Today, as our capacity to prolong life increases, people dispute whether indefinite prolongation could possibly be good.  A leading bioethicist, Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Rahm) has written that we should all want to die at 75!  I'll approach this question by drawing on ancient Greek arguments about why immortal life is undesirable -- arguments that I find fatally flawed.  I then turn to two more recent philosophers who try to reconcile us to finite and reasonably short mortal lives: "Younger Martha" (i.e. me in 1994), and my teacher Bernard Williams, who wrote about the "tedium of immortality."  I find those consolatory arguments flawed too.  But a better argument is found in the Roman philosopher Lucretius, and it applies to indefinite prolongation as well as to outright immortality.

Martha Nussbaum is the Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics.

Presented on April 5, 2016, at the University of Chicago Law School.

Martha Nussbaum, "Long Long Lives: Should We Want Them?"

Listen to lectures by—and discussions with—the University of Chicago Law School's eminent faculty, as well as some very special guests.

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

On the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court session opens. Each fall, the University of Chicago Law School invites faculty members to offer insight into some of the issues the Court will hear in the upcoming year.

This event was recorded on September 15, 2020, and features Aziz Huq, Frank and Bernice J. Greenberg Professor of Law, and Jennifer Nou, Professor of Law.

Supreme Court Preview 2020: Highlights and Perspectives

"The Trust Revolution: How the Digitization of Trust Will Revolutionize Business & Government"

In this CBI, Professor Henderson will examine how Internet platforms--eBay, Uber, AirBnB--relate to the Code of Hammurabi, Medieval guilds, the New York Stock Exchange, and corporate brands. All of these institutions, along with religions and governments and families, are in large part about providing trust to enable human cooperation. By undertaking a genealogy of trust, we can illuminate modern debates about the role and scope of government in regulating the daily lives of citizens.

M. Todd Henderson is the Michael J. Marks Professor of Law. This Chicago's Best Ideas talk was presented on January 27, 2020.

M. Todd Henderson, "The Trust Revolution: How the Digitization of Trust Will Revolutionize..."

The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol are among the most important human rights documents of the post-WW II period. Yet the universalization of the refugee status after the 1967 Protocol has given rise to a series of discrepancies between the letter of the Convention and the purposes it is being asked to serve. In particular, the five-protected categories specified by the Convention have come under criticism. There are also tensions between the Eurocentric discourse and jurisprudence of refugee protection and the fact that the largest numbers of the world’s refugees are housed in Third World Countries.

With globalization of the refugee condition, new trends have also emerged: States seek to create measures of “non-entrée”—no access—to their territories by various modes of outsourcing monitoring and enforcement. These range from the installation of refugee processing centers in bordering countries and along the Mediterranean seacoast in particular, to the signing of special bilateral agreements to prevent refugees from accessing the states’ territory (as between the US and Mexico) and  to the more radical measure of simply “excising” territory, that is, declaring it outside the bounds of the jurisdiction of that state. These trends, along with criminalization of the refugee status, have undermined the universal human promise of the “right to have rights” (Hannah Arendt).

In conclusion I ask why cruelty is spreading in liberal democracies and discuss three normative responses to the current predicament: liberal nationalist, liberal internationalist and cosmopolitan interdependence. I suggest a fourth alternative which synthesizes elements of each.

Seyla Benhabib is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. This Dewey Lecture in Law and Philosophy was presented on January 15, 2020.

Seyla Benhabib, "The End of the 1951 Refugee Convention?"

"Chief Justice John Roberts: Defining the Supreme Court as its Leader and at the Center"

Joan Biskupic is a full-time CNN legal analyst and author of a 2019 biography of Chief Justice John Roberts. Before joining CNN in 2017, Biskupic was an editor-in-charge for Legal Affairs at Reuters and, previously, the Supreme Court correspondent for the Washington Post and for USA Today.

This Ulysses and Marguerite Schwartz Memorial Lecture was presented on November 19, 2019.

Joan Biskupic, "Chief Justice John Roberts: Defining the Supreme Court..."

One of Chicago’s Best Ideas was the Coase Theorem, which reminds us daily that people can bargain around law or even before legal intervention is sought. But do we have too much law and too little bargaining around it? The number of cases and judges has grown dramatically over time and many problems are outsourced to the legal system, rather than being handled person-to-person. In this talk, I will consider conventional explanations for the astonishing growth of the legal system, and then suggest that it is not entirely good news. We have become addicted to law, and like most addictions, this one is difficult to undo and likely to grow.

Saul Levmore is William B. Graham Distinguished Service Professor of Law. This Chicago's Best Ideas talk was presented on November 5, 2019.

Martha Nussbaum, "Long Long Lives: Should We Want Them?"

Download our free app to listen on your phone