Dietmar von der Pfordten has been a Professor of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy at Georg-August-Universität Göttingen since 2002, where he arrived after holding positions in München, Göttingen and Erfurt. He is a member of the Akademie gemeinnütziger Wissenschaften zu Erfurt as well as of the Advisory Commission on the return of cultural property seized as a result of Nazi persecution. He has been hosted as a visiting scholar at Harvard and in New York and as a visiting professor in, Brussels, Groningen and Cagliari.

Based on normative individualism, he has published numerous works on applied as well as on legal ethics; among others he has written about abortion, nature and animal ethics, genetic technology, paternalism, state-sanctioned torture, euthanasia and human dignity.

As a HIAS fellow, Dietmar von der Pfordten will bring together his life-long scholarly reflections on legal philosophy in his œuvre named Recht als Vermittlung (Law as Mediation). His tandem partner is Reinhard Merkel, professor emeritus of law at Universität Hamburg and a member of the German Ethics Council as well as of the Leopoldina German National Academy of Sciences.

Dietmar von der Pfordten’s HIAS Fellowship is financed by Universität Hamburg with funding by the Federal Government and the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.