On Law and Morality. Reflections on Neil D. MacCormick's Philosophy of Law

This Seminar analyses the legal and political theory of Neil D. MacCormick. It is structured over four days. On the first day, people will be provided with an advanced summary of the main issues covered by MacCormick’s work, especially focused on his conception of sovereignty and democracy; his theory of legal argumentation and his institutional theory of law, as reflected in his last three-volume opus Questioning Sovereignty (1999), Rhetoric and the Rule of Law (2005), and Institutions of Law (2007). On the second through fourth day (7-9.11), the seminar will adopt the workshop format. International scholars will make short presentations of papers especially commissioned for the workshop, which will be made available one to two weeks in advance. The workshop will be structured around six sections. The first day will open with a section on law as an institution, and the dynamic relationship between law and politics. Particular attention will be placed on MacCormick’s criticisms of the “classical legal positivism” advocated by Herbert Hart, and the progressive development of his institutional and post-positivistic conception of law. The second section that day will be devoted to law as practice, and will cover MacCormick’s ground-breaking work on the theory of legal argumentation and legal rhetorics. The second (and third) day will focus on a favourite applied topic in the works of Scottish legal theorists, namely, the law and politics of European integration. The third day will revolve around the post-sovereign paradigm of political communities favoured by MacCormick, and will critically engage with his inspiring theory of liberal nationalism, as a comprehensive political theory capable of upholding a degree of independence of Scotland from the United Kingdom, and simultaneously, a deep commitment to further European integration. We conclude the third day of the workshop with a roundtable on Europe’s constitutional future.