School of Law Author Series 2020/21. Seminar 14 with Professor Jules Coleman.

School of Law Author Series 2020/2021 - Conversations with Donna Lyons. Seminar 14 with Professor Jules Coleman. Professor Jules Coleman will speak at Trinity College Dublin on 3 December, on the topic of ‘Everyday Ethics’.

Date and time: 3-4pm (Dublin) / 10-11am (EST), Thursday, 3 December 2020

Attendees can join the webinar directly via Zoom and the event will be simultaneously live-streamed on the Law School Facebook page. This event is free and open to all and there will be an opportunity for Q&A. The webinar can accommodate 100 attendees and participants will be admitted on a first come, first served basis. If the webinar fills to capacity, it will be possible to watch the Facebook Live Stream, and a recording will also be made available following the event. We look forward to seeing you there!

We are delighted to welcome Jules Coleman, Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Recorded Music, and Senior Vice Provost for Academic Planning, Emeritus, New York University, to Trinity College Dublin.

Jules Coleman received his BA from Brooklyn College of the City University of New York, his Phd in Philosophy from The Rockefeller University and an MSL from Yale Law School. The author of over 100 academic essays, Coleman has edited several books and is the author of the Philosophy of Law (with Jeffrie Murphy), Markets, Morals and the Law, Risks and Wrongs and The Practice of Principle (drawn from his Clarendon Lectures). These books have been translated into many languages including Albanian, Chinese (Mandarin), Portuguese and Spanish. He is also the author of several essays on recorded music, the nature of audio and its distinctive aesthetic, and is currently senior writer/reviewer for Enjoythemusic.com.

Over the course of a four decades plus academic career, Coleman has taught at the Universities of California (Berkeley and Santa Barbara), Wisconsin (Milwaukee), and Arizona as well as at Yale and New York University in Philosophy, Law, Political Science and Economics departments and programs. Prior to his retirement, he served as Senior Provost for Academic Planning at New York University, where, in addition to his position in the Philosophy Department, he was a member of the faculty in the Clive Davis Program in Recorded Music of the Tisch School of the Arts.

Coleman has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Universities the world over, has given over 50 Named Lectures and has been awarded several Honorary Degrees in the United States and around the world, and been honored by numerous conferences celebrating his work and in books and journals devoted to his scholarship. He is continuing his academic research -- completing a book, Everyday Ethics which explores the ways in which we address problems that arise in our ordinary life can shed light on similar issues in the law, and co-authoring an essay on what we call 'asymmetric warfare' in US politics that has allowed minority rule over the past twenty five years.

About ‘Everyday Ethics’:

Everyday Ethics explores the ways in which we address problems that arise in our ordinary life can shed light on similar issues in the law. The manuscript explores examples from everyday life to see what light they can shed on how we should think about various legal and moral problems. Some examples include the disqualification of Maximum Security in the 2019 Kentucky Derby, the Houston Astros cheating scandal, the ways in which the passage of time impacts the aptness of the reactive attitudes, the difference between taking the ex ante and the ex post perspective on events, and so on. Three goals of this project are: (1) To illustrate Coleman’s methodological view that there is a genuine benefit in approaching a problem first by identifying its underlying structure as opposed to the particularities of its circumstances or content; (2) To demonstrate that there is little point in putting forth a solution to a problem without first seeing if one has fully grasped (as best as possible) the depth and essential nature of the problem; (3) To advance a view about the attraction and value of exploring everyday ethical problems.

The book will be made available online for a minimal fee and the hope is to create a community of individuals from all walks of life who are interested in exploring the issues and examples raised in the book with one another and to encourage their calling attention to other problems and examples from everyday life. For Coleman, this project is the natural conclusion of his career's work.