Affiliated Faculty
Danielle Allen
James Bryant Conant University Professor and Director, Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation
Selim Berker
Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity
I work on the foundations of normative notions such as being required, having reason, and being fitting, whether these apply to actions (in ethics), to beliefs (in epistemology), or to emotions (in moral psychology and aesthetics), as well as on metaphysical issues about the nature of explanation and dependence more generally.
Eric Beerbohm
Professor of Government and Director, Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics
Scott Brewer
Professor of Law
Ryan D. Doerfler
Professor of Law
Most of my work has to do with the role of courts within a democracy. That work draws upon a range of philosophical literatures, from analytical jurisprudence to political philosophy. I have related, more specific interests in theories of constitutional and especially statutory interpretation.
Representative Works:
Benjamin Eidelson
Professor of Law
My work focuses on issues at the intersection of law and philosophy, especially in the domain of public law. Much of my writing and teaching concerns questions of equality and discrimination. I am also interested in a variety of other philosophical issues that arise in legal contexts, including in the areas of statutory interpretation, constitutional law, and administrative law.
Richard H. Fallon, Jr.
Story Professor of Law
I teach Constitutional Law and Federal Courts. I am interested in, and sometimes write about, issues involving the nature of constitutional rights, constitutional and statutory interpretation, legal and moral legitimacy, and the relations among rights, remedies, and judicial jurisdiction to enforce rights and award remedies.
John Goldberg
Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence
I am interested in the ways in which law recognizes responsibilities that individuals owe to one another. My primary focus is on tort law, but I also write about private law more generally (contracts, property, restitution), as well as related topics such as criminal law, common-law reasoning, and general jurisprudence.
Zoë Johnson King
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
I primarily work on ethical and metaethical issues to do with moral agency and moral responsibility, with a particular focus on praiseworthiness (in contrast to the focus on blameworthiness that predominates in the literature). In that vein, I have written about moral motivation, moral worth, and how to evaluate those who are well-meaning but morally uncertain or mistaken, as well as about some comparisons and contrasts between praise and blame. I am also interested in epistemological notions associated with forming and maintaining one’s beliefs in a responsible manner (i.e. justification, evidence, proof), both as these notions arise within the law and in everyday contexts.
Representative Works:
Christopher Lewis
Assistant Professor of Law
My research uses the tools of analytical political and moral philosophy, combined with close attention to the findings of the social sciences, to shed light on normative questions about crime, punishment, and policing; inequality and social policy; education and the family; and race and ethnicity.
Representative Works:
Martha Minow
300th Anniversary University Professor
I grapple with remedies and responses to violence and injustices targeting or affecting people based on their identities to address issues of equality, repair, inclusion, and pluralism. Finding it instructive to compare differences and similarities in treatments of people based on race, religion, gender, gender identity, disability status, I look for “third ways” for problems commonly viewed as dichotomous.
Stephen E. Sachs
Antonin Scalia Professor of Law
My work focuses on the law and theory of constitutional interpretation, the jurisdiction of state and federal courts, the history of procedure and private law, and the role of the general common law in the U.S. legal system. I am interested in the relationship of general jurisprudence to specific claims about American constitutional law or about the strengths and weaknesses of different types of constitutional arguments.
Gina Schouten
Professor of Philosophy
My research interests are in the areas of social and political philosophy and ethics. Most of my current work addresses political liberalism and political legitimacy, egalitarian justice, education, and the gendered division of labor. I’ve also written on diversity problems within the discipline of philosophy, on the ethics and politics of abortion, on non-ideal theory in political philosophy, and on other issues in feminist philosophy.
Tommie Shelby
Lee Simpkins Family Professor of Arts and Sciences and Caldwell Titcomb Professor of African and African American Studies and of Philosophy
My research and teaching centers on racial justice, economic justice, and criminal justice and how these concerns of justice are related. I’m also interested in the history of black political thought, with a particular focus on the writings of W.E.B. Du Bois, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Richard Wright.
Susanna Siegel
Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy
My work focuses on the roles of perception in the mind and culture. One of my topics is the influence on perception of what we fear, want, suspect or think we know. In my 2017 book *The Rationality of Perception* I discuss the consequences of these influences on how apply “reasonable person” standards in the law. I’ve written about vigilantism, and am very interested in its relationships to private enforement schemes and self-defense law. Another strand of my work focuses on inquiry and the philosophy of journalism.
Henry E. Smith
Fessenden Professor of Law
My work focuses on how property-related institutions manage information costs and constrain strategic behavior. I am particularly interested in how systems theory can be applied to private law, especially in the areas of property, intellectual property, remedies, and equity.
Representative Works:
Lucas Stanczyk
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Affiliated Fellows
Michael Pressman
Postdoctoral Fellow in Private Law at Harvard Law School’s Project on the Foundations of Private Law
My scholarship bridges law, philosophy, and their intersection. My legal scholarship has focused on torts, contracts, and private law remedies; my philosophy research has focused on questions about value and how to quantify and aggregate it; a focus at the intersection has been on how tort law should value lost life-years. Most recently, I have been examining questions pertaining to the loss-of-chance doctrine in tort damages.
Adam Sandel
Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law
I study law and philosophy, focusing on criminal law and criminal justice reform. My current projects explore the dual role of a prosecutor as advocate and minister of justice, the nature and proper scope of discretion in criminal law, the relation of discretion to the rule of law, theories of punishment, restorative justice, and the moral limits of algorithmic decision-making.
Bill Watson
Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law
My research focuses on the intersection of public law and philosophy, with an emphasis on precedential reasoning, statutory interpretation, and constitutional interpretation. I am interested, for example, in how precedent constrains or guides courts’ reasoning, how judges should interpret different kinds of legal texts, and why we agree on what the law requires as often as we do.
JD/PhD Students
