Philosophy of Law Seminar

Natural Law, Positive Law, and Contemporary Moral Debates

April 4-6 | Elm Library

This intensive seminar for law students will reconsider the nature of moral reasoning in the natural law tradition and the relationship between morality and law, with a particular focus on topics related to the beginning and end of life, the punishment of crime, and freedom of expression and conscience.

The seminar is open to Yale Law Students, and is capped at 14 participants. PhD students in philosophy, political theory, and religious studies will be considered on a case by case basis. To apply please submit your CV to patrick.hough@elminstitute.org. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis.

Seminar Schedule

Thursday, April 4
6.00-8.00 Opening dinner and reception

Friday, April 5
8.30-9.00 Breakfast
9.00-10.30 Introduction
10.30-10.45 Break
10.45-12.15 Natural Law and Positive Law
12.15-1.30 Lunch
1.30-3.00 Crime and Punishment
3.00-3.15 Break
3.15-4.30 Life, Death, and the Law
4.30-6.00 Break
6.00-8.00 Dinner @ Union League Café

Saturday, April 6
9.00-9.30 Breakfast
9.30-10.45 Conscience and Speech
10.45-11.00 Break
11.00-12.00 Concluding Thoughts
12.00-1.00 Lunch

Sherif Girgis is Associate Professor of Law at Notre Dame Law School. His work at the intersection of philosophy and law—including criminal law, constitutional law, and jurisprudence—has appeared in academic and popular venues including the Virginia Law Review, the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the Yale Law Journal, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, the Cambridge Companion to Philosophy of Law, the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times.

Prior to joining Notre Dame, he practiced appellate and complex civil litigation at Jones Day in Washington, D.C., having previously served as a law clerk to Justice Samuel Alito, Jr., of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Thomas B. Griffith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Now completing his PhD in philosophy at Princeton, Girgis earned his JD at Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and won the Felix S. Cohen Prize for best paper in legal philosophy. He earned a master’s degree (BPhil) in philosophy from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and a bachelor’s in philosophy from Princeton, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude.