We are excited to announce that this year’s Kellogg Biennial Lecture on Jurisprudence will feature political philosopher and Harvard professor Michael Sandel.
Set for 3 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 29 in Room 119 of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, the lecture, titled “Justice, Neutrality and Law,” will focus on such questions as whether the law should affirm certain moral judgments, or be neutral on moral and spiritual questions.
The Kellogg Biennial Lecture on Jurisprudence presents the most distinguished contributors to international jurisprudence, as judged through writings, reputation, and broad and continuing influence on contemporary legal scholarship. Previous Kellogg Lecturers include Ronald Dworkin, Joseph Raz, and Amartya Sen. The series has been endowed by Frederic R. and Molly S. Kellogg.
Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980. Sandel’s writings–on justice, ethics, democracy, and markets–have been translated into 27 languages. His legendary course “Justice” is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named on China Newsweek’s list of “most influential figures” of 2010.
Professor Sandel’s books include What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets; Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?; The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering; and Democracy’s Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy. They relate the enduring questions of political philosophy to the most vexing moral and civic questions of our time.
Professor Sandel, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne (Paris), delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at Oxford University, and served on the President’s Council on Bioethics (2002-2005). A graduate of Brandeis University (1975), he received his doctorate from Oxford University (D.Phil., 1981), where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
The event, which will be hosted at the Library of Congress, and presented by the Law Library of Congress and the Library’s John W. Kluge Center, is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required but seating is limited.
We hope to see you at the event! For those readers who will not be able to attend the program, a member of the In Custodia Legis team will be live-tweeting the event via Twitter @LawLibCongress, using #KelloggLecture.