Ronald Dworkin’s work always spanned a wide array of topics, from the most abstract jurisprudence through the details of American constitutional law all the way over to political philosophy and theories of justice and equality. In the last decades of his life, however, Dworkin’s work flowered in ways that went beyond even this prodigious range. Though he continued his central work in the philosophy of law and constitutional theory, he also addressed issues in international law, human dignity, the philosophy of religion, the relation between ethics, morality and legal theory, and the unity of practical thought generally. This conference will explore some of these themes in Dworkin’s late work. Beginning with a panel on his understanding of religion, we will also convene discussions of his work on legal integrity, international law, and the relation between law and morality. There will be a total of nine presentations, with plenty of time for discussion. All are welcome.
Panel 1 (Friday 1:30 p.m.): Dworkin’s Religion without God.
Eric Gregory (Princeton),
Moshe Halbertal (NYU and Hebrew U.) Ronald Dworkin Religion Without God: Morality and the Transcendent
Larry Sager (Texas) Solving Religious Liberty
Panel 2 (Friday 4:30 p.m.): Dworkin on international law.
Samantha Besson (Fribourg)
The Political Legitimacy of International Law: Sovereign States and their International Institutional Order
John Tasioulas (King’s College, London)
Panel 3 (Saturday 10 a.m.): The idea of integrity in Law’s Empire.
Andrei Marmor (Cornell) Integrity in Law’s Empire
Jeremy Waldron (NYU) The Rise and Decline of Integrity
Panel 4 (Saturday 2:15 p.m.): Law and morality in Justice for Hedgehogs.
Mark Greenberg (UCLA)
What Makes a Moral Duty Legal? Dworkin’s Judicial Enforcement Theory Versus the Moral Impact Theory
Ben Zipursky (Fordham)
For a decade, 1993-2003, Jacques Derrida taught at New York University as Global Distinguished Professor. During those years he gave seminars on important topics of his later work: testimony, hospitality and hostility, perjury and pardon, and the death penalty, Shakespeare’s calculative grid and racism. They represent for many the most sustained and considered engagement by deconstruction with political questions. Most of these seminars have now been posthumously published, both in French and in English translation. Commemorating the twentieth anniversary of Derrida’s death in 2004, the Departments of Comparative Literature teams up with the Maison Française and Department of German, which hosted Derrida when he came to NYU. On 21 November 2024 the Maison in conjunction with the two departments invites scholars of Derrida’s work to speak at a one-day conference devoted to the topics of Derrida’s New York teaching.
Full schedule coming soon!