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Background

Anthony Reeves works primarily on topics in philosophy of law, political philosophy and ethical theory. Some of his work addresses the nature of authority and the proper shape of legal reasoning in non-ideal contexts. He has also written on international criminal law, trying to understand the peculiar centrality of jurisdictional questions and what is important about prosecuting grave international crimes.

More broadly, he is currently investigating questions regarding rights, risk, due process and public justification. A number of concerns animate his work in these vicinities, but part of what unifies his interest is a nexus of issues about what the normative (moral, social, legal) environment must look like to enable an agential, evaluatively engaged stance towards the world. Facing certain risks undermines the justification of hope. Being denied due process vitiates one’s sense of claimancy (which further threatens one’s sense of evaluative authority). Living in a social environment expressly indifferent to a serious wrong that one is a victim of enervates. Elaborating the normative preconditions for meaningful agency is central to his present work.

Select Publications

• “” Philosophers’ Imprint 25:33 (2025).
• “Human Rights as Protections Against Rational Despair,” Journal of Social Philosophy 54:2 (2023): 169-182.
• “Impunity and Hope,” Ratio Juris 32:4 (2019): 415-438.
• “Liability to International Prosecution: The Nature of Universal Jurisdiction,” European Journal of International Law 28:4 (2017): 1047-1067.
• “Responsibility Allocation and Human Rights,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20:3 (2017): 627-642
• “Practical Reason and Legality: Instrumental Authority without Exclusion,” Law and Philosophy 34:3 (2015): 257-298.

Education

• PhD, Boston University
• BA, University of Portland

Research Interests

• Philosophy of law
• Social and political philosophy
• Ethics

Research Profile