The Force Hypothesis

Speaker: Nicolaos Stavropoulos, Professor of Law and Philosophy (Oxford)

Chair: George Letsas, Professor of Philosophy of Law (UCL Laws)

About the Seminar:

The force hypothesis holds that, in its nature, the law reserves the power to use force to the political community and sets institutional conditions on such use. In this way, law decouples the satisfaction of demands from might or bare power. It therefore performs the egalitarian role of neutralizing differences in such power. I shall defend the force hypothesis against its rival, the guidance hypothesis, on which law fundamentally aims to shape the behaviour of multitudes by guiding their action.

About the Speaker:

Nicolaos Stavropoulos is Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Oxford. He holds one of the three permanent University posts in legal philosophy at Oxford. His book Objectivity in Law was published by the Clarendon Press. He is currently editing a volume of original essays, Interpretivism and its Critics, to appear in 2026. Stavropoulos has been a Law and Public Affairs Fellow at Princeton University. He serves on the board of Legal Theory and Law and Philosophy and is one of the editors of the Oxford Legal Philosophy Series at OUP. Stavropoulos co-hosts The Jurisprudes, a podcast in legal philosophy.

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