Donald Black

Who is Donald Black?

Donald Black is University Professor of the Social Sciences at the University of Virginia. Black received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1968, and he taught at Yale and Harvard before coming to Virginia in 1985.

Black is the author of The Behavior of Law, The Manners and Customs of the Police, and Sociological Justice, all of which present various aspects of his theory of law. More recently, The Social Structure of Right and Wrong extends the theory to address conflict management more broadly. It thus focuses on instances where people handle conflicts through means other than the law, such as through gossip, avoidance, suicide, or feuding. Black's latest book, Moral Time, identifies the causes of moral conflict in all human relationships.

Black is also the founder of pure sociology, a distinctive theoretical approach that explains human behavior with its social geometry. Since pure sociology is a general sociological paradigm, it may be applied to subjects other than law, conflict, and conflict management—for example, art, religion, and ideas.