Larry May

Degrees

B.S. Georgetown University (International Affairs)
Ph.D. New School for Social Research
J.D. Washington University

Research Area

Larry May is a political philosopher who has written on conceptual issues in collective and shared responsibility, as well as normative issues in international criminal law. He has also written on professional ethics and on the Just War tradition.

He is currently W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law, and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He is also Strategic Research Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University as well as Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. He has previously taught at Washington University, Purdue University, University of Wisconsin, and University of Connecticut.

He has a BS in international affairs from Georgetown University, and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the New School for Social Research, where he was Hannah Arendt’s last research assistant. He also has a JD in law from Washington University.

He has published 25 books, 10 of which are single authored monographs. His early authored books were published by Notre Dame, Chicago, and Cornell University Presses. His five most recent books have been published by Cambridge University Press. The most recent books have won awards from the American Philosophical Association, the North American Society for Social Philosophy, the International Association of Penal Law, the American Society of International Law, and the American Library Association.

Also he has published over 100 articles, which have been reprinted three dozen times. These writings have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Serbian, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.

Professor May has lectured widely on political philosophy topics, including, in the last five years in: Oxford, London, St. Andrews, Oslo, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Lund, Belgrade, Krakow, Bielefeld, Granada, Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft, Toronto, Montreal, Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney, and Sapporo. He has also spoken at the following law schools: Harvard, Penn, NYU, Stanford, Toronto, York, Oslo, Oxford, Monash, Case Western, Washington U, and ANU.

His work on legal ethics and international law has led to invitations to advise such groups as: the Indiana State Senate, the US State Department, the CIA, as well as members of the Australian High Court.

He has been awarded grants from the National Science Foundation of the United States and the Australian Research Council, among others. He also served on the board of directors of the American Philosophical Association and is past president of AMINTAPHIL, the American section of the International Society for Philosophy of Law.

In addition, he has occasionally taken a criminal appeals case, and has worked on several death penalty cases, in the United States.