Professor Joseph Raz, known to many across the King's community a lifelong mentor, colleague and dear friend, passed away on 2 May 2022. Professor Raz was one of the most influential legal, political and moral philosophers of our time and in recognition of his enormous contribution to the field, co-organisers Columbia Law School and King's College London are delighted to host the forthcoming Twin Conferences.

The Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre of Politics and Philosophy warmly invites you to attend and to participate in the discussions. The papers are available below, and participants will be assumed to have read the papers in advance. The sessions will be devoted to open discussion

An exhibition of photographic works will be on display within The Inigo Rooms, Somerset House East Wing, hosted by King's Culture. Viewing by appointment - please contact - lawevents@kcl.ac.uk

 

Conference Programme: King's College London

 

27 October 2023

14:00: Arrivals reception

14:30-16:00: Michael Moore, 'Requiem for a Concept: Exclusionary Reasons'

16:30-18:00: Debbie Roberts, 'The Truth in ‘The Truth in Particularism’

 

28 October 2023

09:00: Arrivals reception

09:30-11:00: David Owens, 'What is the Problem with Authority?'

11:30-13:00: Collis Tahzib, 'The Explanatory Role of The Harm Principle'

Lunch break

14:30-16:00: Filippa Ronquist, '"Trust me": Conventionalism and the Directedness of Promissory Obligation'

16:30-18:00: Steven Wall, 'Autonomy and Options'

 

29 October 2023

09.00: Arrivals reception

09:30-11:00: Alexander Greenberg, 'But What Does that Say About Me?” Raz and Hart on Responsibility for Negligence'

11:30-13:00 Jason Bridges, 'Beyond “rationalism”: how reasons explain action'

Lunch break

14:30-16:00: Thomas Christiano, 'Normative Conventionalism about Contracts'

 

Professor Joseph Raz

Joseph Raz began his academic career in 1967, as a member of the Law and Philosophy faculties at The Hebrew University. In 1972 he became Fellow and Tutor in Law at Balliol College, Oxford and in 1985 he became Professor of Philosophy of Law at Oxford. He was appointed a Professor of Law at Columbia Law School in 2002 and in 2011 joined The Dickson Poon School of Law as a Research Professor.

Professor Raz’s contribution to legal theory is unparalleled over the past half century. His published works in this area include The Concept of a Legal System (1970), Practical Reason and Norms (1975), The Authority of Law (1979) and Between Authority and Interpretation (2009). Raz’s writings on legal philosophy had a profound influence in the discipline, setting the terms for many of its central debates, most notably with his analysis of the notion of a legal norm and his account of political authority. Some of these ideas were developed in his masterpiece The Morality of Freedom (1986), whose influence went far beyond the boundaries of legal philosophy.

Raz was one of the leading, perhaps the leading figure in the ‘reasons revolution’ which has overtaken analytical philosophy in the last 30 years and the theory of reason and value became the main focus on his philosophical work in the last phase of his career. Raz maintained that understanding the notion of a reason, which he first treated in Practical Reason and Norms, was the key to a whole series of philosophical problems such as those discussed in his Normativity and Responsibility (2011). Raz also made major contributions to the theory of value, for example, in the papers collected in his The Practice of Value (2003), which brings together the Tanner Lectures on Human Values he gave in 2000–2001, and his Engaging Reason: On the Theory of Value and Action (1999). His last book, The Roots of Normativity (2022) was published a few weeks before his death.