From Politics to Philosophy
David Lyons
Boston University School of Law Working Paper 07-20
Abstract
This is my contribution to the volume Legal Philosophy – Five Questions, the editors of which invited participants to address the following questions: (1) Why were you initially drawn to the philosophy of law? (2) For which of your contribution(s) to legal philosophy so far would you most like to be remembered, and why? (3) What are the most important issues in legal philosophy, and why are they distinctively issues of legal philosophy rather than some other discipline? (4) What is the relationship between legal philosophy and legal practice? Should legal philosophers be more concerned about the effect of their scholarship on legal practice? (5) To which problem, issue or broad area of legal philosophy would you most like to see more attention paid in the future?
My essay mainly addresses question (1), on the assumption that my response would likely be more interesting (as well as historically more informative in important ways) than a reply to questions (2) through (5). In the process, I review my principal attempts to contribute to moral, legal and political theory. This essay may therefore be regarded as a mini-memoir of a political activist who during the Cold War became a philosopher but who also continued to function somewhat as an activist in an academic setting.
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Suggested Citation:
Forthcoming in Legal Philosophy -- 5 Questions, ed. M.E.J. Nielsen and I. Farrell (New York: Automatic Press, 2007)
David Lyons Contact Information
Boston University School of Law
765 Commonwealth Avenue
Boston, MA 02215
Email address: dbl@bu.edu
Office Phone: (617) 353-3135