Ronald Myles Dworkin,
FBA (; December 11, 1931 – February 14, 2013) was a Jewish-American
philosopher and scholar of
United States constitutional law and
jurisprudence. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at
New York University and Professor of Jurisprudence at
University College London, and had taught previously at
Yale Law School and the
University of Oxford, where he was the Professor of Jurisprudence, successor to
Herbert Lionel Hart. An influential contributor to both
philosophy of law and
political philosophy, Dworkin received the 2007
Holberg International Memorial Prize in the Humanities for "his pioneering scholarly work" of "worldwide impact." According to a survey in
The Journal of Legal Studies, Dworkin was the second most-cited American legal scholar of the twentieth century. After his death, the Harvard legal scholar
Cass Sunstein said Dworkin was "one of the most important legal philosophers of the last 100 years. He may well head the list."