The 2015-16 Wright Lecture

Professor Seana Shiffrin

Enhancing Moral Relationships through Strict Liability

Wednesday, September 16, 2015
4:00 - 6:00 pm

Solarium
84 Queen's Park
Toronto, ON

Read the news article about the lecture

The lecture will discuss the relationship between strict liability in contract law and the moral idea that liability should be predicated upon fault.  I offer a moral defense of the strict liability rule governing contractual performance but then go on to argue that this moral defense casts further doubt upon broad interpretations of the mitigation doctrine in contracts.   

Biography

Seana Valentine Shiffrin is Professor of Philosophy and Pete Kameron Professor of Law and Social Justice at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she has taught since 1992.  She holds degrees from UC Berkeley, Oxford University, and the Harvard Law School.  She teaches courses on moral and political philosophy as well as contracts, freedom of speech, constitutional rights and individual autonomy, remedies, and legal theory.  She is an associate editor of Philosophy and Public Affairs and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Her research addresses issues in moral, political and legal philosophy, as well as matters of legal doctrine, that concern equality, autonomy and the social conditions for their realization.  Her recent work has focused on freedom of speech, truth-telling, promising, contract, and the role of law in facilitating and fostering moral character.