LEGAL THEORY WORKSHOP
presents
James Penner
National University of Singapore
Faculty of Law
Hohfeld and the Bundle of Rights Picture of Property:
A ‘Nominalist’ Revolution that Wasn’t
Friday, November 3, 2017
12:30 - 2:00
Room 219, Flavelle Building
78 Queen's Park
In the near century since Hohfeld published the second of his two papers on fundamental legal conceptions , in which he introduced the concept of ‘multital’ rights, the application of Hohfeld’s thought to the analysis of the law of property, it is submitted, has, remarkably, never really been explored to the level of detail necessary to make sense of his contribution, if any, to our understanding of property rights. This is so even though Hohfeld’s thought has been generally regarded as a bulwark of the ‘bundle of rights’ picture of property. In this paper I consider three issues: (1) the claim that Hohfeld’s ideas justify the thought that we should embrace ‘nominalism’ rather than ‘conceptualism’ about property rights in law; (2) new criticisms of the bundle of rights picture of property; and (3) a version of Hohfeldian nominalism about property which aligns itself with the ‘reductionist’ programme in the natural sciences.
Bio: A graduate of the University of Western Ontario (B.SC Hons Genetics), the University of Toronto (LL.B), and the University of Oxford (D.Phil), James Penner is Kwa Geok Choo Professor of Property Law and Vice Dean for Research in the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. Prior to joining NUS in 2013, Prof Penner taught at Brunel University, the London School of Economics, King’s College London and University College London. From 2011 to 2013 he served as Head of Department at the Faculty of Laws, UCL. He is a barrister of Lincoln’s Inn.
Professor Penner has written extensively on the law of trusts, private law more generally, and the philosophy of law, with special interests in the philosophical foundations of the common law, legal reasoning, and property theory. He is the author of The Idea of Property in Law, The Law of Trusts (10th Edition), Property Rights: A Re-Examination (OUP, forthcoming) and co-editor with Michael Otsuka, Property Theory: Legal and Political Perspectives (CUP, forthcoming).
To be added to the paper distribution list, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca. For further information, please contact Professor Larissa Katz (larissa.katz@utoronto.ca) and Professor Sophia Moreau (sr.moreau@utoronto.ca).
