This event is co-organized by the Law and Technology Centre and The Hong Kong Ethics Lab of The University of Hong Kong.
Book Talk
Publics in Action: How to Organize Our Collective Life
Date: November 12, 2025 (Wednesday)
Time: 1pm – 2pm
Venue: Academic Conference Room, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower The University of Hong Kong
Speaker: Christopher Kutz (C. William Maxeiner Distinguished Professor of Law, UC Berkeley School of Law)
What does it mean for something to be public? It’s not always clear what this ever-important word means. Are we using the same idea of “public” when we talk about public education, or public safety, or public works? And how should we think about ourselves as members of “the public”? Who belongs to the public? There are many different groups to consider: citizens and non-citizens who work and live together, the people of future generations, people in other countries who are affected by the gases we pump into our atmosphere. What “public” means can get messy.
In Publics in Action, Christopher Kutz looks at how people should and do come together to create their shared institutions, and the lessons we can learn from one another. He argues that a healthy, dynamic public takes itself seriously as a subject of action, not just the passive beneficiary of a state institution. Kutz builds the book around an extended metaphor: we should understand ourselves as a public that improvises: listening to each other as we riff off shared standards and so creating something new, responsive to the scene and the moment.
About the author: Christopher Kutz’s work focuses on moral, political and legal philosophy, and he has particular interest in the foundations of criminal, international and constitutional law. His book, Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age, (Cambridge University Press, 2000), addressed the question of individual moral and legal responsibility for harms brought about through collective and corporate activity. His 2016 book, On War and Democracy (Princeton University Press), addresses the collision between democratic values and the ethics and laws of war; it addresses both questions of when democratic states can engage in war, such as for purposes of humanitarian intervention, and what limits democratic commitments place on their means, such as torture and drone strikes. In addition, he has written on issues of the metaphysics of criminal responsibility, social welfare obligations, national responsibilities to mitigate climate change, humanitarian ethics, and political legitimacy.
Commentator: Wang Kangyu, Assistant Lecturer, The University of Hong Kong Philosophy Department
Moderator: Benjamin Chen, Associate Professor & Director of Law and Technology Centre, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
To register, please go to https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=103724.
For inquiries, please contact Ms. Grace Chan at / 3917 4727.