Symposium:
Is Morality Universal and Should the Law Care?

Date & Time:
Friday, September 26, 2008
8:45 am – 5:00 pm
Registration is closed.

Location:
Brooklyn Law School
Subotnick Center
250 Joralemon Street
Brooklyn, New York
www.brooklaw.edu/map

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Discoveries about the ways our minds work lead us to ask important questions that concern the law. Among them are: Do we have a universal set of moral principles, which suggests that people should be held responsible for complying with them regardless of articulated legal standards? Is there a universal set of justifications and excuses for otherwise bad conduct? Do we have a strong impulse toward retribution, and if so, should the law reinforce or temper that impulse? Are there universal principles of social cognition, and if so, how should the law respond to their existence? Can we tie any such patterns to evolution? Are we configured to blame more easily than to praise, and how does the law reflect this asymmetry?

Participants in the symposium included experts in law, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, history, and psychiatry. Their presence at the symposium highlighted both the occasional consensus and more frequent controversy about these most important questions.

Co-sponsored by:
Brooklyn Law School’s Center for the Study of Law, Language and Cognition and the Brooklyn Law Review.

Speakers and Agenda

8:15 am		Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:45 am		Opening Remarks
9:00 am		Moral Universals vs. Adaptive Flexibility
		Panelists John M. Darley Dorman T. Warren Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Princeton University Adam J. Kolber Associate Professor of Law University of San Diego School of Law; Visiting Associate Professor of Law Brooklyn Law School Bailey H. Kuklin Professor of Law Brooklyn Law School Discussant Laurence R. Tancredi Clinical Professor of Psychiatry New York University School of Medicine Moderator Miriam H. Baer Assistant Professor of Law Brooklyn Law School
11:15 am		Break
11:30 am		Moral Attribution: Positive and Negative
		Panelists Susanna L. Blumenthal Associate Professor of Law and History University of Minnesota Law School Lawrence M. Solan Don Forchelli Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Brooklyn Law School Discussant Joshua Knobe Assistant Professor of Philosophy University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill Moderator Jason Mazzone Associate Professor of Law Brooklyn Law School
1:00 pm		Lunch
2:00 pm		How Universal are Moral Universals?
		Panelists Paul Bloom Professor of Psychology & Linguistics Yale University Ray Jackendoff Seth Merrin Professor of Philosophy and Co-Director Center for Cognitive Studies Tufts University John Mikhail Associate Professor of Law Georgetown University Law Center Moderator/Discussant Michael Cahill Associate Professor of Law Brooklyn Law School
4:45 pm		General Discussion
		Moderator Kevin M. Carlsmith Department of Psychology Colgate University