2011 Annual Uehiro Lectures: Professor Philip Pettit, Lecture 2: "Robust demands and the need for law"

Past Event

Date
02 June 2011, 6:00pm - 8:00pm

Location
St Cross College
61 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LZ

2011 Annual Uehiro Lectures (hosted by Oxford Uehiro Centre)

Lecture 2, "Robust demands and the need for law"

Date and time: 5–7 pm, Thursday 2nd June

Venue: Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre, St Cross Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UL.

Abstract: The common subjection to law means in any community that we give each other certain legal rights robustly, not just actually or probably. The freedom, respect and dignity that you thereby enjoy come about as a result of how we others are legally constrained; they do not materialize just as a result of what we do, or even, unlike virtue-based goods, as a result of what we are disposed to do. And so law is a distinct way of making good, not just an aid or prompt to doing good; it too creates value in its own right

Bio: Philip Pettit is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University, where he has taught political theory and philosophy since 2002. He was elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, and honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2010; he is also a fellow of the Australian academies in Humanities and Social Sciences. Pettit holds honorary professorships in Philosophy at Sydney University and Queen's University, Belfast. In 2010 he won a Guggenheim fellowship and is spending 2010-11 as a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral and Social Sciences at Stanford University. Pettit is one of the world‘s leading authors in moral and political theory, and has also made important contributions to issues in the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. His work has also been an important influence on the policies of the current Spanish government.

Further details: All are welcome and no booking required. For more information, please contact: deborah.sheehan@philosophy.ox.ac.uk