Aproximações entre Lon Fuller e Ronald Dworkin em uma terceira teoria: uma proposta de leitura pragmatista

Abstract

This master thesis aims to trace the relationship between two major authors of 20th-century legal theory: Lon Fuller and Ronald Dworkin. I assumed the widely accepted premise in the literature that Ronald Dworkin is an author who transcended the debate between natural law and legal positivism, and whose theory constitutes a third alternative theory. I accepted the proposed reading that describes this third theory of Dworkin as philosophical pragmatism. In this sense, I intended to defend the approximation between Fuller and Dworkin, demonstrating that Fuller's legal theory, generally understood as a natural law theory, is better understood, as also is Dworkin’s, as a pragmatist theory. The first chapter presents important arguments from Fuller's theory, while the second chapter does the same with Dworkin’s theory. Chapters one and two, which present the theories of Fuller and Dworkin, deal with texts in which the authors developed their main arguments on legal theory, especially in a critical tone towards legal positivism. The third chapter aims to reject Dworkin’s criticisms of Fuller (previously made regarding Dworkin's more substantive theoretical formulations) and to bring the authors closer together, highlighting common characteristics in their theories that allow both to be classified as philosophical pragmatists.