TALK: The 300 year error: misunderstanding politics, law and ourselves

Why do people owe political and legal obligations to each other? Why, for example, can I be prevented from punching you or burning your house down? Political and legal thinkers generally agree on the nature of the answer to this question, even if they disagree on the details. The answer focusses on the state and the community. But in this talk, I argue that this answer is wrong. What is more, I will suggest that you already know it is wrong, or at least that you knew it was wrong before you were programmed to think otherwise. We will also discover that many other people knew this, though most of them have been dead quite a while. The talk will suggest a better way to understand the political, the legal (especially private law) and our own relations with other people.

Allan Beever is a professor of law at the University of South Australia. He has previously held positions at the Universities of Southampton, Durham and Auckland, and at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, Hamburg. He has also held a visiting position at the University of Ottawa. He has won numerous awards for his research including, in 2007, the runner-up for the Birks prize by the Society of Legal Scholars for the best legal scholarship that year in the United Kingdom for his book Rediscovering the Law of Negligence.

Professor Beever has a rare command of both deep legal theory combined with a depth of knowledge of many cases, His recent articles include ‘Barclay v Penberthy and the Collapse of the High Court’s Tort Jurisprudence’ and ‘Kant on the Law of Marriage’. Date & Time: Tuesday 18 June from 6-7.30pm Venue: UWA Law School, Masters Seminar Room (Room G30 in Law Link Building)

Join members of the Judiciary, Bar, Legal Practice and the Academy for this seminar. Wine and cheese will be served.