the process of assessing legal practices a matter of 'constructive interpretation' is misleading since the appeal of Dworkin's theory of interpretation lies simply in its providing (sound) moral criticism of existing practices by reference to a very abstract conception of equality. This conclusion is borne out by Dworkin's distinction between arguments of 'fit' and 'substance' in legal reasoning, since it is clear that arguments of fit are just disguised arguments of substance. Lines of fit gain their force mainly from the moral principle that reasonable expectations should be met, and also the principle of democracy that the legislature has the moral right to legislate. The paper's overall conclusions are that Dworkin's theory of integrity is practically orientated to the real world and so is only a theory of the 'second best', and that law modelled on the ideal of justice better serves as a model against which theories of the real world can be assessed. In particular, on the model of justice, judges could never be required to lie (as Dworkin acknowledges might be the case for integrity), the very close connection in ordinary understanding between law and justice is preserved, and pivotal legal cases can be better understood as involving direct appeals to justice.El presente artículo trata de las ideas de interpretación e integridad según Dworkin, al tiempo que considera erróneo el positivismo jurídico y sostiene la existencia de la objetividad moral y jurídica. Así mismo, plantea que la idea de "tomar algo como propio" es esencial para la idea de interpretación, y concluye af irmando que la interpretación en el derecho, como en la democracia, se basa en lo que la gente realmente cree. De ahí se deduce que considerar el proceso de evaluación de las prácticas jurídicas un asunto de "interpretación constructiva" resulte engañoso, ya que lo más llamativo de la teoría de la interpretación de Dworkin reside simplemente en que ofrece una crítica moral (sólida) de las prácticas existentes en relación con una concepción muy abstracta de la igualdad. Esta conclusión se confirma con la distinción que Dworkin establece entre los argumentos de "ajuste" y "sustancia" en el razonamiento jurídico, pues está claro que los argumentos de ajuste son sólo argumentos de sustancia disfrazados. Los argumentos en torno al ajuste ganan peso gracias al principio moral basado en el cumplimiento de las expectativas razonables y al principio democrático que se basa en la idea de que la legislatura tiene el derecho moral de legislar. Las conclusiones generales a las que se llega en el presente artículo son que la teoría de la integridad de Dworkin está orientada en la práctica al mundo real y que, de este modo, constituye únicamente una teoría de la "segunda mejor opción", y que el derecho inspirado en el ideal de justicia sirve mejor como modelo con el que comparar las teorías del mundo real. En particular, en lo que se refiere al modelo de justicia, jamás se les podría pedir a los jueces que mintieran (como reconoce Dworkin que podría ser el caso de la integridad), se preservaría la estrecha conexión entre derecho y justicia en el entendimiento común, y los casos difíciles se entenderían mejor como llamamientos directos a la justicia

Wind Symphony

Wesley United Methodist Church Bloomington, IL Friday Evening April 28, 1995 7:00p.m

The development of a test harness for biometric data collection and validation

Biometric test reports are an important tool in the evaluation of biometric systems, and therefore the data entered into the system needs to be of the highest integrity. Data collection, especially across multiple modalities, can be a challenging experience for test administrators. They have to ensure that the data are collected properly, the test subjects are treated appropriately, and the test plan is followed. Tests become more complex as the number of sensors are increased, and therefore it becomes increasingly important that a test harness be developed to improve the accuracy of the data collection. This paper describes the development of a test harness for a complex multi-sensor, multi-visit data collection, and explains the processes for the development of such a harness. The applicability of such a software package for the broader biometric community is also considered

Wind Symphony

Center for the Performing Arts Thursday Evening November 16, 2006 8:00p.m

An assessment of the usability of biometric signature systems using the human-biometric sensor interaction model’

Signature biometrics is a widely used form of user authentication. As a behavioural biometric, samples have inherent inconsistencies which must be accounted for within an automated system. Performance deterioration of a tuned biometric software system may be caused by an interaction error with a biometric capture device, however, using conventional error metrics, system and user interaction errors are combined, thereby masking the contribution by each element. In this paper we explore the application of the Human-Biometric Sensor Interaction (HBSI) model to signature as an exemplar of a behavioural biometric. Using observational data collected from a range of subjects, our study shows that usability issues can be identified specific to individual capture device technologies. While most interactions are successful, a range of common interaction errors need to be mitigated by design to reduce overall error rates

Ensemble Concerts: Wind Symphony, April 25, 2010

Center for the Performing ArtsSunday AfternoonApril 25, 20103:00 p.m