Legal Truth, Right Answers and Best Answers: Dworkin and the Rabbis

Bernard S. Jackson has rightly warned that while it is tempting to analyze Jewish law in terms of secular theories of jurisprudence, the success of such a project is not guaranteed. For while there are correspondences between Jewish law and positivism, Jewish law and natural law theory, Jewish law and social contract theory – there is no systematic correspondence and indeed, there are points of dissimilarity if not outright tension in each case. In what follows I make no pretense of claiming a perfect correspondence between Jewish law and any particular secular legal theory. However, a comparison of Jewish law and secular legal theories on highly specific questions can be useful and reciprocally illuminating. In this paper I plan to examine the notion of ‘‘truth’’ in talmudic law with particular attention to the ‘‘one right answer’’ thesis of Ronald Dworkin. Other theories of truth in law will be invoked where helpful.