-
6Small JusticeIn Peter Atterton & Tamra Wright (eds.), Face to face with animals: Levinas and the animal question, Suny Press. pp. 109-120. 2019.
-
Human rights in the natural law traditionIn James Dominic Rooney & Patrick Zoll (eds.), Beyond Classical Liberalism: Freedom and the Good, Routledge Chapman & Hall. 2024.
-
20The loneliness of the refereeIn Ted Richards (ed.), Soccer and Philosophy: Beautiful Thoughts on the Beautiful Game, Open Court. pp. 347-356. 2010.
-
Philosophical challenges and prospects for natural law foundations of human rightsIn Tom P. S. Angier, Iain T. Benson & Mark Retter (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of natural law and human rights, Cambridge University Press. 2022.
-
Metaphysical foundations of natural law theoriesIn George Duke & Robert P. George (eds.), The Cambridge companion to natural law jurisprudence, Cambridge University Press. 2017.
-
Integrity and truth in Law's empireIn Salman Khurshid, Lokendra Malik & Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco (eds.), Dignity in the legal and political philosophy of Ronald Dworkin, Oxford University Press. 2018.
-
Philosophical challenges and prospects for natural law foundations of human rightsIn Tom P. S. Angier, Iain T. Benson & Mark Retter (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of natural law and human rights, Cambridge University Press. 2022.
-
20‘Picnic, lightning’: the normative role of imagination in legal inquiryJurisprudence 13 (2): 267-274. 2022.‘No trace anywhere of life’, Samuel Beckett says, ‘pah, no difficulty there, imagination not dead yet, yes, dead, good, imagination dead imagine’.1 Imagination oscillates in Beckett’s dense text be...
-
22The Idea of Small JusticeRatio Juris 34 (3): 224-243. 2021.Talk about social or distributive justice, at least among legal and political philosophers, tends to focus heavily on institutions. This way of thinking about justice owes a great deal to John Rawls. Rawls’s theory of justice was famously criticised by Robert Nozick, who in turn attracted an influential critique from G. A. Cohen. The story of these critiques is well known, but this article tells it in an unfamiliar way. The common theme in Nozick’s and Cohen’s arguments, I contend, is that there…Read more
-
16Exclusionary conduct in competition law: a consequence-sensitive deontological accountJurisprudence 12 (2): 123-150. 2020.The dominant theoretical approach to the prohibition of exclusionary conduct in competition law distinguishes exclusionary conduct from normal competitive conduct based on their economic outcomes....
-
25Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory (edited book)Edward Elgar Publishing. 2019.This thought-provoking Research Handbook provides a snapshot of current research on natural law theory in ethics, politics and law, showcasing the breadth and diversity of contemporary natural law thought. The Research Handbook on Natural Law Theory examines topics such as foundational figures in Western natural law theory, natural law ideas in a variety of religious and cultural traditions, normative foundations of natural law, as well as issues of law and governance. Featuring contributions by…Read more
-
39Functions, validity and the strong natural law thesisJurisprudence 10 (2): 237-245. 2019.Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2019, Page 237-245.
-
29Natural Law and the Nature of LawCambridge University Press. 2019.This book provides the first systematic, book-length defence of natural law ideas in ethics, politics and jurisprudence since John Finnis's influential Natural Law and Natural Rights. Incorporating insights from recent work in ethical, legal and social theory, it presents a robust and original account of the natural law tradition, challenging common perceptions of natural law as a set of timeless standards imposed on humans from above. Natural law, Jonathan Crowe argues, is objective and normati…Read more
-
27Lévinas on Shared Ethical JudgmentsJournal of the British Society for Phenomenology 42 (3): 233-242. 2011.
-
37Philosophy, politics and economic change: Review of 'Robert Nozick'' by A. R. Lacey (review)Policy 18 (2): 48-49. 2002.The American philosopher Robert Nozick is best known for his controversial book, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, in which he advanced a radical libertarian account of the state. However, as A. R. Lacey observes in this commendably concise overview of Nozick's philosophical writings, Nozick himself always resisted being labelled a political philosopher. Indeed, as Lacey's book demonstrates, Nozicks published work touched on a remarkably wide range of philosophical issues, including not only political…Read more
-
51Existentialism, liberty and the ethical foundations of lawDissertation, . 2006.The thesis examines the theoretical relationship between law and ethics. Its methodology is informed by both the existentialist tradition of ethical phenomenology and the natural law tradition in legal theory. The main claim of the thesis is that a phenomenological analysis of ethical experience, as suggested by the writings of existentialist authors such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Emmanuel Levinas, provides important support for the natural law tradition. This claim is developed and defended throu…Read more
-
37Law as MemoryLaw and Critique 26 (3): 251-266. 2015.This article explores the claim that law is characteristically in search of the past. We argue that the structure of memory defines our relationship with the past and this relationship, in turn, has important implications for the nature of law. The article begins by examining the structure of memory, drawing particularly on the work of Henri Bergson. It then draws out the implications of Bergson’s theory for the interplay of past and present, highlighting the challenges this poses for law’s proj…Read more
-
10Review of Marinos Diamantides (ed), Levinas, Law, Politics (review)Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 33 196-198. 2008.
-
107Natural Law TheoriesPhilosophy Compass 11 (2): 91-101. 2016.This article considers natural law perspectives on the nature of law. Natural law theories are united by what Mark Murphy calls the natural law thesis: law is necessarily a rational standard for conduct. The natural law position comes in strong and weak versions: the strong view holds that a rational defect in a norm renders it legally invalid, while the weak view holds that a rational defect in a legal norm renders it legally defective. The article explores the motivations for the natural law p…Read more
-
41Explaining natural rights: Ontological freedom and the foundations of political discourseNew York University Journal of Law and Liberty 4 70. 2009.
-
45Natural Law and Normative InclinationsRatio Juris 28 (1): 52-67. 2015.Natural law ethics holds that practical rationality consists in engaging in non-defective ways with a range of fundamental goods. These basic goods are characteristically presented as reflecting the natural properties of humans, but the details of this picture vary widely. This article argues that natural law ethics can usefully be understood as a type of dispositional theory of value, which identifies the basic goods with those objectives that humans are characteristically disposed to pursue an…Read more
-
33Reinterpreting government neutralityAustralian Journal of Legal Philosophy 29 118-139. 2004.The principle of government neutrality, as commonly understood, enshrines the idea that government bodies ought to treat all citizens equally. I argue that the traditional interpretation of this principle in liberal constitutionalism has involved a prohibition against legal actors distinguishing between subjects on the basis of their personal characteristics. This approach is unsatisfactory, as it constrains the law's ability to respond to evolved social practices of discrimination. To illustrat…Read more
-
175Is an Existentialist Ethics Possible?Philosophy Now 47 (Aug/Sept): 29-30. 2004.Philosophers continue to be sceptical about the possibility of constructing an existentialist ethical theory. This article explores two of the main reasons for this scepticism and draws on Jean-Paul Sartre's "Existentialism and Humanism" to suggest that there is a way around them
-
148Natural Law Beyond FinnisJurisprudence 2 (2): 293-308. 2011.The natural law tradition in ethics and jurisprudence has undergone a revival in recent years, sparked by the work of John Finnis and the 'new natural law theorists' in the early 1980s. The ensuing decades have seen the emergence of an increasingly rich body of natural law scholarship, but this diversification has gone unnoticed by many outside the field. This article seeks to clarify the relationship between the core claims of the new natural law outlook and the more specific views of individua…Read more
-
131Dworkin on the value of integrityDeakin Law Review 12 167. 2007.This article explores and critiques Ronald Dworkin's arguments on the value of integrity in law. Dworkin presents integrity in both legislation and adjudication as holding inherent political value. I defend an alternative theory of the value of integrity, according to which integrity holds instrumental value as part of a legal framework that seeks to realise a particular set of basic values taken to underpin the legal system as a whole. It is argued that this instrumental-value theory explains t…Read more
-
23Self and Other in Ethics and Law: A Comment on MandersonAustralian Journal of Legal Philosophy 33 145-151. 2008.This article engages with Desmond Manderson's recent book, Proximity, Levinas and the Soul of Law. I begin by examining a vexed topic in Levinas scholarship: namely, the very possibility of a Levinasian legal theory. Manderson makes a constructive and, I think, important contribution to this question, insisting that Levinas does not require us to segregate the domains of ethics and law, as some interpreters have suggested. This basic issue provides us with a springboard to explore two other them…Read more
-
Levinasian ethics and the concept of lawIn Desmond Manderson (ed.), Essays on Levinas and law: a mosaic, Palgrave-macmillan. 2009.
-
55Existentialism and natural lawAdelaide Law Review 26 55-72. 2005.This paper explores methodological connections between the existentialist and natural law traditions, with particular emphasis on the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre and John Finnis. Existentialist approaches to phenomenology hold promise in illuminating the epistemological foundations of natural law accounts, especially those emphasising human self-fulfilment through practical choice. Some methodological challenges common to projects in the fields of existentialist ethics and natural law are discu…Read more
Australia
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Law |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |