Letter to the Guardian II

In lieu of having anything interesting to say, here's the latest installment of my attempt to get a correction (of Dworkin on Bentham on rights) printed in the Guardian.  I got no reply to my original email, so re-sent it today with the following message:

Dear Readers' Editor

I sent the email below eight days ago, and am re-sending it, in case it was not seen, as I've heard nothing back nor seen any correction published.  I still think the two issues I raised are valid.  Assuming that my email was read:  had the writer been one of your journalists, I'm thinking that a correction/clarification might have appeared by now.  Which is to say, not having heard from you, I suspect that the writer being the Bentham professor at UCL might have complicated the matter.  If so, that would be understandable, but surely it would make the need for a correction, of some sort, even greater (as readers might reasonably expect an accurate representation of Bentham's thought from someone writing in the Guardian as the Bentham professor of law)?

I'm looking forward to a reply, to which I claim an inalienable right.  (In it, please don't tell me I was the only one to raise this issue.  Please tell me I was just one of many readers who contacted you.)

Yours,

I'm sort of enjoying this, except for the lack of a response. If I still get no reply, then it's on to the ombudsman!  And I'm tempted to contact the Dean of Laws at UCL - because, by awarding Ronald Dworkin the Bentham professorship, its most prestigious Chair, UCL has betrayed its own "spiritual father".

Comments

[Paul Linford]

As a UCL graduate I agree with you. I'd be interested in some of the history of this professorship - it certainly didn't exist when I was there (1981-85) when the main man in the legal philosophy arena was the Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, William Twining. Did they rename this chair as the Bentham professorship? Or is the Bentham chair a separate entity? Either way it's a travesty that Dworkin now occupies it. I heard him once and it was one of the dullest lectures I ever attended.

[Shaphan]

Paul, Thank you for your comment (and for your previous linking to the Cook piece, which would have had only a handful of readers but for you.). I'm not from UCL so, when I started writing about this, I assumed the Bentham Chair was long-standing. But no, it's newish, and I presume Dworkin is its first occupant. Don't know about the Quain - you might be right. I've heard back from Ian Mayes, who's now chasing it up. I decided to drop the second point, as it's a philosophical argument, but am persisting with the first. Brian Leiter (of Leiter Reports blog) has, I've since discovered, been after Dworkin for years. He writes of "the exasperation so many of us feel at his inability to engage honestly with his opponents". Leiter was speaking of Dworkin on Raz, and Hart, but I think it also applies to his treatment of Bentham too.