Distinguished Oxford scholar visits Queen's Law

Photo by Alexandra Manthorpe

Professor Leslie Green of Oxford University at Queen's Law during his visit in March 2009.

From March 9 to 13, 2009, Queen's welcomed Professor Leslie Green, Arts '78, of Oxford University as a visiting lecturer. Green, who holds Oxford's Professorship in the Philosophy of Law, made three presentations during his week-long visit, including a lecture to Queen's Law students and faculty on March 9.

His talk, hosted by the Faculty's Visitors Committee, on "Law and the Causes of Judicial Decisions," involved a re-analysis of the American realists. Green argued that the realists thought (or should have thought) not that there weren't any rules, but rather that all sources of law were merely permissive (everything except perhaps the clearest parts of the American Constitution). He feels that this approach gives the realists a consistent position.

"The realists weren't just rule sceptics," Green said.

"We were delighted to welcome Les Green back to Queen's," said Queen's Law professor Malcolm Thorburn. "This is where Professor Green got his first taste of the questions in legal theory on which he is now a world authority. We're very proud of his success and we're extremely happy to welcome back such a distinguished and such a long-time friend of the faculty."

While at Queen's, Green also made a presentation on "The Germ of Justice" to the Queen's political theory reading group on March 10 and gave a lecture entitled "Referendums and Democracy" at the philosophy department colloquium on March 12.

Green's main areas of research have included jurisprudence, sexuality and the law, toleration and free speech, and political philosophy.

"I've always been interested in theoretical issues about law and politics," Green said, "and I work on the particular issues where I feel I have the technical skills to tackle the conceptual problems, and enough empathy to understand the human dimensions of the problems."

Green has just finished a book entitled Law and Loyalties, about the general theory of law, and recently his article "On Being Tolerated" was published by Oxford University Press in the 2008 anthology The Legacy of HLA Hart: Legal, Political, and Moral Philosophy. He is also working on another major research project.

"The [other] large project is tentatively entitled ‘Love and Justice,'" Green said. "It brings together and expands my existing work on sexuality and the law into what will, I hope, be a coherent theory of the field. There is an awful lot of writing in this area just now, a lot of which is misguided in its emphasis on identities and so forth, and in its flirtation with some silly, even incoherent, views about gender. I'm going to try to fix all that!"

The week spent at Queen's Law was a homecoming for Green. Queen's University played a big role in shaping Green's career path while he was an undergraduate.

"Queen's was pivotal because of the high quality of the teaching and because it introduced me to intellectual worlds about which I knew nothing when I arrived," he said.