Liam B. Murphy
Liam Murphy is the Herbert Peterfreund Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at NYU School of Law. He works in legal, moral, and political philosophy and the application of these inquiries to law, legal institutions, and legal theory.
Subjects of his publications range from abstract questions of moral philosophy (for example, “Nonlegislative Justification,” in Jeff McMahan et al., Principles and Persons: The Legacy of Derek Parfit, 2021) to concrete issues of legal and economic policy (for example, The Myth of Ownership: Taxes and Justice, 2002, co-authored with Thomas Nagel). A central theme in all Murphy’s work is that legal, moral, and political theory cannot be pursued independently of one another; they are, in fact, different dimensions of a single subject. This theme is evident in his book What Makes Law (2014), which locates the traditional philosophical issue of the grounds of law (the factors that determine the content of the law in force) within broader issues of political theory.
Murphy has been awarded fellowships at Columbia’s Society of Fellows in the Humanities, Harvard’s Society of Fellows, and the National Humanities Center. He has been an associate editor and is now a member of the editorial board of Philosophy & Public Affairs. Murphy was vice dean of NYU School of Law from 2007 to 2010. He holds an LLB from Melbourne University and a PhD in Philosophy from Columbia University.