Jonathan Gingerich

Jonathan is a legal philosopher doing work on foundational issues in moral and political philosophy with implications for constitutional law, property, intellectual property, and the legal regulation of technology. Methodologically, he uses tools from analytic philosophy, phenomenology, feminist theory, and critical race theory, as well as doctrinal analysis. Jonathan has also published empirical, comparative research on the legal profession. He is currently working on a monograph about spontaneous freedom–the freedom of acting in unplanned and unscripted ways–and its implications for ethics, politics, and law and technology.

Jonathan is (from 1 Septembrer 2022) Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Law. Jonathan joined King’s in 2019 having previously been a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Washington University in St Louis. Jonathan completed a PhD in Philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, a JD at Harvard Law School, and a BA in Philosophy and History at Georgetown University.

Jonathan has research interests in the following areas:

• The nature and value of 'spontaneous freedom'--the sort of freedom that 'free spirits' enjoy--and its implications for ethics, politics, aesthetics, and law.
• Constitutivist theories of selfhood and action in moral philosophy.
• The relationship between culture, politics, and law, with particular empahsis on the nature of a democratic culture and its significance for constitutional law and theory.
• Applications of political philosophy to private law more broadly, with particular attention to intersections of property law and constitutional law.
• The impact of globalisation on legal education and the legal profession.

Methodologically, Jonathan is interested in moral, political, and legal philosophy, feminist legal theory, and critical race theory, as well as doctrinal analysis.