John Tasioulas

John Tasioulas (born 18 December 1964) is a Greek-Australian moral and legal philosopher. He is, from September 1, 2014, the inaugural Yeoh Professor of Politics, Philosophy and Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London and Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy, and Law. He holds dual Australian and British citizenship.

Biography

John Tasioulas was born in Wollongong, New South Wales, in 1964. His parents migrated to Australia from Dasyllio in the Grevena region of Greece. He was a student at Northcote High School and Melbourne High School. He completed undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and Law at the University of Melbourne and was elected the 1989 Rhodes Scholar for Victoria. He received a doctorate (D.Phil in Philosophy) from Oxford University for a thesis on moral relativism which was supervised by Joseph Raz. Tasioulas was a Lecturer in Jurisprudence at the University of Glasgow (1992-1998), Reader in Moral and Legal Philosophy at the University of Oxford where he was a Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College (1998-2010), and Quain Professor of Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Laws, University College London (2011-2014). He is an Honorary Professorial Fellow at Melbourne Law School, an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, a Distinguished Research Fellow of the Oxford Uehrio Centre for Practical Ethics, and a member of the Academia Europaea. He delivered the 'Or 'Emet Lecture at Osgoode Hall Law School in 2011 and the Natural Law Lecture at Notre Dame Law School in 2012.

Academic expertise

Tasioulas works in moral, legal and political philosophy. He has advanced a version of the communicative theory of punishment, according to which the overarching point of punishment is the communication of censure to wrong-doers. His version of the theory is distinctive in making room for the value of mercy alongside that of retributive justice.

In the philosophy of human rights, Tasioulas has argued for an orthodox understanding of such rights, according to which they are moral rights possessed by all human beings simply in virtue of their humanity. This contrasts with a more recent view that characterizes human rights in terms of some political role(s), such as being triggers for international intervention or benchmarks of internal legitimacy. According to Tasioulas, human rights have a foundation both in a plurality of human interests and in equal human dignity.

Tasioulas' writings have contributed to the revival of a broadly value-based approach to customary international law. His co-edited volume, The Philosophy of International Law (OUP, 2010), is a central text in the field.

Works

• ‘In Defence of Relative Normativity: Communitarian Values and the Nicaragua Case’, (1996) 16 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, pp. 85–128.
• ‘Relativism, Realism and Reflection’, (1998) 41 Inquiry, pp .377-410.
• 'Mercy', (2003) CIII Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp. 101–132.
• 'Punishment and Repentance', Philosophy 81 (2006), pp. 279–322.
• 'Games and the Good', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society/ supplementary volume LXXX (2006), pp. 237–264
• 'The Moral Reality of Human Rights', in T. Pogge (ed.), Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Who Owes What to the Very Poor? (OUP, 2007), pp. 75–101.
• S. Besson and J. Tasioulas (eds.), The Philosophy of International Law (OUP, 2010)
• ‘Taking Rights out of Human Rights’, Ethics 120 (July 2010), pp. 647–678.
• 'Towards a Philosophy of Human Rights', Current Legal Problems 65 (2012), pp. 1-30.
• 'Human Rights, Legitimacy, and International Law', American Journal of Jurisprudence 58 (2013), pp. 1-25.

External links

• 'Is Dignity the Foundation of Human Rights', 'Or Emet Lecture, 10 March 2011 video
• 'Towards a Philosophy of Human Rights', Inaugural Lecture, University College London, 19 January 2012 video
• 'Human Rights', Philosophy Bites Interview, 12 October 2013 podcast
• 'Humanity's Debate', Neos Kosmos, 2 December 2013, profile article
• 'Professor John Tasioulas joins King's', 8 July 2014

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