Individual obligations in the social world: revisiting the conversation between Kutz and Gardner

Speaker: Leah Trueblood, University College Oxford
Series: UCL Legal Philosophy Forum (ULPF)

Abstract

This paper will argue that the question of whether or not to obey the law is a particular type of question: a social question. To say that the question of whether or not to obey the law is a social question is to say that it is necessarily posed to multiple legal subjects. Put differently: the question of whether or not to obey the law cannot be asked in isolation, it requires the existence of a legal community. It will be argued that because the question of whether or not to obey the law is necessarily posed to multiple legal subjects, it must be answered – at least in part – by legal subjects answering the question together. What answering the question ‘together’ entails will be the subject of this argument, as will be defending the idea that the question of whether or not to obey the law is a social question.

Speaker

Leah Trueblood is a postgraduate student in jurisprudence at University College, Oxford. She is supervised by Professor Leslie Green and grateful that the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation in her home country of Canada supports at her research. In 2015, her reviews of new books will appear in both the Law Quarterly Review and Legal Studies. Her research interests include political obligation, citizenship, and reciprocity in the law.

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