About us
Oxford has had unparalleled strength in jurisprudence ever since H.L.A. Hart became our Professor of Jurisprudence in 1952.
Jurisprudence in Oxford is an interdisciplinary and collaborative project. It involves work in legal philosophy as well as broader issues of moral, political, and social philosophy. The Law Faculty and the Philosophy Faculty, as well as the Department of Politics, contribute to research and teaching in the subject, as do numerous Oxford colleges. The subject benefits from many senior scholars within the law faculty who work on the field: Tom Adams, Nick Barber, Ruth Chang, Julie Dickson, Hasan Dindjer, James Edwards, Richard Ekins, Timothy Endicott, David Enoch, John Finnis, Kate Greasley, Barbara Havelkova, Grant Lamond, Michael Lobban, Adam Perry, Justine Pila, Sandy Steel, Paul Yowell, and Lucia Zedner. Other scholars who contribute to the program from other disciplines or fields include Daniel Butt, Roger Crisp, Cécile Fabre, Jeremy Fix, Rachel Fraser, Edward Harcourt, Alison Hills, Guy Kahane, Alex Kaiserman, Cécile Laborde, Dan McDermott, Jeff McMahan, Alexander Prescott-Couch, Julian Savulescu, Thomas Simpson, Thomas Sinclair, Sophie Smith, Amia Srinivasan, Zofia Stemplowska, John Tasioulas, and Jonathan Wolff. We invite you to read more about the members of Jurisprudence in Oxford in our Faculty Features.
Our group runs a number of annual events. It convenes the only interdisciplinary colloquium in Oxford featuring distinguished visiting scholars from philosophy, law, politics, and other disciplines. We invite you to explore past and upcoming speakers of the Oxford PLP Colloquium here. It also organizes the annual OxJuris Jurisprudence conference, which features cutting edge work in legal philosophy by a wide range of legal academics in the UK and abroad and whose proceedings are published in the journal Legal Theory. In conjunction with University College, the group hosts the annual H.L.A Hart and J.H. Mance Philosophy, Law & Politics Visiting Fellow, who participates in seminars and research events with faculty and students for a term. Past and upcoming fellows can be found here. The HLA Hart Memorial Lecture, given by a distinguished scholar or practitioner across the fields of philosophy, law and politics, is an annual event that draws hundreds of students and faculty from around the University and wider world. The lecture is published in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. The group is also a founding and maintaining force for the Philosophy, Law & Politics Graduate Forum, a seven-institution-wide forum across the south of England for advanced doctoral students to present work-in-progress every year with commentary from students and faculty from other institutions. The group also administers the Nicolas Berggruen Prize for Best Doctoral Dissertation in Philosophy, Law, and Politics, which recognizes the best Oxford dissertation across all three disciplines that is transformative in its ideas. Finally, the group regularly hosts events such as the annual conference of The Collective: Women in Legal Philosophy.
Our community of research students runs to 20 or more, and our courses are attended by hundreds of graduate and undergraduate students every year. And then there are numerous academic visitors from around the world who come to pursue their work and to collaborate in our uniquely conducive environment. Our energetic and convivial graduate student cohort run the long-standing Oxford Jurisprudence Discussion Group, which holds weekly meetings during term for students to engage with senior academics from around the world, and the Oxford Feminist Jurisprudence Discussion Group, which invites leading feminist thinkers and discusses new work in feminist theory. If you search for the leading legal philosophers now teaching around the world, you will find that most of them have been trained in Oxford. If you are interested in learning more about studying with us, please go here.
Read about some former faculty members: