Julie Dickson wins the Alice Tay Book Prize 2024

Julie Dickson, Professor of Legal Philosophy, Fellow and Senior Law Tutor at Somerville College, has won the Alice Tay Book Prize for excellence in legal theory awarded by the International Association for the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (IVR). The IVR is currently holding its World Congress in Seoul, South Korea.

Elucidating Law (OUP 2022) addresses how legal philosophers should approach and engage with their subject-matter, and what constraints are incumbent on them as they do so. Julie offers her own distinctive response, advocating that legal philosophers should espouse an approach that Dickson terms 'Indirectly Evaluative Legal Philosophy.' This distinctive approach can facilitate legal philosophers' understanding of aspects of the nature of law, whilst avoiding prematurely or inappropriately regarding law as inherently morally valuable. 

Julie says "It’s a particular honour that the prize is named after the eminent Australian legal philosopher Alice Erh-Soon Tay who contributed so much to both jurisprudence and to the advancement of human rights. My future research plans include examining further the idea of "experience-sensitive engagement with features of law" that I introduced in chapter 4 of Elucidating Law. In my view, this idea has the potential to bring together aspects of the analytical, and the critical, traditions in the philosophy of law."

Back in October 2022, the Jurisprudence Discussion Group hosted a book symposium of Elucidating Law (OUP 2022) hosted by Julie Dickson with comments from Tom Adams, Associate Professor of Law and Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy (Jurisprudence) in the School of Law, University of Surrey.

Watch the recorded book symposium