Conference Announcement: Hart and Fuller at Fifty at NYU

On Friday, February 1, 2008 and Saturday, February 2, NYU Law School and the NYU Law Review will host a conference to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Hart-Fuller debate: the exchange between H.L.A. Hart and Lon Fuller in the pages of the Harvard Law Review, following Hart’s 1957 Holmes Lecture at Harvard Law School.

The exchange was one of the great moments in modern jurisprudence and it set new terms for debate between legal positivists and their opponents through the 1960s and beyond. Hart’s contribution anticipated many of the themes in his book, The Concept of Law, published in 1961; and Fuller’s contribution anticipated many of the themes in his book, The Morality of Law, published in 1964.  The exchange considered the inadequacies of Austinian positivism, the role of purpose in legal analysis, the open texture of natural language and the problems of interpretation that that gives rise to, and above all the relation between law and morality and the contribution that legal philosophy might make to our understanding of what went wrong in regard to law and the rule of law in Nazi Germany from 1933-1945.

At the conference, eight leading jurists from the United States, Canada, and England*Jules Coleman (Yale), David Dyzenhaus (Toronto), Leslie Green (Oxford), Nicola Lacey (LSE), Liam Murphy (NYU), Fred Schauer (Harvard), Jeremy Waldron (NYU), and Ben Zipursky (Fordham)*will offer their perspectives on the debate, on its enduring influence and on the particular themes that arise out of it.

The conference will run all day Friday, February 1, beginning at 9:15 a.m., and it will end at lunchtime on Saturday. All are welcome. There is no registration fee. The event will be held in the Lester Pollack ’57 Colloquium Room, 9th floor, Furman Hall.

The tentative program is as follows:

Friday, February 1
8:30-9:00 a.m. Continental Breakfast
9:00 a.m. Welcoming remarks

9:15 a.m. Session 1A: LESLIE GREEN (University of Oxford):
“Positivism and the Inseparability of Law and Morals”

10:30 a.m. Break

10:45 a.m. Session 1B: JULES COLEMAN (Yale Law School)
"The Moral Force of Legal Directives"

12:00 * 1:15 Lunch

1:15 a.m.  Session 2A: LIAM MURPHY (NYU Law School)
“The Normativity of Law”

2:30  Break

2:45 Session 2B: FRED SCHAUER (Harvard University)
“The Last Word on Vehicles in the Park”

4:00 Break

4:15 Session 2C: BEN ZIPURSKY (Fordham Law School)
"Mischief under the Penumbra"

5:30 Cocktail Reception
7:30 Dinner

Saturday, February 2
8:30 Continental Breakfast

9:00 a.m. Session 3A: DAVID DYZENHAUS (University of Toronto Law)
“The Grudge Informer Revisited”

10:15 a.m. Break

10:30 a.m. Session 3B: NICOLA LACEY (London School of Economics)
“The Hart-Fuller Debate: History, Politics and Philosophy”

11:15 a.m. Break

11:30 a.m. Session 3C: JEREMY WALDRON (NYU Law School):
“Positivism and Legality: Hart’s Shifty Response to Fuller”