Week 2 - A Special Supplement: Taking Rights Seriously

A common main idea, throughout A Special Supplement: Taking Rights Seriously by Ronald Dworkin is the moral rights against the government. The author of the article, Ronald Dworkin is attempting to speak about people “who profess to accept…that citizens have moral rights against their governments.” An example that Dworkin uses is the right to have freedom of speech. He claims that “the government will have the last word on what an individual’s rights are, because its police will do what its officials and courts say.” Dworkin is trying to explain that the rights that people have are chosen for them, but moral standards cannot be a right that is handed to the population through the Constitution.

The Constitution clearly states the “legal rights” of the United States and morals, a general consensus of what is right and what is wrong, go hand-in-hand with each other. The Constitution is there to protect the moral rights of the citizens. Dworkin states that even with the Constitution “it would not follow that the Supreme Court could guarantee the individual rights of citizens.” He says that when making decisions there is more to consider than that of just morals. Everyone has his or her own take on “issues of law and morals.” Dworkin believes that “if we cannot insist that the government reach the right answers about the rights of its citizens, we can insist at least that it try.” His argument, for the article, is to come to some understanding of how the law is supposed to protect the moral rights of citizens. However, that is not always the case because sometimes there is a moral act that is committed, but is not in accordance to the law.