ABSTRACT
This chapter exhibits that complex structure of legal interpretation, and uses for that purpose an imaginary judge of superhuman intellectual power and patience who accepts law as integrity. Ronald Dworkin's approach to constitutional interpretation, law as integrity, holds that interpretations of the law should both fit and justify legal practice. Law as integrity is different: It is both the product of and the inspiration for comprehensive interpretation of legal practice. Law as integrity is supposed to provide an explanation of the legitimacy of the coercive power of the law. Law as integrity denies that statements of law are either the backward-looking factual reports of conventionalism or the forward-looking instrumental programs of legal pragmatism. Pragmatism requires judges to think instrumentally about the best rules for the future. That exercise may require interpretation of something beyond legal material: A utilitarian pragmatist may need to worry about the best way to understand the idea of community welfare, for example.
