Matthew Henry Kramer (born 9 June 1959) is an American philosopher, currently Professor of Legal and Political Philosophy at the
University of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts.
Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge.
, established =
, other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
and a Fellow of
Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities.
In 1958, a trust was establish ...
. He writes mainly in the areas of
metaethics
In metaphilosophy and ethics, meta-ethics is the study of the nature, scope, and meaning of moral judgment. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normative ethics (questions of how one ought ...
,
normative ethics
Normative ethics is the study of ethical behaviour and is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the questions that arise regarding how one ought to act, in a moral sense.
Normative ethics is distinct from meta-ethics in that the ...
,
legal philosophy
Philosophy of law is a branch of philosophy that examines the nature of law and law's relationship to other systems of norms, especially ethics and political philosophy. It asks questions like "What is law?", "What are the criteria for legal vali ...
, and
political philosophy
Political philosophy or political theory is the philosophical study of government, addressing questions about the nature, scope, and legitimacy of public agents and institutions and the relationships between them. Its topics include politics, l ...
. He is a leading proponent of
legal positivism
Legal positivism (as understood in the Anglosphere) is a school of thought of analytical jurisprudence developed largely by legal philosophers during the 18th and 19th centuries, such as Jeremy Bentham and John Austin. While Bentham and Austin de ...
. He has been Director of the Cambridge Forum for Legal and Political Philosophy since 2000. He has been teaching at Cambridge University and at Churchill College since 1994.
Career
Kramer was born in Massachusetts and educated at Middleborough High School,
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
(B.A. in Philosophy) where he became a member of the
Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal ar ...
,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
(J.D.) and Cambridge University (Ph.D. in Philosophy and LL.D.).
His seventeen books as author and four as editor, as well as his dozens of journal articles, range over many areas of
legal
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
,
political
Politics (from , ) is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. The branch of social science that studies ...
and
moral philosophy
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
. He has received several major research awards including
Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship(2001) and
Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship(2005). He is a subject editor for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy and is on the editorial board of the Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, the American Journal of Jurisprudence, Law & Philosophy, Ratio Juris, and Legal Theory. He is also an Advisory Editor for the University of Bologna Law Review (general student-edited law journal).
At the undergraduate level he lectures and supervises in Jurisprudence, and he also lectures on Topics in Legal & Political Philosophy in the postgraduate LL.M. program. At Cambridge, he is a graduate supervisor both for Ph.D. students in the Law Faculty and for M.Phil. and Ph.D. students in the Philosophy Faculty.
He was a visiting professor at
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; he, הַאוּנִיבֶרְסִיטָה הַעִבְרִית בִּירוּשָׁלַיִם) is a public research university based in Jerusalem, Israel. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Dr. Chaim Weiz ...
in April 2009, and at
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...
in March 2012.
In 2014 he was elected a
Fellow of the British Academy
Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. The categories are:
# Fellows – scholars resident in the United Kingdom
# C ...
, the United Kingdom's
national academy
A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, most frequently in the sciences but also the humanit ...
for the humanities and social sciences.
Inclusive legal positivism
An inclusive legal positivist, Kramer argues in his boo
Where Law and Morality Meetthat moral principles can enter into the law of any jurisdiction. He contends that legal officials can invoke moral principles as laws for resolving disputes, and that they can also invoke them as threshold tests which ordinary laws must satisfy. In opposition to many other theorists, Kramer argues that these functions of moral principles are consistent with all the essential characteristics of any legal system. He is also a leading proponent of the legal positivist argument that law and morality are separable, arguing against the position of natural-law theory, which portrays legal requirements as a species of moral requirements. According to him, even though the existence of a legal system in any sizeable society is essential for the realization of fundamental moral values, law is not inherently moral either in its effects or in its motivational underpinnings.
Moral realism as a moral doctrine
Influenced by the theories of
Ronald Dworkin
Ronald Myles Dworkin (; December 11, 1931 – February 14, 2013) was an American philosopher, jurist, and scholar of United States constitutional law. At the time of his death, he was Frank Henry Sommer Professor of Law and Philosophy at New Yo ...
, Kramer is a moral realist who argues that "moral requirements are strongly objective" and that "the objectivity of ethics is itself an ethical matter that rests primarily on ethical considerations." In his boo
Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine he thus claims that "
ral realism - the doctrine that morality is indeed objective - is a moral doctrine." Unlike Dworkin, he believes that, although there is a determinately correct moral answer to most moral questions, there exists genuine moral indeterminacy in relation to some rare moral questions. He also distances himself from Dworkin's defense of
value monism
In ethics, value pluralism (also known as ethical pluralism or moral pluralism) is the idea that there are several values which may be equally correct and fundamental, and yet in conflict with each other. In addition, value-pluralism postulates th ...
.
Publications
;Books
*Legal Theory, Political Theory, and Deconstruction: Against Rhadamanthus (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), xvii + 335 pp.
*Critical Legal Theory and the Challenge of Feminism: A Philosophical Reconception (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995). xviii + 332 pp.
*John Locke and the Origins of Private Property: Philosophical Explorations of Individualism, Community, and Equality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), xii + 347 pp.
*Hobbes and the Paradoxes of Political Origins (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1997), xii + 144 pp.
*A Debate Over Rights: Philosophical Enquiries (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)
ith Nigel Simmonds and Hillel Steiner viii + 307 pp.
*In the Realm of Legal and Moral Philosophy: Critical Encounters (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1999), x + 202 pp.
*In Defense of Legal Positivism: Law Without Trimmings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), ix + 313 pp.
*Rights, Wrongs, and Responsibilities (Basingstoke: Palgrave
acmillan 2001)
ditor and principal contributor xv + 247 pp.
*The Quality of Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), xi + 482 pp.
*Where Law and Morality Meet (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), viii + 301 pp.
*Objectivity and the Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), xiv + 247 pp.
*Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine (Oxford: Blackwell
iley-Blackwell 2009), viii + 387 pp.
*The Ethics of Capital Punishment (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), xii + 353 pp.
*Torture and Moral Integrity: A Philosophical Enquiry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), xv + 339 pp.
*Liberalism with Excellence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), xiv + 432 pp.
*H.L.A. Hart: The Nature of Law (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2018), ix + 238 pp.
*Freedom of Expression as Self-Restraint (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), xiii + 346 pp.
*Without Trimmings: The Legal, Moral, and Political Philosophy of Matthew Kramer
dited by Visa Kurki and Mark McBride; pp 363-552 and 573-93 are by Kramer(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, Matthew Henry
1959 births
20th-century American philosophers
21st-century American philosophers
Academics of the University of Cambridge
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
American legal scholars
American philosophy academics
Analytic philosophers
Cornell University alumni
Ethicists
Fellows of Churchill College, Cambridge
Fellows of the British Academy
Harvard Law School alumni
Living people
Metaphilosophers
Metaphysicians
Moral realists
Philosophers of law
Philosophy writers
Political philosophers