17 Facts About Joseph Raz

Joseph Raz was an Israeli legal, moral and political philosopher.

Joseph Raz was an advocate of legal positivism and is known for his conception of perfectionist liberalism.

Joseph Raz received the Tang Prize in Rule of Law in 2018.

Joseph Raz Zaltsman was born on 21 March 1939 in Haifa to Sonya and Shmuel Zaltsman.

Joseph Raz had met Hart earlier at a conference in Israel, impressing him by pointing out a flaw in his reasoning that had previously eluded him; Hart encouraged him to go to Oxford for further study.

Joseph Raz studied at Balliol College and completed his Doctor of Philosophy in 1967.

Joseph Raz died on 2 May 2022 at Charing Cross Hospital in his sleep.

In defending his conception of perfectionist liberalism, Joseph Raz argues that political institutions are justified by virtue of their contribution to persons' well-being.

Joseph Raz argues that a person's well-being depends on ability to pursue personal goals.

Joseph Raz was co-editor of a second edition of Hart's The Concept of Law with a postscript including Hart's responses to other philosophers' criticisms of his work.

Joseph Raz argued for a distinctive understanding of legal commands as exclusionary reasons for action and for the "service conception" of authority, according to which those subject to an authority "can benefit by its decisions only if they can establish their existence and content in ways which do not depend on raising the very same issues which the authority is there to settle".

Joseph Raz was acknowledged by his contemporaries as being one of the most important legal philosophers of his generation.

Joseph Raz authored and edited twelve books, namely The Concept of a Legal System, Practical Reason and Norms, The Authority of Law, The Morality of Freedom, Authority, Ethics in the Public Domain, Engaging Reason, Value, Respect and Attachment, The Practice of Value, Between Authority and Interpretation, From Normativity to Responsibility and The Roots of Normativity.

In moral theory, Joseph Raz defended value pluralism and the idea that various values are incommensurable.

Joseph Raz's work has been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in such cases as British Columbia v Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd and Sauve v Canada.

Several of Joseph Raz's students became legal and moral philosophers, including two current professors in jurisprudence at Oxford, Leslie Green and Timothy Endicott, and the former professor of jurisprudence John Gardner.

Joseph Raz was awarded honorary doctorates by the Catholic University of Brussels, 1993, by King's College London, 2009, and by Hebrew University, 2014.