Michaelmas 2013-2014 Termcard

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A Legal Right to do Legal Wrong
Ori Herstein
The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London

Thursday 24 October 2013 
Law Board Room, Law Faculty, 5:15 pm

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The Nature of Claim-Rights 
Leif Wenar 
The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London

Thursday 31 October 2013 
Law Board Room, Law Faculty, 5:15 pm

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Panel Discussion on The Force of Law 
Frederick Schauer
University of Virginia School of Law

Thurs 7 November 2013 
5:00 pm The Cube, Law Faculty, St Cross Building

Co-Panellists: 
John Gardner
Grant Lamond

* Special Event*

Panel Discussion on The Force of Law 
Frederick Schauer
University of Virginia School of Law

Thurs 7 November 2013 
5.00 pm (preceded by tea and coffee outside the Law Cube from 4:45pm) 

Law Cube, St Cross Building

Co-Panellists: 
John Gardner
Grant Lamond
“That the law can force people to do things they do not want to do, and which are sometimes against their own interests or their own best (and not necessarily self-interested) judgment, might seem far too obvious to justify thinking or writing much about it. But here, as elsewhere, things are often not what they seem. For more than half a century, legal philosophers, drawing their inspiration from H.L.A. Hart, have questioned whether force, coercion, and sanctions are as important to understanding the nature of law as the ordinary person – the man on the Clapham omnibus, as the English quaintly put it – believes. […] …although the present examination of the role of coercion in explaining the character and distinctiveness of law will at times be philosophical or conceptual in style and method, it will, unashamedly, often break out of those boundaries defined by the discipline of philosophy, or accepted, rather more narrowly, by many contemporary practitioners of the philosophy of law. Some of what follows will be sociological, in the broadest sense, and more than some will draw on experimental psychological research. Some will make use of empirical and analytical conclusions from economics and political science. And none of what is to come will be a theory of law, or for that matter a theory of anything else. […] This book is thus an exploration of various aspects of law’s coercive dimension, pursued largely philosophically and analytically, but with some empirical assistance. It is an account and not a theory. It is certainly not a system. But perhaps a mere account can have some value.”
** The draft of the first five chapters of Professor Schauer's new book The Force of Law is available here:  http://denning.law.ox.ac.uk/news/events_files/Fred_Schauer_%E2%80%93The_Force_of_Law.pdf
This draft is only for the purposes of the JDG discussion, and is not for citation. Professor Schauer would like to concentrate on the methodological issues in 3.4 and 3.5, and the analysis in Chapter 4, with a bit on the empirical conclusions in Chapter 5.
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On Punishment 
Leo Zaibert, HLA Hart Visiting Fellow
Union College

Thursday 14 November 2013 
Senior Common Room, Law Faculty, 5:15 pm
Over half a century ago, H.L.A. Hart rejected the idea that punishment could be justified by attending to one supreme value. The rejection gave rise to a flurry of efforts to justify punishment by combining essentially two supreme moral values. Neither Hart nor his many followers, however, understood the full import of the rejection that so energized them. What is needed is a much more decisive rethinking of our approach to the justification of punishment – one that takes into account many different types of values. I thus suggest that punishment theorists could take a cue from general moral philosophy, where such richer approaches are familiar. In closing, I discuss one representative and influential effort to defend the self-consciously narrow status quo in punishment theory and explain why I do not find it compelling.


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Law's Rule: Reflexivity, Mutual Accountability, and the Rule of Law 
Gerald Postema
University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Thursday 21 November 2013 
Senior Common Room, Law Faculty, 5:15 pm

 A copy of the paper is available for [download here]
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Oxford Graduate Legal Philosophy Colloquium

DPhil & SJD Candidates in Legal Philosophy from Edinburgh, Oxford, and Harvard

Thurs 28-29 November 2013 
Swire Seminar Room, University College, Merton Street
Current Schedule for Oxford Graduate Legal Philosophy Colloquium


Day 1 Thursday 28th November 



Session 1: Challenges to Exclusive Legal Positivism

10:30 – 11:15
Gustavo Ribeiro                      Is Law a Social Plan? Reconstructing Scott Shapiro's Legality
Commentator: John Gardner

11:15-12:00
Sam Kukathas                         Why Law Fails to Solve the Problem of Assurance
Commentator: Pavlos Eleftheriadis

Lunch
12:00-1:15

Session 2: Constitutional Theory

1:15-2:00
Mikolaj Barczentewicz            Who made the U.S. Constitution?
Commentator: Nick Barber

2:00-2:45
Alex Latham                            Static or Dynamic? Waldron on Democracy and Judicial Review
Commentator: Aileen Kavanagh

Coffee
2:45-3:00

Session 3: Rights and Duties    

3:00-3:45        
David Frydrych                      Are Hohfeldian Claims Exercisable?
Commentator: Robert Stevens
3:45-4:30          
Yotam Kaplan                         Inefficient Breach and an Optimal Alternative
Commentator: Hugh Collins

4:30pm Drinks reception

7:15pm Formal Dinner at University College



Day 2  Friday 29th November

Session 1: Legal Decision Making

10:30-11:15
Luiz Silviera                            Objectivity in Law: A Collective Endeavour
Commentator:

11:15-12:00          
Konstantin Tretyakov            Uncertainty And Justice: Regulating Physician-Assisted Suicide       
Commentator:
Lunch
12:00-1:30

Session 2: Legal Disagreement

1:30-2:15
Robert Mullins                        Assessment Relativism, Centered Worlds, and Legal Disagreement
Commentator:

2:15-3:00
Tom Adams                             Disagreement in Law
Commentator: Nicos Stavropoulos

Coffee Break
3:00-3:15

Session 3:          
3:15-4:00
Paolo Sandro                           Rule of Law vis-à-vis Legality: Matryoshka Dolls or Competing Principles?
Commentator: Richard Ekins

4:00-4:45
Felipe Oliveira de Sousa         Is Giving Reasons Always a Good Thing to Do? The Case of the Liberal Ironist
Commentator: Leslie Green


4:45pm            Drinks reception


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