摘要:Dworkin assumes that a conception of law must explain how what it takes to be law "provides a general justification for the exercise of coercive power by the state." Moral principles that cohere with past legal practice are also valid propositions of law, even to the extent that such principles go beyond what existing legal rules and past decisions have uncontroversially decided. Dworkin describes and theorizes about the behavior of legal actors in certain modern legal cultures.