About

Heidi M. Hurd is a scholar and teacher specializing in criminal law, torts, environmental law, environmental ethics, and moral, legal, and political philosophy. She served as the College of Law’s eleventh dean from 2002 to 2007 and held the David C. Baum Professorship in Law from 2002 to 2017. Her academic career includes twelve years at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was an Assistant, Associate, and full Professor of Law and Philosophy, as well as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and co-Founder and Director of the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Law and Philosophy. She has also held positions as a Visiting Professor at various institutions, including the University of Virginia Law School, the University of Iowa Philosophy Department, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, the University of Alabama School of Law, the University of Tel Aviv School of Law, and others. Hurd has spent time teaching in Hungary, Germany, Ukraine, and Australia, and has been involved in international seminars and fellowships. Her research includes numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and books, notably 'Moral Combat' and a forthcoming collection on the influence of Larry Alexander. She is also working on a book about the moral underpinnings of personal bankruptcy. Her work has been widely recognized through lectures and presentations across multiple continents, and she has provided testimony before the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. Hurd holds a B.A. from Queen’s University, an M.A. in Philosophy from Dalhousie University, and both a J.D. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Southern California. She also earned a mid-career M.E.M. from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Humanities
• Philosophy
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Law
• Social psychology
• Physics
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• Competing Conceptions of Sustainability

  Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG eBooks · 2026-01-01

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• Ethical Environmentalism and the Demands of Justice

  Criminal Law and Philosophy · 2026-03-31

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• Climate Change, Natural Aesthetics, and the Danger of Adapted Preferences

  Handbooks in philosophy · 2023-01-01

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• Partnering with the Dead to Govern the Unborn

  2023-04-18

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  Abstract This chapter canvasses a lengthy menu of arguments for why judges ought to adhere to precedents with which they disagree. Because the author does not share the conservative instincts of those who find precedent of obvious value, the chapter reaches to Edmund Burke’s impassioned defence of legal traditions as an honest means of exploring just what can be said for binding ourselves to rules laid down by the dead, and for binding those who will live long after us by legal innovations designed to serve the needs of the living, not the needs of the still unborn. As the chapter argues, each of the justificatory arguments that we might harvest from Burke’s writings comes at some philosophical cost. The burden of this chapter is to cash out the value of the four categories of defences—conceptual, psychological, moral, and aesthetic—that Burke’s conservatism provides for according precedent a weighty role in judicial decision-making.

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• Climate Change, Natural Aesthetics, and the Danger of Adapted Preferences

  Handbooks in philosophy · 2023-01-01

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• Moral Combat and the Hohfeldian Analysis of Active Rights

  2021-10-01

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• The Ethical Implications of Proportioning Punishment to Deontological Desert

  Criminal Law and Philosophy · 2021 · 6 citations

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  • Sociology
  • Political Science
  • Law
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• Moral Combat: Disagreement in Action, Not Belief

  Problema Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho · 2020 · 4 citations

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  • Humanities
  • Humanities
  • Psychology

  Cuando los filósofos discuten los desacuerdos morales, normalmente tienen en mente desacuerdos entre creencias, actitudes o emociones de diferentes personas. Aquí reexaminamos la posibilidad de que existan desacuerdos entre lo que para una persona es correcto hacer y lo que para otra es correcto impedir que se haga, lo que denominamos “combate moral”.

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• Friendly Combat Over Moral Combat: A Reply to My Critics

  Problema Anuario de Filosofía y Teoría del Derecho · 2020-08-05

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  En esta pieza respondo a los críticos que sostienen que el combate moral no sólo es posible, sino ubicuo. En opinión de algunos, la moralidad está relacionada con los roles, y por lo tanto el paquete único de razones para la acción que posee alguien dentro de un rol determinado puede dictar un curso de conducta que frustre las acciones requeridas de otros que no comparten ese rol. Otros críticos defienden, en cambio, el relativismo moral meta ético, del que se deduce que dos personas que provienen de culturas distintas pueden tener razón (en relación con sus “formas de vida” separadas) al frustrar las acciones del otro. Una tercera línea de ataque es la de los críticos que creen que ciertos valores morales de primer orden son inconmensurables, y que, por lo tanto, sostienen que dos personas pueden ser inocentes al perseguir objetivos inconmensurables, pero mutuamente incompatibles a expensas del otro. Como sostengo, estas tres estrategias no logran reivindicar la afirmación de que nuestra mejor teoría de la moralidad tolera los encuentros de gladiadores en los que el éxito moral de una persona requiere el fracaso moral de otra.

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• Replying to Halpin and Kramer: Agreements, Disagreements and No-Agreements

  The American Journal of Jurisprudence · 2019-10-04 · 7 citations

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  Abstract The article considers in detail one criticism of an earlier paper of ours advanced by both Matthew Kramer and Andrew Halpin. This is the criticism that the content of deontic statuses (such as rights and duties) does not shift but is identical in truly correlatively-related deontic statuses. We argue that the content does shift in both our scheme and in Hohfeld's scheme for the logic of rights, and that such shifts are both good things and consistent with correlativity, properly understood. Miscellaneous other criticisms are also discussed, albeit more briefly.

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Frequent coauthors

• Michael S. Moore

  Southwest Research Institute

  30 shared

• Ralph Edwin Brubaker

  3 shared

• Larry Alexander

  University of San Diego

  3 shared

• Gillian K. J. Moore

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  3 shared

• Peter Westen

  3 shared

• C H COLSON

  1 shared

• James Brunton

  1 shared

• J.M. Rawls

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Ross and Helen Workman Chair in Law
• David C. Baum Professorship in Law (2002-2017)
• Herzog Research Professor of Law
• Fellow of the Academic Advisory Counsel at Torcuato di Tella…
• Visiting Research Fellowships at the Australian National Uni…