News

Many thanks to Brian Leiter for the shout-out in his latest post on the study of philosophy in law schools:

“University of Surrey (a huge cluster of faculty working in all areas of the subject–some think it has displaced Oxford [as] the destination of choice in the UK)”.

We love our friends from Oxford, and we’re delighted that Surrey is recognised as a great place for jurisprudence. Learn more about our fellows, research, seminars and visiting opportunities on our website: https://surreycentrelp.org/

📖 Leiter’s full post: https://leiterreports.com/2026/10/26/the-study-of-philosophy-in-law-schools-and-jd-phd-programs-2026-edition/

📢 Welcoming new SCLP Fellows!

We are delighted to welcome three scholars to the SCLP community this semester: Kenneth Himma and Jorge Crego as SCLP Visiting Fellows, and Tarek Yusari as SCLP External Affiliate Fellow.

🔹 Kenneth Himma (Continuing Guest Professor, University of Zagreb) is one of the leading scholars in analytical jurisprudence. His work spans metaphysics, conceptual analysis and philosophical methodology, with a particular focus on the nature of law.

🔹 Jorge Crego (Lecturer in Law, Universidade da Coruña) works on the rule of law, artificial intelligence and law, and general jurisprudence.

🔹 Tarek Yusari (Research Associate, Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool) works on the philosophy of criminal law and on legal, moral and political philosophy, including the ethics of criminal justice.

Their interests, from the methodology of legal theory to the challenges of AI and the foundations of criminal law, will enrich our research and the wider SCLP academic community.

We are very excited to have them with us and look forward to welcoming them at our events and to the conversations ahead!

🎉 Congratulations to SCLP Research Fellows Ambrose Lee and Taylor Koles on their recent publications!

📘 Ambrose Lee, ‘The bindingness of obligations’, Revus: Journal for Constitutional Theory and Philosophy of Law

🔗 https://lnkd.in/e9mVw6BB

Abstract: In a contribution to this volume, Himma argues for what I call “the liabilities view” for the bindingness of obligations. Put roughly, according to this view, obligations bind in virtue of their detrimental liabilities because of the reasons that we have to avoid them. In this paper, I first raise some doubts against this view. I then sketch an alternative view in response to these doubts. However, I do not go on to argue that this alternative view is superior to the liability view. Instead, I raise a worry about the alternative view in the latter part of the paper. I then go on to suggest that perhaps there is more than one general concept of obligation and we need both views to properly account for them.

📗 Taylor Koles, ‘The bindinCollective Harm and Instrumental Reasons’, Journal of Moral Philosophy

🔗 https://lnkd.in/eJ9kKwt7

Abstract: Collective harm cases are cases in which the actions of a number of people result in a morally significant outcome, but no individual’s actions seem to make a difference to the occurrence of that outcome. This paper argues against the “Instrumentality Thesis,” advanced by Nefsky, on which any successful approach to collective harm cases must be instrumental in the sense that the reasons which it gives against participating in collective harm must involve that action’s influence on the outcome. First, I argue that Nefsky’s own account of collective harm, based on the notion of a “non-superfluous cause,” does not succeed as an instrumental approach. Second, I argue that Nefsky’s objections to non-instrumental views fail, and that we have good reason to think that a successful account of collective harm problems will be non-instrumental in character.

Well done to Ambrose and Taylor on these fine contributions to the philosophy of obligation and collective harm! 👏

The Surrey Centre for Law and Philosophy is delighted to announce that five students will join us for their PhDs. This is a milestone in the SCLP’s mission to train researchers to the highest academic standards in law and philosophy. Below are brief profiles of our incoming PhD students.

Marco De Bellis

Marco joins from Columbia University, where he is currently finishing his MA in Philosophy. Previously, Marco obtained his BA with Honours in Philosophy, Politics and Law from the University of Southern California. His doctoral research, provisionally titled “New Anti-Legal Positivism and Constitutional Interpretation”, will explore how the New Anti-Legal Positivism can ground a theory of constitutional interpretation that draws from Rawls’ conception of Justice as Fairness. His supervisors at Surrey will be Dr Sebastian Lewis and Prof. Kenneth Ehrenberg.

Samuel Lovering

Samuel is currently enrolled on the Barrister Training Course with an integrated LLM in Legal Practice at BPP University, having previously read Law at the University of Surrey. His doctoral thesis, provisionally titled “The Temporal Boundaries of Criminal Liability: Postnatal Crystallisation, Prenatal Harm, and the Reconciliation of Autonomy and Responsibility in English & Welsh Law”, sits broadly within the areas of criminal law and criminal law theory, with a focus on prenatal harm, postnatal crystallisation of culpability, causation, responsibility and maternal autonomy. He will be supervised by Dr Christopher P. Taggart and Dr Ambrose Lee.

Romain Marchant

With Master’s degrees in Philosophy from both King’s College London and KU Leuven, and a BA in Philosophy from the Université libre de Bruxelles, Romain joins Surrey to address critically the commonly held belief that the violation of a right should be remedied. He will do so by studying relations of complementarity and incompatibility between theories of the nature of rights and theories of corrective justice. The provisional title of his thesis is “On Rights and Remedies”. He will be supervised by Prof. Verónica Rodríguez-Blanco and Dr Taylor Koles.

Bárbara Ronsoni de Oliveira

Bárbara joins Surrey from Brazil, where she obtained an LLB from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande and an LLM from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Her doctoral research at Surrey is provisionally titled “An Expectational Account of Legal Obligation: Explaining the Authorization of Social Pressure in Response to Deviation from Valid Legal Rules”, and it will address discussions of legal validity, legal normativity, and legal obligation. She will be supervised by Dr Lucas Miotto and Dr Taylor Koles.

Yunxuan Zhao

With a Master’s in Political, Legal and Economic Philosophy from the University of Bern, Yunxuan arrives at Surrey to work on the relationship between legal normativity and meta-ethics, under the supervision of Prof. Verónica Rodríguez-Blanco and Dr Ira Lindsay. The provisional title of Yunxuan’s thesis is “Legal Normativity and Reasons for Action – An Attempt at a Humean Constructivist Approach”.