Dworkin's View of Political Integrity

As Dworkin introduces his idea of political integrity, he begins by introducing his conception of three political ideals: fairness, justice, and procedural due process. According to his claims, a utopian society would only need these ideals to thrive because officials consistently doing what was perfectly just and fair would guarantee coherence. In our system of ordinary politics, Dworkin feels that integrity need be accepted as a fourth political ideal, if we accept it at all. In his definition of political integrity, Dworkin claims that it ought to be used to treat like cases alike, provide equality under the law, be parallel to personal integrity, and demand that the state act on a single set of consistent principles. In layman’s terms, the characterization of political integrity implies total equality under the law by all laws being justified by the same principles. Still though, he finds it important to make the assertion that it may well be the case that some “breaches” of integrity are, all things considered, better than the alternatives. Dworkin claims that we have two separate principles regarding political integrity. These principles, legislative and adjudication, try to make laws morally coherent, and allow them to be seen in such a manner. Also, when speaking of political integrity, he makes two important background assumptions. These background assumptions are that we all, as a society, believe in political fairness and that we know that different people hold different view about moral issues that they all treat as of great importance. From these assumptions and principles, Dworkin presents an interesting view of political compromise in the form of checkerboard laws.

Checkerboard laws are laws that treat si...

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...xplained under either current ideal of fairness or justice, explaining his insistence for including political integrity as an additional ideal.

Dworkin argues that society values political integrity for its own sake because of the resulting ability to have internal harmony without direct compromise. Under the acceptance of political integrity, he claims that political society becomes a special form of community that promotes its moral authority to assume and deploy a monopoly of coercive force. He promotes the view that the community should be seen as a distinct moral agent in that the social and intellectual practices that treat community that way ought to be protected. With political integrity integrated as an imperative aspect of the law, these practices are accepted without refuting our instincts through internal compromises, such as checkerboard solutions.