David Enoch (; born 1971) is an Israeli ethicist and philosopher of law with research interests in

moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. ...

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

and

legal philosophy Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...

within the

analytic tradition Analytic philosophy is a broad movement within Western philosophy, especially English-speaking world, anglophone philosophy, focused on analysis as a philosophical method; clarity of prose; rigor in arguments; and making use of formal logic, mat ...

. He is the co-director of the Center for Moral and Political Philosophy and has been the Rodney Blackman Chair in the Philosophy of Law at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

since 2005. He received his

Bachelor of Arts A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts deg ...

in philosophy and

Bachelor of Laws A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

degrees from

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) is a Public university, public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Located in northwest Tel Aviv, the university is the center of teaching and ...

in 1993. He then completed his

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in philosophy at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

in 2003. Enoch is a member of the Israeli Law Professors' Forum for Democracy, established in 2023 to analyze and address of the various reforms proposed by Israel’s 37th Government to change Israel’s democratic regime.

Philosophy

metaethics In metaphilosophy and ethics, metaethics is the study of the nature, scope, ground, and meaning of moral judgment, ethical belief, or values. It is one of the three branches of ethics generally studied by philosophers, the others being normativ ...

, Enoch defends "robust realism", the view according to which there are objective, universal, non-natural moral truths, truths that when successful in our moral inquiries we discover rather than create, that do not constitutively depend on us and our dispositions. In

political philosophy Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...

, Enoch criticizes Rawlsian versions of liberalism, and is developing a non-Rawlsian liberalism, that is sensitive to the concerns of the real world, and that attempts to incorporate the insights of liberalism’s critics. In

, Enoch criticizes common ways of doing general jurisprudence, and works on specific normative questions concerning the law, for instance, when it comes to moral and legal luck, or to the status of statistical evidence. In

ethics Ethics is the philosophy, philosophical study of Morality, moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates Normativity, normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches inclu ...

, Enoch defends moral

deference Deference (also called submission or passivity) is the condition of submitting to the espoused, legitimate influence of one's superior or superiors. Deference implies a yielding or submitting to the judgment of a recognized superior, out of re ...

, and the views that consent should be understood contrastively, that a distinction within the value of

autonomy In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be ...

helps to clarify the status of hypothetical consent, and that the intending-foreseeing distinction is suspicious – especially when applied to state action.

Bibliography

* Reviews of ''Taking Morality Seriously'': * * * *
Freely accessible version
(PDF). * * *

References

External links

* David Enoch,
If you Want to Support Israel, Boycott its New Government
, Forward, 31 July 2023.
David Enoch's website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Enoch, David 21st-century Israeli philosophers Philosophers of law Israeli ethicists Academic staff of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Moral realists Tel Aviv University alumni New York University alumni