Dr. Iris Van Domselaar

Biography

Iris van Domselaar is a Full Professor of Legal Philosophy and Legal Ethics at the University of Amsterdam, where she is also the founding director of the Amsterdam Center for the Legal Professions and Access to Justice. She studied philosophy and law as a visiting fellow at the Department of Philosophy of Harvard University and at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on crucial ethical questions within legal practice, particularly addressing classic legal institutions and roles that secure values related to political morality and the rule of law. Drawing from neo-Aristotelian and neo-Wittgensteinian philosophy, her work emphasizes the ethical 'lived experience' of legal professionals and citizens involved in legal proceedings. Her Ph.D. thesis, "The Fragility of Rightness: Adjudication as Primacy Practice," developed a virtue-ethical approach to legal decision-making. She has published extensively in top international journals and her notable works include research on moral perception in legal practice and the ethics of corporate lawyers. An influential speaker on topics related to lawyers' ethics, judicial ethics, and the tragic choices lawyers face, she also serves as the editor-in-chief of the Netherlands Journal of Legal Philosophy and will host the International Conference of Legal Ethics in 2024.

Research Interests