Matt Matravers

Profile

Biography

Matt Matravers FAcSS

BSc (Econ), PhD (LSE)

Professor of Law, Convenor, LLM in Legal and Political Theory, Director Morrell Centre for Legal and Political Philosophy

I joined York Law School in 2015 as Professor of Law having been at the University of York since 1995 serving as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations. I am on the AHRC Peer Review College, the Council of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, and am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. I have held visiting appointments at Yale, UCL, Michigan, Oldenburg, Minnesota, and Cambridge. I am also co-editor-in-chief of the journal Criminal Law and Philosophy.

Research

Overview

• Philosophy of criminal law
• Responsibility in the criminal law
• The justification of state punishment and related issues
• Dangerousness (with particular reference to personality disorders)
• Crime and criminal justice policy
• Contemporary political philosophy

I currently supervise PhD students working on liability for international crimes against humanity, ‘upstream’ liability for conduct encouraged by others, and consent to medical treatment. In the past, I have supervised students in all of the above areas and many of my students have gone on to successful academic careers in the UK, USA, and in Europe. Please get in touch if you want to discuss a proposal.

Projects

• Punishing Problems

I am currently writing a philosophical account of the nature of criminal justice informed by empirical evidence.

In the recent past, I have worked on state misconduct and sentence mitigation, the problem of doing penal justice in circumstances of social injustice, and on what the state owes to those whom it has punished. You can find this work by viewing my profile in the York Research Database.

Teaching

Undergraduate

I teach modules in philosophy of criminal law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. I also supervise both undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation students on a range of topics in criminal law theory, legal philosophy and contemporary political philosophy.

For many years, I taught modules on the American political philosopher, John Rawls.

Publications

Selected publications

2023: “Leading Non-Criminal Lives”, in A Bottoms & J. Jacobs (eds.), Criminology as a Moral Science. Oxford Hart/Bloomsbury.

2024: “The Justification of Punishment and the Justification of the Liberal State”, in Matthew Altman (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Punishment. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

2024: “Criminal Justice and Social Injustice”, in J. Ryberg (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Punishment, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

2024: (with C. Lernestedt), “Responsibility and ‘Blameworthiness’ in Criminal Law”, in T. Crofts, L. Kennefick and A. Loughnan (eds.), The Routledge International Handbook on Criminal Responsibility.

2025: “Nuance and Morality in the Criminal Law”, Singapore Journal of Legal Studies. 

2025: “Making Sense of State Misconduct and Mitigation in Punishment”, in J. Roberts, J. Ryberg and L. Zaibert (eds.), State Misconduct and Sentence Mitigation, London: Hart/Bloomsbury.

Full publications list

For a complete list of publications, please click on the link above to my profile in the York Research Database.

External activities

Overview

I am the co-editor-in-chief of Criminal Law and Philosophy.

For its duration, I was part of the Wellcome project on Mental Health and Justice led by King’s, London.

I regularly review funding applications submitted to the likes of the AHRC, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Leverhulme Trust, and the Independent Social Research Foundation. In addition, I provide peer reviews to numerous journals and publishers.

Memberships

• AHRC Peer Review College
• American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
• Council, Royal Institute of Philosophy
• Fellow, Academy of Social Sciences
• Society of Legal Scholars