Surrey Centre for Law and Philosophy

Research Fellows

Ryan Abbott

Professor of Law & Health Sciences

Law and AI/Technology, Intellectual property law, Health care law

Joshua Andresen

Associate Professor of National Security and Foreign Relations Law

International Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law, Sanctions

Hrafn Asgeirsson

Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law; Co-Director of the Surrey Centre for Law & Philosophy

General Jurisprudence, Law and language, Law and metaethics

Mikolaj Barczentewicz

Senior Lecturer in Public Law and Legal Theory

Law and Technology, Public Law, General jurisprudence and constitutional theory

Steve Bero square photo Sept 2017 hi res

Stephen Bero

Senior Lecturer in Private Law (on leave 2024-2025); Visiting Professor, University of Texas, School of Law

Private law theory, Law and emotions, Moral psychology

Conor Casey

Senior Lecturer

Public law, Legal theory, The natural law tradition

Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov

Professor of Neuroscience, Law, and Legal Philosophy; Head of School of Social Sciences

Philosophy of action, Criminal law theory, Consciousness

Kenneth Ehrenberg

Professor of Jurisprudence and Philosophy; Co-Director of the Surrey Centre for Law & Philosophy

Social ontology of law, Legal validity, Authority

Claire Hogg

Lecturer in Law

Criminal law theory, Criminal law and mental disorder, Mental health and capacity law

Ambrose Lee square photo Sept 2017 hi res

Ambrose Y. K. Lee

Senior Lecturer in Legal Theory

Criminal justice, Moral and legal responsibility, Law and authority, Legal and moral luck

Sebastian Lewis

Surrey Future Fellow

Jurisprudence, Legal reasoning, Public law

Ira Lindsay

Associate Professor in Finance Law and Ethics, Head of Surrey Law School

Tax, Property, Legal Theory

Lucas Miotto

Senior Lecturer in Law and Philosophy

Jurisprudence, Coercion, Global health justice, Digital ethics

Marie Newhouse

Associate Professor in Law, Philosophy, and Public Policy

Kantian legal philosophy, Criminal Law

Dennis Patterson

Professor of Legal Philosophy

Legal philosophy, Law and neuroscience

Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco

Professor in Moral and Political Philosophy (Jurisprudence)

Private Law Theory, Practical Reason and Law, Authority

Alexander Sarch

Professor of Legal Philosophy

Criminal law theory, Corporate crime, Tech regulation

Antony Starza-Allen

Senior Teaching Fellow

Fertility, Ethics, Regulation

Christopher P. Taggart

Senior Lecturer; LLB PPL Pathway programme lead; SCLP UG Fellowship Program coordinator

Action theory, Moral responsibility, Philosophy of criminal law

Mikolaj Firlej

Lecturer in AI Law and Regulation

Regulation and AI/technology, Legal philosophy, Privacy law

Alex Leveringhaus

Affiliate Fellow; Lecturer in Political Theory; Co-Director, Centre for International Intervention

Political philosophy, Just war theory, Ethics and technology

Giovanni Sartor

Affiliate Fellow & SCLP Visiting Professor of Law and Artificial Intelligence; Professor of Legal Informatics and Legal Theory, European University Institute/U. of Bologna

Law and AI/technology, Law and logic, Argumentation

Luke Mason

Affiliate Fellow; Professor of Jurisprudence/Head of Westminster Law School

Legal reasoning and thought, Labour law and social policy, Legal education

Krystof Turek

Affiliate Fellow; Senior Lecturer, Westminster Law School

General jurisprudence, Private law theory, Moral theories of restitution

PhD Research Fellows & Alumni Research Associated

Alex Houghton

Lecturer in Public Law and Jurisprudence, Stirling Law School (starting Sept 2024); SCLP PhD Research Fellow

Simon Palmer

SCLP PhD Research Fellow

Armando Romero

SCLP PhD Research Fellow

Benjamin Ruiz Garcia

SCLP PhD Research Fellow

Juan Diego Dimaté Gómez

SCLP PhD Research Fellow

Daniel Peixoto Murata

Professor (FT), Department of Philosophy and General Theory of Law, U. of São Paulo; Postdoctoral Research Fellow, U. of São Paulo; SCLP Research Associate; SCLP PhD 2022

Caterina Fabiani

Trainee Lawyer, Studio Legale, Milan; SCLP Research Associate; SCLP PhD 2023

Chantal Frindall

Lecturer in Law, U. of Brighton; SCLP Research Associate

Visiting Fellows

Stephen E. Mathis

Visiting Fellow; Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Bergen, Faculty of Law

Paul Boswell

Visiting Fellow; Associate, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, LLP

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LEARN ABOUT OUR PHD

Events

The Surrey Centre for Law and Philosophy holds events throughout the year to ignite imagination and promote collaborative and interdisciplinary research. We have three series on which we particularly focus:

Seminar Series:

These regular seminars feature a diverse group of leading scholars who work at the intersection of law and philosophy. You can view our past and future Seminars here as well as signing up to be notified of future ones.

Keynote Lectures:

These lectures bring diverse audiences together by bridging two divides simultaneously: the divide between law and philosophy, and that between legal scholarship and legal practice.

Workshop Series:

Our intensive, invitation-only, pre-read workshops bring together leading scholars to focus on some of the hardest problems in legal philosophy. Programmes from recent workshops are available here and here.

Philosophy, Law & Politics Graduate Forum:

Spearheaded by the SCLP and the University of Oxford, the PLP Graduate Forum is a network of graduate students and academics that gives graduate students a platform to present and receive feedback on work in progress.

november

07nov1:30 pm3:30 pmSCLP Seminar: Ralf Poscher (Max Planck Institute)

Event Details

On Thu Nov 7, 1:30-3:30pm UK time (in the Law Library), we’ll welcome Ralf Poscher (Max Planck Institute). He Director of Public Law at the MPI’s Institute for the Study of Crime, Security, and Law. Prof Poscher will speak about incommensurable values and proportionality reasoning in constitutional and international law.

For in-person attendance, please register via email to h.asgeirsson@surrey.ac.uk by Tue Nov 5.

Abstract below. Pre-reading optional – for access to the paper, please register your attendance (whether in person or online) via email to h.asgeirsson@surrey.ac.uk

Click here to join online (hybrid format).

—–

Ralf Poscher (Max Planck Institute) – “What Would It Take? The Potential and Limits of Proportionality Analysis in Law”

Proportionality has become one of the primary standards for violations of fundamental and human rights in various constitutional and international jurisdictions. Proportionality in the strict sense requires a comparison of the infringement of a fundamental or human right with the achievement of a state interest pursued by a measure. The incommensurability of the two is an often-raised challenge to this comparison. The Article does not adopt a fully-fledged sceptical stance. Instead, it looks to proportionality as a means of overcoming the challenge of incommensurability. It then examines the structure of comparisons in general and of comparisons of incommensurables employing proportionality in particular. As for the latter it focuses on its performance by exploring the example of decathlon, where this type of comparison works exceptionally well. The example allows us to analyse the preconditions for comparing incommensurables. Unfortunately, most of these preconditions are lacking in the law. This explains why the proportionality principle in law only produces convincing results in cases where the disproportionality is very pronounced. In many other cases, however, the courts decide based on proportionality as well. This raises the question: What is really going on in these cases? The article concludes with a brief account of a benevolent explanation.

Time

(Thursday) 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm BST

Location

Law Library, School of Law

Calendar GoogleCal

13nov2:00 pm4:00 pmSCLP Seminar: John Hyman (UCL) [POSTPONED]

13nov2:00 pm4:00 pmSCLP Seminar: Stephen Mathis (Bergen)

27nov2:00 pm6:00 pmSCLP Workshop: Corporate Agency and Responsibility (Pauer-Studer; Silver; Sarch)

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News & Social Media

Highlighted Recent Publications

Ryan Abott, The Reasonable Robot: Artificial Intelligence and the Law (Cambridge University Press 2020) Link

Ryan Abott and Alex F. Sarch, ‘Punishing Artificial Intelligence: Legal Fiction or Science Fiction’ (2019) 53 UC Davis Law Review 323 Link

Ryan Abott, ‘Everything is Obvious’ (2019) 66(1) UCLA Review 1 Link

Harris A. Eyre, Andrew Robb, Ryan Abbott, Malcolm Hopwood, ‘Mental Health Innovation Diplomacy: An Under-recognised Soft Power’ (2019) 53(5) Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 474 Link

Joshua Andresen, ‘Fighting Terrorism under All Applicable Law’ (2020) in Christopher Fuller and Claire Finkelstein (eds.), ‘Using Law to Fight Terror: Legal Approaches to Combating Violent Non-State and State-Sponsored Actors’ (Oxford University Press forthcoming) Link

Joshua Andresen, ‘The Paradox of Precision and the Weapons Review Regime’ (2020) 1 The Philosophical Journal of Conflict and Violence 2 (forthcoming) Link

Joshua Andresen, ‘China’s Military and the Belt and Road Initiative: A View From the Outside’ (2019) 5 The Chinese Journal of Global Governance 122 Link

Joshua Andresen, ‘Putting Lethal Force on the Table: How Drones Change the Alternative Space of War and Counterterrorism’ (2017) 8(2) Harvard National Security Journal 426 Link

Hrafn Asgeirsson, The Nature and Value of Vagueness in the Law (Hart 2020) Link

Hrafn Asgeirsson, ‘The Sorites Paradox in Practical Philosophy’ in Sergi Oms and Elia Zardini (eds.), The Sorites Paradox (Cambridge University Press 2019) Link

Hrafn Asgeirsson, ‘Can Legal Practice Adjudicate Between Theories of Vagueness?’ in Geert Keil and Ralf Poscher, Vagueness and Law (Oxford University Press 2016) Link

Hrafn Asgeirsson, ‘On the Possibility of Non-literal Legislative Speech’ in Francesca Poggi and Alessandro Capone, Pragmatics and Law (Springer Link 2017) Link

Mikolaj Barczentewicz, ‘Cart Challengers, Empirical Methods, and Effectiveness of Judicial Review’ (2021) 84(6) The Modern Law Review 1360 Link

Mikolaj Barczentewicz, ‘Teaching Technology to (Future) Lawyers’ (2021) 2021(1) Erasmus Law Review 45 Link

Mikolaj Barczentewicz, ‘Cart Judicial Reviews Through the Lens of the Upper Tribunal’ (2021) Judicial Review 1 (forthcoming) Link

Mikolaj Barczentewicz, ‘Constituent Power and Constituent Authority’ (2020) 52(5) Connecticut Law Review Link

Stephen Bero and Alexander Sarch, ‘The Problem of Over-Inclusive Offenses: A Closer Look at Duff on Legal Moralism and Mala Prohibita’ (2020) 14 Criminal Law and Philosophy 395 Link

Stephen Bero, ‘Holding Responsible and Taking Responsibility’ (2019) 39 Law and Philosophy 263 Link

Stephen Bero, ‘The Audience in Shame’ (2020) 177 Philosophical Studies 1283 Link

Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov, ‘Evil Trolley Turners; What they do and how they do it’ (2021) 12(2) Jurisprudence 259 Link

Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov (ed.), Neurolaw and Responsibility for Action: Concepts, Courts and Crimes (Cambridge University Press 2018) Link

Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov, ‘Intention as Non-Observational Knowledge: Rescuing Responsibility from the Brain’, in Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov (ed.), Neurolaw and Responsibility for Action: Concepts, Courts and Crimes (Cambridge University Press 2018) Link

Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov, ‘Intention in Criminal Law: The Challenge from Non-Observational Knowledge’ (2017) 30(4) Ratio Juris 451 Link

Kenneth Ehrenberg, ‘The Institutionality of Legal Validity’ (2020) 100(2) Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 277 Link

Kenneth Ehrenberg, ‘Medical Complicity and the Legitimacy of Practical Authority’ (2020) 12 Ethics, Medicine and Public Health 1 Link

Kenneth Ehrenberg, ‘Ontology and Reason Giving in Law’ in Pawel Banas, Adam Dyrda, Tomasz Gilbert-Studnicki, Metaphilosophy of Law (Bloomsbury 2016) Link

Kenneth Ehrenberg, ‘Law as Plan and Artefact’ (2016) 7(2) Jurisprudence 325 Link

Ambrose Y.K. Lee, ‘Retributive Justice’ (2022) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (forthcoming) Link

Ambrose Y.K. Lee, ‘Blameworthiness and the Outcomes of One’s Actions’ (2021) Criminal Law and Philosophy Link

Ambrose Y.K. Lee, ‘Review of: Beyond Punishment?: A Normative Account of the Collateral Legal Consequences of Convictions by Zachary Hoskins (Oxford University Press 2019)’ (2020) Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, Rutgers Link

Ambrose Y.K. Lee, ‘Arguing Against the Expressive Function of Punishment: Is the Standard Account Insufficient?’ (2019) 38(4) Law and Philosophy 359 Link

Alex Leveringhaus, ‘Out of Harm’s Way, Book Review: [John Forge, The Morality of Weapons Research: Why it is Wrong to Design Weapons (Springer 2019)] (2021) 30(3) Metascience 475 Link

Alex Leveringhaus, ‘What So Bad About Killer Robots?’ (2018) 35(2) Journal of Applied Philosophy 341 Link

Alex Leveringhaus, Ethics and Autonomous Weapons (Palgrave 2016) Link

Ira Lindsay, ‘In Praise of Nonconformity’ (2021) 61(3) Santa Clara Law Review 2 Link

Ira Lindsay, ‘Convention, Social Trust, and Legal Interpretation’ in Kevin Vallier and Michael Weber (eds.), Social Trust (Routledge 2021) Link

Ira Lindsay, ‘A Defense of Humean Property Theory’ (2021) 27(1) Legal Theory 36 Link

Ira Lindsay, ‘Benefits Theories of Tax Fairness’ in Peter Harris and Dominic de Cogan (eds.), Studies in the History of Tax Law Vol.9 (2019 Hart Publishing) Link

Edoardo Frezet, Marc Goetzmann, Luke Mason, Spaces of Law and Custom (Routledge 2021) Link

Luke Mason, ‘Il pluralismo giuridico e la crime fiction italiana: Le forme letterarie come opere di filosofia del diritto, l’autore come giuslavorista’, in Carlo Baghetti et al. (eds.), Il lavoro raccontato. Studi su letteratura e cinema italiani dal postmodernismo all'ipermodernismo (Franco Cesati Editore 2020) Link

Luke Mason, ‘Locating Unity in the Fragmented Platform Economy: Labour law and the Platform Economy in the United Kingdom’ (2020) 41(2) Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 101 Link

Luke Mason, ‘Vers une « constitution sociale » européenne ? La constitutionnalisation du droit du travail et le droit de l’Union européenne’ (2019) 2(1) Titre VII : La Revue Du Conseil Constitutionnel 41 Link

Marie Newhouse, ‘The Principle of Autonomy’s Enduring Validity’ (2021) Philosophia (forthcoming) Link

Marie Newhouse, ‘Judicial Law as a Categorical Imperative’ in Ruhi Demiray and Alice Pinheiro Walla (eds.), Reason, Rights and Law: New Essays on Kantian Philosophy (University of Wales Press 2020) Link

Marie Newhouse, ‘The Legislative Authority’ (2019) 24(4) Kantian Review 531 Link

Marie Newhouse, ‘In Defense of Liberal Equality’ (2017) 9(1-2) Public Reason 99 Link

Dennis Patterson, ‘Theoretical Disagreement, Legal Positivism and Interpretation’ (2018) 31(3) Ratio Juris 260 Link

Dennis Patterson, ‘Neuroscience and the Explanation of Human Action’, in Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov (ed.), Neurolaw and Responsibility for Action: Concepts, Courts and Crimes (Cambridge University Press 2018) Link

Ari Afilalo and Dennis Patterson, ‘Global Economic Constitutionalism and the Future of Global Trade’ (2019) 40(2) University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 323 Link

Dennis Patterson, ‘Rethinking Duress’ (2016) 7(3) Jurisprudence 672 Link

Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco and George Pavlakos (eds.), Agency, Negligence and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press 2021) Link

Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, ‘Backward-Looking Puzzle of Responsibility in Negligence: Some Preliminary Thoughts for Understanding Inadvertent Actions’ in Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco and George Pavlakos (eds.), Agency, Negligence and Responsibility (Cambridge University Press 2021) Link

Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, ‘The Law of Negligence, Blameworthy Action and the Relationality Thesis: A Dilemma for Goldberg and Zipursky’s Civil Recourse Theory of Tort Law’ (2021) Law and Philosophy Link

Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, ‘Tracing Finnis’ Criticism of Hart’s Internal Point of View: Instability and the ‘Point’ of Human Action in Law’, in Torben Spaak and Patricia Mindus (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism (Cambridge University Press 2021) Link

Alexander Sarch, ‘Skepticism about Corporate Punishment Revisited’, in Larry Alexander and Kimberly Kessler Ferzan (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law (Palgrave MacMillian 2019) Link

Alexander Sarch, Criminally Ignorant: Why the Law Pretends we Know what we Don’t (Oxford University Press 2019) Link

Alexander Sarch, ‘Willful Ignorance in Law and Morality’ (2018) 13(5) Philosophy Compass e12490 Link

Alexander Sarch, ‘Resolving Judicial Dilemmas’ (2018) 6(1) Virginia Journal of Criminal Law 93 Link

Douglas Walton, Fabrizio Macgno, Giovanni Sartor, Statutory Interpretation: Pragmatics and Argumentation (Cambridge University Press 2021) Link

Francesca Lagioia and Giovanni Sartor, ‘Artificial Intelligence for Citizens’ Rights: The Claudette Project’ (2020) 34(1) Ragion Pratica 87 Link

Katie Atkinson et al., ‘In Memoriam Douglas N. Walton: The Influence of Doug Walton on AI and Law’ (2020) 28(3) Artificial Intelligence and Law 281 Link

Regis Riveret, Antonino Rotolo, Giovanni Sartor, ‘A Deontic Argumentation Framework Towards Doctrine Reification’ (2019) 6(5) Journal of Applied Logics 903 Link

Christopher P. Taggart, ‘A Response to the Problem of Wild Coincidences’ (2020) 198 Synthese 11421 Link

Christopher P. Taggart, ‘Retributivism, Ultimate Responsibility, and Agent Causalism’ (2019) 54(3) Tusla Law Review 441 Link

Christopher P. Taggart, ‘Fairness Versus Welfare: The Limits of Kapow and Shavell’s Pareto Argument’ (2016) 99(3) Marquette University Law Review 662 Link

Christopher P. Taggart, ‘Retributivsm, Agency, and the Voluntary Act Requirement’ (2016) 36(3) Pace Law Review 645 Link

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