Profile
Noam Gur is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Law at Queen Mary University of London. He specialises in jurisprudence and has further research interests in political theory. One of his major research interests is the interface between law and practical reason, which is also the topic of his book Legal Directives and Practical Reasons (Oxford University Press, 2018). In addition, he has written on theoretical and applied questions surrounding the rule of law, judicial decision-making, political obligation, and other topics at the foundation of law and authority.
Dr Gur teaches the LLB module Jurisprudence & Legal Theory and the LLM module Common Law from Theory to Practice. He has previously also taught the LLB module Tort Law.
Dr Gur is the Law Department’s Academic Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and he also sits on the UK branch Executive Committee of the International Association of Legal and Social Philosophy (IVR). In addition, he is a member of the Centre for Law, Democracy, and Society and a former Co-Director of the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context at Queen Mary.
Before joining Queen Mary, Dr Gur was a postdoctoral fellow at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. He read Law as a postgraduate at the University of Oxford and as an undergraduate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Dr Gur welcomes approaches from prospective PhD students for supervision in jurisprudence, legal or political theory, and other areas of legal research where the proposed project substantially involves legal theory.
Undergraduate Teaching
- LAW6021 Jurisprudence and Legal Theory
Postgraduate Teaching
- SOLM288 Common Law from Theory to Practice
Teaching accreditation: Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Research
Dr Gur conducts research into theoretical and applied questions at the foundation of law and authority. One of his primary research themes is the normativity of law and its interaction with practical reason, which is also the topic of his book Legal Directives and Practical Reasons (Oxford University Press, 2018). In addition, he has written about topics such as political obligation, judicial decision-making, and the moral implications of the rule of law.
Dr Gur’s work draws on resources from a range of disciplines, including jurisprudence, political and moral theory, and social sciences.
Publications
Books
Gur N., Legal Directives and Practical Reasons (Oxford University Press, 2018)
- Awarded joint Second Prize of the SLS Peter Birks Book Prizes for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2019
- Reviewed:
- Barbara Levenbook, JOTWELL, 12 August 2019
- N. P. Adams (2019) 82 Modern Law Review 1179-1183
- Luigi Lonardo (2020) 33 Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence 493-499
- Andreas Vassiliou (2022) 42 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 943-962
- Forthcoming Review Symposium in the journal Jurisprudence
Other Publications
- Gur N., ‘Exclusion, Weighing, and Overridable Dispositions: A Response to Four Reviews’ 16 (2025) Jurisprudence: An International Journal of Legal and Political Thought (in press, forthcoming 2025)
- Gur N., ‘Cognitive Biases and Political Obligation’, in George Klosko (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Political Obligation (Oxford University Press, in press, forthcoming 2025)
- Gur N., ‘The Razian Response to Philosophical Anarchism: A Probe into the Authority-Autonomy Tension’ (2024) 37(4) Ratio Juris, Early View publication 11 Dec 2024.
- Gur N., ‘Reflections on the Justifiability of Authority: Raz vs. Wolff’, In Bertea S and Beyleveld D (eds.) Theories of Legal Obligation (Law and Philosophy Library Series, Springer, 2024) 151-168
- Gur N., ‘Legal Rules as a Bias-Counteracting Device’, Diritto & Questioni Pubbliche, Special Volume August 2023, 1-22.
- Gur N., ‘Facts, Artifacts, and Law-Given Reasons’, in Burazin, L., Himma, K. E., Roversi, C., and Banaś, P. (eds), The Artifactual Nature of Law (Edward Elgar, 2022) 199-222
- Gur, N. and Jackson, J.,'Procedure-content interaction in attitudes to law and in the value of the rule of law: an empirical and philosophical collaboration' in Meyerson, D., Mackenzie, C and MacDermott, T. (eds.) Procedural Justice and Relational Theory: Philosophical, Empirical and Legal Perspectives (Routledge, 2021, first published online: 30 Oct 2020)
- Gur N., 'Legal Facts and Reasons for Action: Between Deflationary and Robust Conceptions of Law’s Reason-Giving Capacity', in Nicoletta Bersier, Christoph Bezemek, and Frederick Schauer (eds.), The Normative Force of The Factual: Legal Philosophy Between Is and Ought (Springer Law and Philosophy Library, 2019) 151-170
- Gur N., ‘Ronald Dworkin and the Curious Case of the Floodgates Argument’ (2018) 31(2) Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 323-345
- Gur N., ‘Private Law Adjudication as an Arena of Struggle Between Principle and Policy’, New Private Law (Harvard’s blog on the foundations of private law) 19 Aug 2015
- Gur, N., ‘Wrongful Life Claims and Negligent Selection of Gametes or Embryos in Infertility Treatments: A Quest for Coherence’ (2014) 22 Journal of Law and Medicine 426-441
- Gur, N., 'Form and Value in Law' (2014) 5(1) Jurisprudence: An International Journal of Legal and Political Thought 85-95
- Gur, N., 'Actions, Attitudes, and the Obligation to Obey the Law' (2013) 21(3) Journal of Political Philosophy 326-346
- Gur, N., 'Normative Weighing and Legal Guidance of Conduct' (2012) 25(2) Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 359-391
- Gur, N., 'Are Legal Rules Content-Independent Reasons?' (2011) 5 Problema 175-210
- Gur, N., 'Legal Directives in the Realm of Practical Reason: A Challenge to the Pre-emption Thesis' (2007) 52 American Journal of Jurisprudence 159-228.
Work in progress
- Gur N., ’Exclusionary Reasons in Discourse about Authority and Law’, for Encyclopaedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy
Supervision
Dr Gur welcomes approaches from prospective PhD students for supervision in jurisprudence, legal or political theory, and other areas of legal research where the proposed project substantially involves legal theory.
