Sophia Whicher recently graduated from the University of Toronto with a double major in Philosophy and Ethics, Society and Law. She is especially interested in Ethics and the Philosophy of Emotions, and their intersection with the public sphere, including our political and legal systems. One of her favourite parts of her degree was being able to teach, and she hopes to incorporate teaching philosophy and the spirit of inquisitive learning it encourages into her future. Outside of her academic life, she enjoys travelling, drinking tea, and annoying her partner by tirelessly asking questions about everything.
Legal Positivism and a Dynamic Picture of the Law
Abstract: The question of whether there is a necessary connection between law and morality is one which manifests concretely in the aftermath of immoral legal systems. In this paper, I use the post-war German Grudge Informer cases as a lens through which to examine HLA Hart’s defence of the Separation Thesis. In thinking about what law is, Hart shapes a ‘static’ picture of the law, wherein judges faced with cases outside the core of settled meaning must look outside the law in order to make their decisions. I argue that if we reconstruct Hart’s defence so as to address why it is we care about law, the picture he paints of the law becomes much more dynamic, which, in turn, makes it much harder for him to uphold his Separation Thesis.
2020 Short List
Congratulations to the the following applicants whose papers were short listed for the Keenan Prize this year:
- Camylle Lanteigne from McGill University – The Watermelon Way: Anticapitalism and Environmentalism in the American Rights of Nature Movement
- Helen Han Wei Luo from Simon Fraser University – Incommensurability and Restitution: A response to the Irreparable Harms Objection
- Patrick Thomas Fraser from the University of Toronto – Philosophical Insight: Falling Whilst Asleep
- Kwesi Thomas from the University of Toronto – A Global Difference Principle: Rawls and Beitz on Global Economic Inequality