caption influenced era birth_place school_tradition color influences main_interests name birth_date image article_title region
raz photographed in february 2009 gardner green 20th-century philosophy palestine legal positivism liberalism lightsteelblue hart legal and political philosophy joseph raz 21 march 1939 joseph raz - 20090224.jpg joseph raz
 western philosophy
joseph raz

joseph raz -lrb- ; born 21 march 1939 -rrb- is an israeli legal , moral and political philosopher .
he is one of the most prominent advocates of legal positivism .
he has spent most of his career as professor of philosophy of law and a fellow of balliol college , oxford , and has also , for the past dozen years , been a professor of law at columbia university law school .
raz , now retired from oxford , is currently also a visiting professor of law at king 's college london .
several of raz 's students have become important legal and moral philosophers , including the two current professors in jurisprudence at oxford , john gardner and leslie green .
he was elected a fellow of the british academy in 1987 and of the american academy of arts & sciences in 1992 .
