[SydPhil] CAVE/Law School Seminar by Prof William Lucy

[Centre for Agency, Values, and Ethics]

Hi all,

This is a friendly reminder about our a special seminar, co-hosted by CAVE and the Law School, on the Abstract Nature of Law’s Judgement. Our speaker will be Prof William Lucy from Durham University.

Date:    Tue, 25 Sept, 3-4pm

Venue: 06 First Walk (Law Building), room 501 (Blackshield Room), Macquarie University [Q15 on campus map<https://www.mq.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0010/183556/Campus-Map.png>]

Abstract: In Law’s Judgement (Oxford: Hart 2017) William Lucy elucidates and defends a feature of contemporary law that is currently either overlooked or too glibly dismissed as morally troublesome or historically anachronistic. That feature is the abstract nature of law’s judgement and its three components show that, when law judges us, it often does so in ignorance of our particular characters and abilities, on the one hand, and in ignorance of our context and circumstances, on the other. Modern law’s judgement is thus abstract in this sense: it is insensitive to all or much that makes us the particular people we are. The book explores various connections between this mode of judgement and some of our most important legal and political values. It shows that law’s abstract judgement is closely related to important juristic conceptions of personhood, responsibility and impartiality, and that these notions are not without moral significance. The book also examines the connections between law’s abstract judgement and three of our most important political values, namely, dignity, equality and community. It argues that, if we value particular conceptions of dignity, equality and community, then we must also value law’s judgement. Illuminating these connections therefore serves a double purpose: first, it makes a case against those who counsel liberation from law’s abstract judgement and, second, it redirects attention to the task of morally evaluating law’s abstract judgement in its own terms.

Bio: William Lucy is a Prof at Durham Law School with research expertise in private law and legal philosophy. He previously worked at the University of Manchester, Cardiff University, Keele University and the University of Hull Law School (where he was almost the inaugural HK Bevan Professor of Law). He holds an undergraduate degree in law and postgraduate degrees in jurisprudence and in political philosophy. He is the author of Understanding and Explaining Adjudication (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1999) and Philosophy of Private Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press 2007), and Law's Judgement (Hart Publishing, 2017).

All welcome. No RSVP required.



Kelly


Macquarie University Research Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics (CAVE)
Department of Philosophy
Macquarie University
Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia
CAVE website: mq.edu.au/cave<http://cave.mq.edu.au>
www.facebook.com/MQCAVE<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/CepACYWL1vi8q34Vc0p-5m?domain=facebook.com>

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