Vice Dean
Professor of Law
Director, Gertrud Mainzer Program in Family Law, Policy, and Bioethics
Education
B.A., 1987, Williams College
PhD., 1992, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
J.D., 2000, Yale University
Areas of Expertise
Bio
Before joining the Cardozo faculty, Professor Stein taught in the philosophy departments at Yale University, Mount Holyoke College, Williams College, and New York University. In 2001-02, he clerked for Judge Dolores Sloviter of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He is the author of numerous articles, chapters, and books on legal, philosophical, and scientific topics, including The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory and Ethics of Sexual Orientation and Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science. His current research focuses on issues at the intersection of family law and sexual orientation, gender and the law. He has been Cardozo’s Vice Dean since 2009.
VIDEOS
New York Court of Appeals Ruling on Gay Parents
Same-Sex Marriage: State by State
Publications
Articles and Essays
Sexual Orientations, Rights, and the Body: Immutability, Essentialism, and Nativism, 78 Social Research: An International Quarterly 633 (2011) PDF
Looking Beyond Full Relationship Recognition for Couples Regardless of Sex: Abolition, Alternatives, and/or Functionalism, 28 Law & Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice 345 (2010) PDF WestlawNext
Marriage or Liberation?: Reflections on Two Strategies in the Struggle for Lesbian and Gay Rights and Relationship Recognition, 61 Rutgers Law Review 567 (2009) PDF WestlawNext
The "Accidental Procreation" Argument for Withholding Legal Recognition for Same-Sex Relationships, 84 Chicago-Kent Law Review 403 (2009) PDF WestlawNext
A Functional Approach to the Spousal Evidentiary Privileges, 5 Episteme: A Journal of Social Epistemology 374 (2009) PDF
Past and Present Proposed Amendments to the United States Constitution Regarding Marriage, 82 Washington University Law Quarterly 611 (2004) PDF WestlawNext
The Admissibility of Expert Testimony About Cognitive Science Research on Eyewitness Identification, 2 Law, Probability and Risk 295 (2003) PDF WestlawNext
Queers Anonymous: Lesbians, Gay Men, Free Speech, and Cyberspace, 38 Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review 159 (2003) PDF WestlawNext
Précis of The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory and Ethics of Sexual Orientation, 21 Law and Philosophy 305 (2002) PDF JSTOR
Evaluating the Sex Discrimination Argument for Lesbian and Gay Rights, 49 UCLA Law Review 471 (2001) PDF
Choosing the Sexual Orientation of Children, 12 Bioethics 1 (1998) PDF
Ethical Implications of Medical and Biological Research on the Causes of Sexual Orientation, 5 Health Care Analysis 136 (1997), with William Byne PDF
Can We Be Justified in Believing That Humans Are Irrational?, 62 Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 545 (1997) PDF
The Ethics of Genetic Research on Sexual Orientation, 27 Hastings Center Report 6 (July-August 1997), with Udo Schüklenk, William Byne & Jacinta Kerin PDF
The Relevance of Scientific Research about Sexual Orientation to Lesbian and Gay Rights, 27 Journal of Homosexuality 269 (1994) PDF
Rationality and Reflective Equilibrium, 99 Synthese 137 (1994) PDF
Cordoning Competence: A Reply to Cohen, 99 Synthese 177 (1994) PDF
Why Sexuality Matters to Philosophy, 67 Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 81 (1994), with Morris Kaplan PDF
Evidence for Queer Genes, 1 GLQ: The Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 93 (1993) PDF
God, the Demon & the Status of Theodicies, 27 American Philosophical Quarterly 163 (1990) PDF JSTOR
Books
The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory and Ethics of Sexual Orientation (Oxford University Press, 1999) Amazon
Without Good Reason: The Rationality Debate in Philosophy and Cognitive Science (Oxford University Press, 1996) Amazon
Forms of Desire: Sexual Orientation and the Social Constructionist Controversy (Routledge, 1992) (edited and wrote introductory and concluding chapters) Amazon
Book Chapters (selected)
Sexual Orientation, in The Encyclopedia of Ethics (Ruth Chadwick, ed., forthcoming)
Spousal Secrets, in Secrets of Law (Austin Sarat, et. al, eds., Stanford Univ. Press, forthcoming)
Seeing Sexual Orientation Through the Lens of Gender, in Queer Philosophy: Presentations of the Society of Lesbian and Gay Philosophy, (Raja Halwani, ed., Rodopi, forthcoming)
Miscegenation, in 3 Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court of the United States 305 (David Tanenhaus, ed., Gale / Macmillan, 2008) Amazon
Same-Sex Marriage and Domestic Partnerships, in 2 LGBTQ America Today 717 (John Hawley, ed., Greenwood, 2008) Amazon
Biological Determinants of Sexual Orientation, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 475 (William Darity, ed., 2d. ed., Macmillan, vol. 7, 2008), with William Byne Amazon
The Gay Gene, in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology 1830 (George Ritzer, ed., Blackwell, 2007) Amazon Online Access
The Story of Goodridge v. Department of Public Health: The Bumpy Road to Marriage for Same-Sex Couples, in Family Law Stories 27 (Carol Sanger, ed., Foundation Press, 2007) Amazon
The Ethical, Legal, Social and Political Implications of Scientific Research on Sexual Orientation, in The Health of Sexual Minorities: Public Health Perspectives on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Populations 135 (Ilan Meyer & Mary Northridge, eds., Springer, 2007) Amazon
Reviews, Short Articles, and Commentaries
Commentary for ‘After Gender’ Conference, 31 Pace Law Review (forthcoming 2011)
"Cut Religion Out Altogether," New York Times online (June 29,2011) debate on religion and marriage NY Times
Symposium on Abolishing Civil Marriage: An Introduction, 27 Cardozo Law Journal 1155 (2006) PDF WestlawNext
Wide Reflective Equilibrium as an Answer to an Objection to Moral Heuristics [comment on Cass Sunstein, Moral Heuristics], 28 Behavioral and Brain Sciences 561 (2005) PDF
Introducing Lawrence v. Texas: Some Background and a Glimpse of the Future, 10 Cardozo Women’s Law Journal 263 (2004) PDF WestlawNext
Reply to Martha Nussbaum and Ian Hacking, 21 Law and Philosophy 349 (2002) PDF JSTOR
Review of Simon LeVay, Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research on Homosexuality, 35 Journal of Homosexuality 107 (1997)
Review of Andrew Sullivan, Virtually Normal: An Argument about Homosexuality, 3 Constellations: An International Journal of Critical & Democratic Theory 261 (1996), with Morris Kaplan
Blog Posts
Are Religion and Marriage Indivisible?: Cut Religion Out Altogether (NY Times, June 29, 2011)
Dramatic Victory for Same-Sex Marriage in California…But What’s Next? (American Constitution Society, August 5, 2010)
The State of the Same-Sex Union, Part I (FindLaw, with Joanna Grossman, July 7, 2009)
The State of the Same-Sex Union, Part II (FindLaw, with Joanna Grossman, July 21, 2009)
The State of the Same-Sex Union, Part III (FindLaw, with Joanna Grossman, August 4, 2009)
What Changed in Five Days: Gay Marriage in Iowa, Vermont and the Rest of the Country (Huffington Post, April 10, 2009)
Eulogy for “Marriage Evasion” in Massachusetts: 1938-2008 (Huffington Post, August 1, 2008)
McCain’s Gay Adoption Cant (Huffington Post, July 30, 2008)
Four Reasons Not to Get Married in California (Huffington Post, June 17, 2008)
Getting Used to Gay Marriage: Why Californians Won’t Reject Same-Sex Marriages Come November (Huffington Post, June 10, 2008)
Divorce: A Missing Piece of the Gay Marriage Debate (Huffington Post, May 26, 2008)
The Confusing State of Gay Marriage in New York and Elsewhere (Huffington Post, May 14, 2008)
Contact Information
Cardozo School of Law
55 Fifth Avenue, Room 1009
New York, NY 10003