Filipa Paes

Filipa is a DPhil Candidate at Hertford College, supervised by Professor Timothy Endicott.

Filipa's thesis explains the role of bivalence and gradience in law in order to propose that there be more gradience in the law. Her thesis questions the widely held view that liability determinations ought generally to be bivalent (e.g., criminal verdicts or holdings as to liability for a loss) and sets forth strategies for dealing with gradience in law. Could a legal system instead hold people guilty or liable to a certain degree? Her thesis responds to the worries the proposal it makes may prompt, focusing particularly on how more gradience in the law impacts the scope of discretion, indeterminacy and arbitrariness in legal reasoning. At a practical level, Filipa introduces and defends strategies to make use of more gradient operations in law through legal drafting and to approach the interpretation of gradient standards, whilst responding to concerns that may arise in each of these contexts. 

Her wider research interests fall within legal drafting, legal interpretation, the rule of law, analytic jurisprudence, philosophy of language, epistemology. Filipa is a founding and executive member of The Collective of Women in Legal Philosophy, a group created to promote and support women in legal philosophy and legal theory, and co-convened the Oxford Jurisprudence Discussion Group from April 2023 until April 2026.

Filipa tutors Jurisprudence at St. Hilda's College and Hertford College. In the past, Filipa has also taught at Jesus College. 

Publications:

F Paes, 'Juridical Bivalence and The Rule of Law' (2025) 23 Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy (forthcoming)