Jules Coleman Presents Public Lecture

Last Thursday, November 5, FSU Law had the honor of hosting Jules Coleman, who is widely recognized as one of the most important legal minds in modern times, for a special public lecture. Coleman presented “What the Kentucky Derby Can Teach Us About Law,” where he probed one of the many ethical dilemmas presented in his forthcoming book, Everyday Ethics. He discussed his three tenets for analyzing legal problems and used a real-life example from the 2019 Kentucky Derby to illustrate the relationship between law and philosophy. In the example, the horse who crossed the finish line first was disqualified after a complaint was filed by a team not directly wronged by the infraction of the horse who crossed the line first, prompting questions of who had standing. The team that lodged the complaint benefited from it by being named the eventual winner after the other horse was disqualified. Coleman delved into legal and ethical issues in the case and contemplated other outcomes that might have been more just than the actual outcome.

Coleman most recently was the professor of philosophy, professor of recorded music, senior vice provost for academic planning emeritus at New York University. He previously was a law professor for decades at Yale University. He has given endowed lectures across the world and we are very fortunate that he joined us last week and that he will be teaching an ethics course at FSU Law in the spring.

Published on November 13, 2020