John Gardner
Professor of Jurisprudence*
John Gardner is Professor of Jurisprudence and a Fellow of University College. He was formerly Reader in Legal Philosophy at King's College London (1996-2000), Fellow and Tutor in Law at Brasenose College, Oxford (1991-6) and Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford (1986-91). He has also held visiting positions at Columbia University, Yale University, the University of Texas, Princeton University, the Australian National University and the University of Auckland. He serves on the editorial boards of numerous journals including the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, and The Journal of Moral Philosophy. Called to the Bar in 1988, he has been a Bencher of the Inner Temple since 2002 (although he does not practice).
Publications
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Journal Articles
2011
J Gardner and François Tanguay-Renaud, 'Desert and Avoidability in Self-Defense' (2011) 122 Ethics 111 [...]
DOI: 10.1086/662294
Jeff McMahan rejects the relevance of desert to the morality of self-defense. In Killing in War he restates his rejection and adds to his reasons. We argue that the reasons are not decisive and that the rejection calls for further attention, which we provide. Although we end up agreeing with McMahan that the limits of morally acceptable self-defense are not determined by anyone’s deserts, we try to show that deserts may have some subsidiary roles in the morality of self-defense. We suggest that recognizing this might help McMahan to answer some unanswered questions to which his own position gives rise.
ISBN: 0014-1704
J Gardner, 'What is Tort Law For? Part 1: The Place of Corrective Justice' (2011) 30 Law and Philosophy 1 [...]
DOI: 10.1007/s10982-010-9086-6
In this paper I discuss the proposal that the law of torts exists to do justice, more specifically corrective justice, between the parties to a tort case. My aims include clarifying the proposal and defending it against some objections (as well as saving it from some defences that it could do without). Gradually the paper turns to a discussion of the rationale for doing corrective justice. I defend what I call the ‘continuity thesis’ according to which at least part of the rationale for doing corrective justice is to mitigate one’s wrongs, including one’s torts. I try to show how much of the law of torts this thesis helps to explain, but also what it leaves unexplained. In the process I show (what I will discuss in a later companion paper) that ‘corrective justice’ cannot be a complete answer to the question of what tort law is for.
ISBN: 0167-5249
Books
2012
J Gardner, Law as a Leap of Faith: Essays on Law in General (Oxford University Press 2012) [...]
1: Law as a Leap of Faith (first published 2000) 2: Legal Positivism: 5 1/2 Myths (2001) 3: Some Types of Law (2007) 4: Can There be a Written Constitution? (2011) 5: How Law Claims, What Law Claims (2012) 6: Nearly Natural Law (2007) 7: The Legality of Law (2004) 8: On the Supposed Formality of the Rule of Law (previously unpublished) 9: Hart on Legality, Justice, and Morality (2011) 10. The Virtue of Justice and the Character of Law (2000) 11: Law in General (previously unpublished) The eligible chapters for REF2014 are 4, 5, 8, 9, 11.
ISBN: 978-0-19-969555-3
Chapters
2013
J Gardner, 'Criminals in Uniform' in R.A. Duff, Lindsay Farmer, S.E. Marshall, Massimo Renzo, and Victor Tadros (eds), The Constitution of Criminal Law (Oxford University Press 2013)
2008
J Gardner, 'Hart and Feinberg on Responsibility' in Matthew Kramer, Claire Grant, Ben Colburn and Antony Hatzistavrou (eds), The Legacy of H.L.A. Hart (Oxford University Press 2008)
J Gardner, 'Introduction' in H L A Hart, Punishment and Responsibility, Second Edition (Oxford University Press 2008)
Interests
Teaching: Criminal Law; Human Rights Law; Philosophy of Law
Research:
Philosophy of Law (including philosophy of criminal law, private law, and public law); moral and political philosophy more generally.
