About The Workshop
SW 31- Finality and Normative Order: Apocalyptic Imaginaries in Law, Politics and Ethics
Convenors: Marta Soniewicka-Bart van Klink
Contact: b.van.klink@vu.nl – marta.soniewicka@uj.edu.pl
In contemporary debates in legal and political theory, apocalyptic scenarios increasingly serve as a lens for examining the resilience and adaptability of normative and institutional frameworks in the face of pressing global challenges. Discussions of climate change, technological innovation, pandemics, migration, and global security frequently employ the language of irreversibility and rupture. Rather than functioning merely as predictions of catastrophe, such references illuminate the difficulties of sustaining established assumptions about continuity, control, and long-term governance – central concerns for law in a rapidly changing world.
Legal and political theory often presupposes a future in which institutions endure, and norms can be applied over time. Apocalyptic perspectives challenge this assumption by highlighting situations in which the future appears uncertain or fundamentally constrained. These raise pressing questions: how do concepts such as responsibility, authority, and obligation operate when long-term stability cannot be assumed; how can legal systems address risks and uncertainties that exceed conventional expectations; and how can legal and ethical reasoning guide action when existing frameworks are strained by global crises or technological disruption. The workshop approaches apocalyptic thinking not as a claim about the imminent collapse of law, but as a critical lens to explore how law can respond constructively to complex, ethically charged challenges.
The workshop takes as its point of departure the interdisciplinary volume in progress, After the End: Apocalypse, Technology, and the Future of Humanity, edited by Anna Bugajska (Jesuit University Ignatianum, Kraków), Marta Soniewicka (Jagiellonian University, Kraków), Leon van den Broeke (University of Theology, Utrecht), and Bart van Klink (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam). Draft chapters from the volume will be presented as working papers to stimulate discussion, while participants who are not involved in the volume are invited to contribute short presentations on related topics. In this way, the workshop combines a forum for feedback on ongoing research with an open platform for broader scholarly exchange.
Discussions will focus on a set of interrelated themes that directly relate to the conference’s main theme. One theme concerns the conceptual structure of apocalyptic thinking, particularly the notion of apocalypse as both an ending and a form of disclosure, and its relevance for legal and normative debates in a world of urgent challenges. A second theme examines technology as a context in which apocalyptic imaginaries emerge, including questions of human agency, governance, and responsibility in relation to artificial intelligence and other transformative technologies. A third theme explores ethical and legal responsibility under conditions of heightened risk and uncertainty, including obligations toward future generations and the role of precaution. A further theme may consider how legal, political, and educational institutions can respond when continuity can no longer be taken for granted.
The workshop format combines short presentations with structured discussion. By bringing draft chapters into conversation with related contributions, it aims to clarify how apocalyptic imaginaries can inform, and at times challenge, existing approaches in legal and political philosophy. More specifically, reflecting on finality and rupture encourages us to reconsider foundational assumptions about law, authority, and moral responsibility: when the future cannot be taken for granted, questions of continuity, obligation, and ethical foresight become central.
In this way, the workshop contributes to the IVR 2026 main theme on the role of law in addressing the changing problems of the world – not only as a mechanism for managing crises, but as a framework for critical reflection and normative guidance in the face of uncertainty, technological transformation, and contested expectations about what justice and responsibility mean in our times.
