Joel Feinberg, 77; Expert on Relationship Between Morality, Law

Joel Feinberg, 77, a University of Arizona philosopher regarded as an expert on the relationship of morality and the law, died March 29 in a Tucson nursing home of complications of Parkinson’s disease.

After earning three degrees at the University of Michigan, the Detroit native taught philosophy at Brown and Princeton universities, UCLA and Rockefeller University in New York before joining the Arizona faculty in 1977. He was named head of its philosophy department in 1978.

Feinberg was highly respected for his writings on such moral and legal problems as capital punishment, treatment of the mentally ill, civil disobedience and environmental ethics. His best-known work was his four-volume “The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law,” published in the mid-1980s under the titles “Harm to Others,” “Offense to Others,” “Harm to Self” and “Harmless Wrongdoing.”

Among his other books were “Social Philosophy” in 1973, “Rights, Justice and the Bounds of Liberty” in 1980 and “Freedom and Fulfillment” in 1992. He was a president of the American Philosophical Assn.