The author argues that personal conscience and the sacredness of life--not individual rights--should be given primacy in moral debates about abortion and euthanasia.

Ronald Dworkin, one of the world's leading legal and political philosophers, identifies and defends core principles of personal and political morality that all citizens can share to improve political culture.

Dworkin argues that Americans have been systemically misled about what their Constitution is and how judges decide what it means. What does its abstract language mean when it is applied to the political controversies that divide Americans--about affirmative action, euthanasia, censorship, pornography, for example? Is the moral reading of the Constitution--the only reading that really makes sense--really undemocratic? In this fascinating book, Dworkin...

Fifteen dialogues drawn from the highly acclaimed BBC series review the tenets and theories of moral philosophy, political philosophy, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of science.