Joseph Raz

Professor Raz’s research interests are in Legal, moral, and political philosophy, theories of normativity and rationality

Personal website

Professor Raz joined the Dickson Poon School of Law as a Research Professor in 2011. Following completion of a Magister Juris from The Hebrew University, Jerusalem and a D. Phil which he gained from Oxford University, Professor Raz lectured at The Hebrew University. In 1972, he became Fellow and tutor in law at Balliol College, Oxford. Here he held a number of positions including CUF lecturer, 1972-85, Professor of the philosophy of law, 1985 and Research Officer, 2006-2009. Professor Raz has been a Professor of Law at Columbia Law School since 2002 where he continues to teach.

Professor Raz also holds Honorary Doctorates from the Katholieke Universiteit, Brussels and from King’s College, London and has held a number of visiting academic appointments as visiting professor: at Rockefeller University, 1974; The Australian National University, 1979; The University of California at Berkley, 1984; The University of Toronto, 1987; Yale Law School, 1988; University of Southern California, 1989 & 2009, a Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute, UC Irvine, Spring 1989; Visiting Professor at Columbia Law School- regularly between 1991 and 2001; Visiting Mellon fellow at Princeton University 1993; Philosopher in residence, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2001 and British- Hispanic Professor, Complutensa University, Madrid 2007. He is a member of a number of academic societies and has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 1987 and an Honorable Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences since 1992.

Professor Raz has given a number of special lectures including: Ida BeameLecture, Iowa Law School, 1988; Kobe Lecture, Tokyo & Kyoto, 1994, Jerome Hall Lecture, Indiana Law School, 1994; Miller Lecture, University of Glasgow, 1994; Moffett Lecture, Princeton 1996; Olin Distinguish Lecture, Notre Dame 1999; Seeley Lectures, Cambridge 2000; Tanner lectures, Berkeley, 2001, Knox Lecture, University of St. Andrews, 2001. Petracyzki Lecture, University of Warsaw, 2002. Storrs Lectures, Yale 2003; Stice Lecture, U. of Washington, 2003. Dewey Lecture, U. of Minnesota, 2005; Minerva Lecture on Human Rights, Tel Aviv University 2006; Keynote address, BSET conference, Southampton 2006, & at Meta-Ethics Conference, Madison 2008; lead plenary lecture, IVR World Congress, Beijing 2009, Kellogg Lecture in Jurisprudence, Library of Congress, Washington D.C. 2011.