Champaign, Illinois, June 21, 2018 — University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Professor, Dr. Colleen Murphy, is the recipient of the 2017 North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) Book Award for her book, The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice (Cambridge University Press 2017). The award recognizes a scholarly work that has made the “most significant contribution to social philosophy” during the year (NASSP website).
In her book, Dr. Murphy analyzes transitional justice—showing how it is distinguished from retributive, corrective, and distributive justice—and outlines the ethical standards which societies attempting to democratize should follow. She argues that transitional justice involves the just pursuit of societal transformation, which in turn has a complex set of institutional and interpersonal requirements including the rule of law. In her book, she demonstrates how societal transformation is influenced by the moral claims of victims and the demands of perpetrators. She also examines how justice processes can fail to foster this transformation by not treating victims and perpetrators fairly.
“Murphy deserves accolades for traversing numerous disciplinary divides in her approach to transitional justice. For scholars seeking to build more bridges between international law and philosophy, this book offers an excellent way as to how it can be done,” said Steven R. Ratner, University of Michigan Law School (according to the Cambridge University Press website).
Colleen Murphy is currently a professor in the College of Law and the Departments of Philosophy and Political Science and director of Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program within Illinois International at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Professor Murphy is also the author of A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation (Cambridge University Press 2010). She is co-editor of Engineering Ethics for a Globalized World (Springer 2015), Risk Analysis of Natural Hazards: Interdisciplinary Challenges and Integrated Solutions (Springer 2015), and Climate Change and Its Impacts: Risks and Inequalities (Springer 2018). Professor Murphy is an associate editor of the Journal of Moral Philosophy; an editorial board member of the journal Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure and the Springer series The International Library of Ethics, Law and Technology (ELTE); and a member of the American Philosophical Association’s Committee on Philosophy and Law.
Prior to joining the Illinois faculty, Professor Murphy was an associate professor of philosophy at Texas A&M University. During 2010-2011, she was a Laurence S. Rockefeller Visiting Faculty Fellow at the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Professor Murphy holds a M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor of arts from the University of Notre Dame.
The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice was published by Cambridge University Press in December 2017. Visit the Cambridge University Press website to read other reviews and purchase the book.
More about Professor Murphy
Visit Professor Murphy’s website and follow her on Twitter @drcolleenmurphy.
About NASSP
The North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) was established in 1984 to promote discussion between social philosophers on all topics of interest. Visit the NASSP website.
