About Us
The Surrey Centre for Law and Philosophy is a leading hub for the study of law and philosophy. We provide a forum for developing and discussing original theoretical work and are widely recognised as one of the largest and well-established centres for law and philosophy in the world.
We proudly embrace an ecumenical approach to law and philosophy. Our fellows work across different areas and hold diverse (and sometimes opposing) views on the nature of law, legal authority, the role of morality in law, and broader questions in ethics, politics, metaphysics, and epistemology. This diversity reflects our commitment to free and respectful debate.
The SCLP sits within the School of Law, which was ranked 4th in REF2021 for world-leading and internationally excellent publications amongst all UK law schools. As an integral part of the School of Law, our fellows teach and research in a wide variety of legal subjects, using philosophical techniques and theoretical perspectives. The SCLP plays a central role in shaping Surrey’s undergraduate and postgraduate law courses, equipping our students with critical and philosophical thinking that will enhance their careers—whether as practising lawyers, judges, academics, or in the many other fields our graduates pursue.
Each year, we welcome international visitors, including PhD students and scholars, who spend weeks or months at Surrey benefiting from our events and engaging with our fellows. As part of our welcoming mission, we organise workshops where our expert fellows provide valuable feedback to help refine and develop our visitors’ research.
We host a diverse and dynamic schedule of events throughout the year, including mini-workshops, seminars, book symposia, and joint colloquia with our international institutional partners. We invite you to subscribe to the SCLP’s mailing list to stay updated on our latest news and events!
Research Fellows
Ryan Abbott
Professor of Law & Health SciencesLaw and AI/Technology, Intellectual property law, Health care law
Joshua Andresen
Associate Professor of National Security and Foreign Relations LawInternational Humanitarian Law, International Human Rights Law, Sanctions
Hrafn Asgeirsson
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Law; Co-Director of the Surrey Centre for Law & PhilosophyGeneral Jurisprudence, Law and language, Law and metaethics
Mikolaj Barczentewicz
Senior Lecturer in Public Law and Legal TheoryLaw and Technology, Public Law, General jurisprudence and constitutional theory
Stephen Bero
Senior Lecturer in Private Law (on leave 2024-2025); Visiting Professor, University of Texas, School of LawPrivate law theory, Law and emotions, Moral psychology
Conor Casey
Senior LecturerPublic law, Legal theory, The natural law tradition
Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov
Professor of Neuroscience, Law, and Legal Philosophy; Head of School of Social SciencesPhilosophy of action, Criminal law theory, Consciousness
Kenneth Ehrenberg
Professor of Jurisprudence and Philosophy; Co-Director of the Surrey Centre for Law & PhilosophySocial ontology of law, Legal validity, Authority
Claire Hogg
Lecturer in LawCriminal law theory, Criminal law and mental disorder, Mental health and capacity law
Ambrose Y. K. Lee
Senior Lecturer in Legal TheoryCriminal justice, Moral and legal responsibility, Law and authority, Legal and moral luck
Sebastian Lewis
Surrey Future Fellow; Director of Communications, External Engagement, and Strategic Partnerships of the Surrey Centre for Law and PhilosophyGeneral Jurisprudence, Foundations of Law, Public Law Theory
Ira Lindsay
Associate Professor in Finance Law and Ethics, Head of Surrey Law SchoolTax, Property, Legal Theory
Lucas Miotto
Senior Lecturer in Law and PhilosophyJurisprudence, Coercion, Global health justice, Digital ethics
Marie Newhouse
Associate Professor in Law, Philosophy, and Public PolicyKantian legal philosophy, Criminal Law
Dennis Patterson
Professor of Legal PhilosophyLegal 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 PhilosophyCriminal law theory, Corporate crime, Tech regulation
Antony Starza-Allen
Senior Teaching FellowFertility, Ethics, Regulation
Christopher P. Taggart
Senior Lecturer; LLB PPL Pathway programme lead; SCLP UG Fellowship Program coordinatorAction theory, Moral responsibility, Philosophy of criminal law
Mikolaj Firlej
Lecturer in AI Law and RegulationRegulation and AI/technology, Legal philosophy, Privacy law
Alex Leveringhaus
Affiliate Fellow; Lecturer in Political Theory; Co-Director, Centre for International InterventionPolitical 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 BolognaLaw and AI/technology, Law and logic, Argumentation
Luke Mason
Affiliate Fellow; Professor of Jurisprudence/Head of Westminster Law SchoolLegal reasoning and thought, Labour law and social policy, Legal education
Krystof Turek
Affiliate Fellow; Senior Lecturer, Westminster Law SchoolGeneral jurisprudence, Private law theory, Moral theories of restitution
Feja Lesniewska
Affiliate Fellow; Senior Lecturer; Surrey Law SchoolEarth-space jurisprudence, rights of nature/ multispecies rights, ecological law.
PhD Research Fellows & Alumni Research Associated
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
Alex Houghton
Lecturer in Public Law and Jurisprudence, U. of Stirling Law School; SCLP Research Associate; SCLP PhD 2024
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
SCLP Research Associate; SCLP PhD 2023
Caterina Fabiani
Trainee Lawyer, Studio Legale, Milan; SCLP Research Associate; SCLP PhD 2023
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
Current Visiting PhD Students
PhD Candidate at the Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy, University of Genoa, Italy.
Thesis: Interpreting Precedent
Supervisor: Professor Pierluigi Chiassoni
Visit Period: February-August 2025
PhD Candidate in Law at UCL.
Thesis Title: 'Disrupted identities: Reconstructing and reinterpreting sex crimes in cyberspace'.
Supervisor: Professor Mark Dsouza.
SCLP Visiting Period: January-December 2025.
JSD Candidate at the NYU School of Law
Thesis Title: 'What We Value About Others: Associative Obligation From the Perspective of Practical Reasoning'
Supervisors: Professors Moshe Halbertal, Liam B. Murphy, and Jeremy Waldron.
SCLP Visiting Period: February-July 2025.
PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade.
Thesis Title: 'Legal Liability and Free Will'.
Supervisors: Professors Bojan Spaic and Miodrag Jovanović.
SCLP Visiting Period: February-April 2025.
Ana Zdravkovic
PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade.
Thesis Title: 'Absolute Human Rights'.
Supervisors: Professor Bojana Čučković.
SCLP Visiting Period: February-April 2025.
Priscila Andrade
PhD Candidate in Legal Philosophy at PUC-Rio, Brazil.
Thesis Title: 'Precedent and Legal Change'.
Supervisors: Professor Noel Struchiner.
SCLP Visiting Period: March-April 2025.
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.
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.
No Events on The List at This Time
Upcoming Events
INTERNATIONAL COLLOQUIUM
International Colloquium
July 17-18 (Freiburg, Germany)
SCLP / MPI Freiburg Colloquium
ANNUAL KEYNOTE
Jurisprudence Annual Keynote
June 30
Niko Kolodny (Berkeley)
WORKSHOP
Workshop on AI and Armed Conflict
May 21, 2-6pm (GMT)
Joshua Andresen (Surrey)
Alex Leveringhaus (Surrey)
Linda Eggert (Oxford)
SEMINAR
Gabriel Mendow (Michigan)
May 7, 4-6pm (GMT)
WORKSHOP
Workshop on Criminal Law Theory
March 24, 12-3pm (GMT)
Federico Picinali (LSE) on fairness in the criminal trial
Tarek Yusari (Liverpool) on entrapment
Contact: Prof. Alex Sarch (Surrey)
WORKSHOP
Workshop on General Jurisprudence
PRE-READ EVENT
March 19, 2-6pm (GMT)
Giorgio Pino ('Legal Validity: Another Look')
Felipe Jiménez ('Truly General Jurisprudence')
Sebastian Lewis ('Customary Law and the Limits of the Rule of Recognition')
Past Events
COLLOQUIUM
Colloquium on Constitutional Theory with CUA Scholars
March 10, 3-6pm (GMT)
Joel Alicea: ‘Bruen Was Right’
Will Kamin: ‘A More Luminous Beacon’
Chad Squitieri: ‘Deemphasising the D.C. Circuit’
Comments by Conor Casey (Surrey), Eric Claeys (George Mason) and Julian Mortenson (Michigan).
SEMINAR
Ẹniọlá Ànúolúwapọ́ Ṣóyẹmí (Oxford)
The Character of Freedom
February 26, 4-6pm (GMT)
WORKSHOP
ALF Project Workshop
Feb 19
Miodrag Jovanović (Belgrade) – “Prototype Theory of Concepts and Analytical Account of Law”
Ambrose Lee (Surrey) – “Obligations’ bindingness”
Thu Feb 20
Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco (Surrey) – “What the ‘Common Good’ Is Not: The Architectonic of Good and Practical Reason in Law”
Andrej Kristan (Genoa) – “Legal reasoning and the efficacy of legal norms”
Bojan Spaić (Belgrade) – “Generative AI and Philosophy of Law”
SEMINAR
Bebhinn Donnelly-Lazarov (Surrey)
"The Constitution of Action and Responsibility for Omissions"
February 5, 4-6pm (GMT)
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