드워킨의 『법의 제국』

Abstract

This paper was written in commemoration of the publication of the Korean translation of Law’s Empire(Acanet, 2004). In this paper, I examined two problems: whether Dworkin’s critique of semantic theory of law is justifiable, and how well the book was translated into Korean. I agree with Dworkin’s critique of semantic theory of law, though many influential legal positivist charged Dworkin with intentional misleading of legal positivism including Hart’s version. As far as I understand, legal positivism proposes that the category of valid laws is determined by two thesis, that is, social fact thesis and social convention thesis. Social convention would be a rule that is confirmed by somehow strong coincidences among the behaviors and attitudes of the members of a group. I believe that there will not be inconsistency between social convention and linguistic convention as a rule. Though I admit, there would be exceptional cases where people hide away and disguise their real intentions of action. The book was translated into Korean very well, so that English version is not needed any more in Korea. I put, however, the translation of several words such as McLoughlin, duty and obligation in question. In the light of the weight of the word ‘integrity’ in Law’s Empire, I proposed that more adequate word be found which convey Dworkin’s idea on it to Korean readers better.