Fernando Contreras

I am currently interested in understanding the moral value in setting up schemes of legal powers, and how exercises of powers can create as well as remove legal norms from existence. I am also interested in examining the coherence of contemporary conceptualizations of the notion of obligation. This broader question connects with a concern on whether the framework distinction between ‘law’ and ‘morality’, as deployed in some current jurisprudential debates, is fruitful. 

Before joining Trinity I completed MPhil and DPhil degrees at Oriel College. Prior to Oxford I studied law, as an undergraduate, in Chile. 

I wrote an MPhil thesis on John Rawls’ idea of ‘public reason’ and its use in constitutional theory. In my DPhil thesis I undertook an examination of the notion of legal validity. Specifically, I provided an account of why some defective exercises of legal powers can produce valid legal arrangements (such as ‘unconstitutional’ laws, ‘ultra vires’ administrative acts, and ‘vitiated’ contracts). The account includes an explanation of why legal systems sometimes react towards the defective of making of legal norms in varied ways, other than through the technique of invalidation.

I’ve translated the revised edition of Lon Fuller’s The Morality of Law into Spanish, and wrote an introduction to the text, which was published as La Moral del Derecho (IES, 2019).