Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Academic Blogs -> Legal Theory Blog

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Academic

: Legal Theory Blog

Conference Announcement: Dworkin's Justice for Hedgehogs at BU

By Lawrence Solum

ADVERTISEMENTS

Justice for Hedgehogs: A Conference on Ronald Dworkin?s Forthcoming Book
Boston University School of Law
September 25-26, 2009
(>>Download schedule and brochure (pdf format))

?The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.?
- Archilochus

Description:

Boston University School of Law will hold a conference on Ronald Dworkin?s forthcoming book, Justice for Hedgehogs, on September 25-26, 2009. Dworkin himself will give the keynote address on September 25 and a response on September 26. The Boston University Law Review will publish the papers and proceedings. In Justice for Hedgehogs, Dworkin defends the unity of value ? the one big thing he knows ? and argues against ?several foxy causes?: value skepticism, value pluralism, value conflict, and, in particular, the supposed opposition between the values of self-interest and those of personal and political morality. He argues for the integration of ethics (the principles that tell human beings how to live well) and morality (the principles that tell them how they must treat other people), and for a morality of self-affirmation as against a morality of self-abnegation. In doing so, he develops accounts of the indispensable conditions of living well ? dignity, self-respect, and authenticity ? and of our moral duties to others regarding aid and harm. He also argues that law is a branch of political morality that is in turn a department of morality more broadly understood. The conference will include the following panels, taking up issues of the sort sketched below.

I. Truth and Metaethics
The opening panel will assess Dworkin?s arguments for truth about value and against various forms of skepticism, including his rejection of Archimedean and meta-ethical attempts to address questions of ethics, morality, and justice from a standpoint outside of our ordinary ways of thinking about them.

II. Interpretation
This panel will respond to Dworkin?s arguments that interpretation in general seeks truth and that moral reasoning and legal interpretation are enterprises involving conceptual interpretation as distinguished from collaborative and explanatory interpretation.

III. Ethics and Free Will
Herein of Dworkin?s arguments concerning the indispensable conditions of living well ? dignity, self-respect, and authenticity ? along with his response to the ?no free will? challenge to ethical and moral responsibility.

IV. Morality: Aid, Harm, and Obligation
The issues to be considered include Dworkin?s arguments of substantive morality concerning duty, harm, and obligation, including associative and political obligation.

V & VI. Politics and Justice
These two panels will take up Dworkin?s arguments about political morality, including his account of political, legal, and human rights; his interpretive conceptions of equality, liberty, and democracy; and his argument about the relationship between law and morals.

Schedule:

Friday, September 25

9:15 a.m.-9:30 a.m.: Welcome and Introduction, Dean Maureen O?Rourke, Boston University School of Law 9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: I. Truth and Metaethics

Aaron Garrett, Boston University Department of Philosophy
Russ Shafer-Landau, University of Wisconsin Department of Philosophy
Daniel Star, Boston University Department of Philosophy
Michael Smith, Princeton University Department of Philosophy

11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Keynote Address: Justice for Hedgehogs, Ronald Dworkin, New York University School of Law & University College London

12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m.: Lunch

2:00 p.m.-3:15 p.m.: II. Interpretation

Richard Fallon, Harvard Law School
James Fleming, Boston University School of Law
David Lyons, Boston University School of Law
Lawrence Solum, University of Illinois College of Law
Benjamin Zipursky, Fordham University School of Law

3:30 p.m.-4:45 p.m.: III. Ethics and Free Will

Anita Allen, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Christine Jolls, Yale Law School
Robert Kane, University of Texas Department of Philosophy
T.M. Scanlon, Harvard University Department of Philosophy
Amartya Sen, Harvard University Departments of Economics & Philosophy

5:00 p.m.-6:15 p.m.: IV. Morality: Aid, Harm, and Obligation

Kwame Anthony Appiah, Princeton University Department of Philosophy
John Goldberg, Harvard Law School
Frances Kamm, Harvard University Department of Philosophy & Kennedy School of Government
Kenneth Simons, Boston University School of Law
Susanne Sreedhar & Candice Delmas, Boston University Department of Philosophy

Saturday, September 26

9:30 a.m.-10:45 a.m.: V. Politics and Justice I

Ed Baker, University of Pennsylvania Law School
Hugh Baxter, Boston University School of Law
Linda McClain, Boston University School of Law
Larry Sager, University of Texas School of Law
Robin West, Georgetown University Law Center

11:00 a.m.-12:30 p.m.: VI. Politics and Justice II

Robert Bone, Boston University School of Law
Samuel Freeman, University of Pennsylvania Department of Philosophy
Stephen Macedo, Princeton University Department of Politics
Frank Michelman, Harvard Law School
Robert Sloane, Boston University School of Law
Jeremy Waldron, New York University School of Law

12:30 p.m.-2:00 p.m.: Lunch & Response by Ronald Dworkin

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on August 27, 2009 (boomark / email).