James A. Moffett ’29 Lectures in Ethics: “J’Accuse: A Critical Theory of Radical Legal Praxis”

In a landmark essay published in 1990, “The Role of Law in Progressive Politics,” Professor Cornel West proposed that radical lawyers have a crucial but secondary role to play in social movement work. On West’s account, movement lawyering is primarily defensive work that serves to backstop and support political action. Building on West’s groundbreaking work, Bernard E. Harcourt develops a more ambitious political and ethical theory of legal praxis as an offensive practice that seeks to stand on its head and reverse the tables on the usual defensive posture. This theory conceives of radical lawyering as a political and ethical practice that positively aims to identify, challenge, and replace the dominant oppressive structures of society. In this lecture, Harcourt will present the contours of a critical theory of radical legal praxis.”

Bernard E. Harcourt is the Isidor and Seville Sulzbacher Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science at Columbia University and a chaired professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. He is the founding director of the Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought(Link is external) (CCCCT). His most recent books, Cooperation: A Political, Economic, and Social Theory(Link is external) (2023) and Critique & Praxis: A Critical Philosophy of Illusions, Values, and Action(Link is external) (2020) attempt to reconstruct critical philosophy as a transformative political praxis. He has edited lectures and writings by Michel Foucault in French and English. Harcourt began his career representing men on Alabama’s death row, working with Bryan Stevenson at what is now the Equal Justice Initiative, in Montgomery, Alabama. In 2019, Harcourt was awarded the New York City Bar Association Norman J. Redlich Capital Defense Distinguished Service Award(Link is external), a lifetime achievement award for his work on behalf of individuals on death row.

The Moffett Lecture Series aims to foster reflection about moral issues in public life, broadly construed, at either a theoretical or a practical level, and in the history of thought about these issues. The series is made possible by a gift from the Whitehall Foundation in honor of James A. Moffett ’29.