Dworkin argued that individual rights serve as political 'trumps' that override collective goals or utilitarian calculations. Unlike a consequentialist who might sacrifice individual liberty for the greater good, Dworkin insisted that certain rights are so fundamental that they cannot be set aside even when doing so might benefit society as a whole. This idea profoundly shaped liberal jurisprudence by placing the individual's claim against the state at the center of legal philosophy.

While Rawls relied on the hypothetical social contract to justify his principles of justice, Dworkin rejected contractarianism as a flawed strategy. He argued that Rawls's attempt to separate political principles from personal ethical commitments creates a form of moral schizophrenia. Dworkin instead developed a 'value-integrative liberalism' that insists on the unity of liberal political principles and personal ethical viewpoints, grounding equality not in a hypothetical agreement but in the fundamental principle of equal concern and respect for each person's life.

Dworkin's equality of resources proposes that distributive justice should be 'ambition-sensitive' but 'endowment-insensitive'—people should bear the costs of their choices but not be penalized for circumstances beyond their control. This distinguishes his theory from welfare equality and from Rawls's difference principle, which Dworkin criticized for failing to distinguish between choice-based and circumstance-based inequalities. His theory influenced the development of 'luck egalitarianism,' making it a significant contribution to liberal political philosophy.

Dworkin famously attacked legal positivism—particularly H.L.A. Hart's model of rules—arguing that law includes principles as well as rules. In cases where no clear rule applies, judges must draw on moral principles that justify the legal system as a whole. His theory of 'law as integrity' holds that judges should interpret legal materials in a way that provides the best moral justification for the existing legal practices, making legal interpretation inherently a moral and interpretive exercise.

Dworkin introduced the idea of 'fraternal obligations' to solve a puzzle about political legitimacy. Unlike contractarian theories that derive political obligations from consent or choice, Dworkin argued that citizens have obligations to one another that arise from their shared membership in a community, much like obligations between siblings. He called a state that respects this fraternal ideal a 'community of principle'—one whose collective decisions are matters of obligation rather than bare power, and which treats all citizens with equal concern and respect.

Judge Hercules is Dworkin's imaginary, superhuman judge who possesses unlimited time, knowledge, and patience. Hercules decides cases by seeking the best constructive interpretation of the entire legal record, one that respects precedent while incorporating the best political morality. Dworkin uses Hercules as an ideal that real judges should strive toward, though critics like Brian Leiter have argued that this ideal is unattainable and that Dworkin prescribes what judges cannot actually do given real-world constraints of time, precedent, and institutional position.