Institute for Law and Philosophy

A new scholarly center for the advancement of legal theory and philosophy has been launched at the Rutgers University School of Law at Camden.

The Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy seeks to advance the knowledge and understanding of legal topics of philosophical significance, particularly those in such areas as contemporary analytic philosophy, criminal law theory, and moral theory.

The ILP features top scholars from Rutgers-New Brunswick's highly acclaimed philosophy faculty and the nationally ranked Rutgers-Camden School of Law.

The Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy represents "the natural and logical partnership of two strong Rutgers programs in an endeavor that allows everyone involved to greatly extend the university's acknowledged excellence in philosophical inquiry," explains Dennis Patterson, a professor at the Rutgers-Camden law school and a co-director of the institute.

The nascent scholarly organization will hit the ground running with a May 25-26 conference featuring leading law and philosophy scholars from the University of San Diego, the University of Pennsylvania, Wayne State University, the University of Texas, the University of Illinois, and more. The assembled experts will discuss "Justifications and Excuses: Legal and Philosophical Perspectives," and will present new research across a diverse array of disciplines.

The two-day national conference will be held at the Rutgers-Camden School of Law.

"The Rutgers-Camden law school is pleased to serve as home base for this promising endeavor," says Rutgers-Camden Law Dean Rayman Solomon. "This is an excellent example of how collaboration across disciplines benefits both the legal profession and legal scholarship."

The roster of participating faculty lends luster to the new institute. As an example, Patterson has been named the Trento Chair in Law for 2004-05 as part of the Fulbright Distinguished Chairs Program. During that academic year, Patterson will teach legal philosophy at the University of Trento, located in Italy approximately 90 minutes from the Italian-Austrian border.

Alvin Goldman, a Board of Governors Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers-New Brunswick, also serves on the ILP board. He is an internationally recognized expert in epistemology and is the author of several books published by Harvard University Press and Oxford University Press.

For more information about the Rutgers Institute of Law and Philosophy, visit www.lawandphil.rutgers.edu.

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Author: Press Release-Rutgers