June 6 to June 9, 2024:

Philosophy & Legal Theory Collaborative Panels at the Law & Society Association Annual Meeting, Denver:

At the 2024 Law and Society Association meeting in Denver, June 6 to June 9 2024, the Philosophy & Legal Theory Collaborative is sponsoring a set of eight panels and a business meeting. More details will be listed soon. Current Panels include:

Thursday, June 6:

1. Analytic Jurisprudence and Normativity

This panel considers general jurisprudence questions of authority, and normativity. Kristjánsson Hafsteinn's paper critiques Raz's conception of authority and the Normal Justification Thesis, arguing for a new "Need Justification Thesis" to better handle challenges to Raz's theory. Jorge Cortés-Monroy's paper challenges the dominance of conceptual analysis in legal theory, advocating for an approach that reprioritizes the communicative function of language over its representational function to capture the linguistic formation of intersubjective relationships. Alma Diamond examines social obligations through the concept of peremptory practices, building on HLA Hart's work. Wojciech Engelking's paper continues consider questions raised by Hart's Concept of Law,

2. Addressing Gender Injustices in Legal Systems and Structures 

 

This panel examines some of the gender injustices that permeate legal systems, including testimonial injustice and inconsistent application of the non-punishment principle to human trafficking victims. The panel also advances ways to address gender injustices through policy, practices, strategic lawsuits and marketing, and use of the systems themselves to protect women's rights in both court cases and statutory law. Drawing on theory and practice, panelists will reconstruct their successes and issue calls to action for additional reform.

 

3. Reproduction of Legal Order: Race, Youth and Disability (Roundtable session)

Social and economic disadvantage are reproduced from one generation to the next. A large, field-spanning literature explores why. One key mechanism identified in existing law and society scholarship is particular beliefs that function to convince, or resign, those at the social margins to accept their social position. A belief system may not be fully conscious and might be only implicit in dispositions and utterances. There can also be shifts over time in the content of that belief system without the system losing its basic integrity. When such a system shapes identities, encourages habits, or influences action, it can have significant social effects. Here, panelists explore those effects across various intersecting domains: education, movements, disability, and race.

Friday, June 7:

4. Dignity, Respect, Recognition and Coercion

This panel considers philosophical questions in rights, mental health, and law enforcement ethics. Şule Şahin Ceylan revisits the notion of "the right to have rights," highlighting the need for social recognition beyond legal acknowledgment. Michael Hyde considers the ethics of psychiatric wills in potentially paternalistic mental health contexts. J Reese Faust build's on growing work situating Ronald Dworkin's theory of dignity in Hegelian Sittlichkeit, arguing for a non-Kantian interpretation, grounded in Hegelian Wille. Dwight Newman examines the criminalization of public nudity, considering how information asymmetries differentially shape risks. Luke Hunt shows how police use of fraudulent epistemic environments is at odds with evidentiary standards in a manner incompatible with both deontological and consequentialist considerations

5. Sovereignty, Pluralism, and Obligation

Xi Zhang critiques the application of associative theories to political obligation, highlighting potential asymmetries and questioning the viability of extending personal obligations to the political realm. Jose Sauka considers the work of Karl Llewellyn and Felix Cohen and other American legal realists on identity-based legal pluralism, focusing on the study of Indian law, in relation to contemporary legal pluralist theses that diminish the emphasis on identity. Jeffrey Tsoi offers a critique of sovereign immunity in American law, challenging its justifications through popular sovereignty theory. Oskar Polanski examines the often-overlooked aspect of legal theory: the decline and dissolution of legal systems, using the EU's legal order as a case study to explore the conceptual tools available for understanding the demise of law.

6. Decolonization and Legal Knowledge: Reflections on Power and Possibility (Author Meets Reader book talk session)

The law is heavily implicated in creating, maintaining, and reproducing racialised hierarchies which bring about and preserve acute global disparities and injustices. This essential book provides an examination of the meanings of decolonisation and explores how this examination can inform teaching, researching, and practicing of law.

This book explores the ways in which the foundations of law are entangled in colonial thought and in its [re]production of ideas of commodification of bodies and space-time. Thus, it is an exploration of the ways in which we can use theories and praxes of decolonisation to produce legal knowledge for flourishing futures.

Dinner Reception

Saturday, June 8

7. Philosophical Problems in Interdisciplinary Duties and Private Law

This panel addresses philosophical dilemmas in in tort law, legal professional ethics, parental rights, and the dynamics of law-making. Jordan Wallace-Wolf reevaluates strict tort liability for abnormally dangerous activities, advocating for a risk assumption perspective over traditional wrongful action frameworks. Amin Ebrahimi Afrouzi tackles legal ethics, disputing the assumed conflict between professional and ordinary moralities and suggesting a harmonization of ethical interpretations within the lawyer's role. Faisal Bhabha revisits Kant's notion of parental rights as akin to property rights, defending a fiduciary model that aligns with children's autonomy. Jan-Baptist Lemaire challenges conventional separation of powers theory, proposing a model that equitably assesses the impact of private and governmental actions on public welfare.

Business Meeting

Sunday, June 9.

8. Philosophical Approaches to Environmental Justice.

This panel takes philosophical approaches to questions in environmental and ecological law and policy. Kevin Jobe and Danny Marrero consider future generations' rights and challenging traditional legal timelines through youth-led litigation. Maggie Wang proposes recognizing collective animal personhood, inspired by corporate personhood, to reflect animals' ecologicalcomplexity. Digno Montalván Zambrano critiques the modernity-embedded narratives of nature's rights, advocating for an ecocentric vision emphasizing local governance and epistemic pluralism. Roy Suryapratim considers the tensions between utilitarian, corrective justice and distributive perspectives in climate law, and brings the analytic tools developed by John Rawls and applied by later philosophers such as Raymond Williams, Judith Shklar and Charles Mills, to offer new approaches to thinking