Ingram, David. "Dworkin, Habermas, and the CLS Movement on Moral Criticism in Law." Philosophy and Social Criticism 16 (1990): 237-268.

CLS advocates renew Marx’s critique of liberalism by impugning the rationality of formal rights. Habermas and Dworkin argue against this view, while showing how liberal polity might permit reasonable conflicts between competing principles of right. Their models of legitimate legislation and adjudication, however, presuppose criteria of rationality whose appeal to truth ignores the manner in which law is–and sometimes ought to be–compromised. Hence a weaker version of the CLS critique may be applicable after all. I begin by discussing Weber’s exclusion of morality from law. After criticizing economic and functionalist legal theory I show that the inconsistencies CLS scholars find in liberal doctrine are exaggerated. I conclude with a discussion of Dworkin and Habermas.

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