Taking Rights Seriously is a landmark book on philosophy of law, first published in 1977, by Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Dworkin

Ronald Myles Dworkin, QC, FBA is an American philosopher and scholar of constitutional law. He is Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New York University and Emeritus Professor of Jurisprudence at University College London, and has taught previously at Yale Law School and the...

. In it, Dworkin argues against the dominant philosophies of legal positivism

Legal positivism

Legal positivism is a school of thought of philosophy of law and jurisprudence, largely developed by nineteenth-century legal thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. However, the most prominent figure in the history of legal positivism is H.L.A...

, as described by H.L.A. Hart, and utilitarianism

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness", by whatever means necessary. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined only by its resulting outcome, and that one can...

by proposing that rights of the individual against the state exist outside of the written law and precede the interest of the majority.