  Dworkin’s legal theory is not based on a general repudiation of the classical fact-value distinction, as much as it is based on a certain conception of legal reasoning. This conception went through two main stages. In the 1970s Dworkin (1977) argued that the falsehood of legal positivism resides in the fact that it is incapable of accounting for the important role that legal principles play in the law. Legal positivism envisaged, Dworkin claimed, that the law consists of rules only. However, this is a serious mistake, since in addition to rules, law is partly determined by legal principles. The distinction between rules and principles is a logical one. Rules, Dworkin maintained, apply in an “all or nothing fashion.” If the rule applies to the circumstances, it determines a particular legal outcome. If it does not apply, it is simply irrelevant to the outcome. On the other hand, principles do not determine an outcome even if they clearly apply to the pertinent circumstances. Principles provide judges with a legal reason to decide the case one way or the other, and hence they only have a dimension of weight. That is, the reasons provided by the principle may be relatively strong, or weak, but they are never “absolute.” Such reasons, by themselves, cannot determine an outcome, as rules do.