Philip Pettit

Philip Pettit is the Laurance S. Rockefeller University Professor of Human Values at Princeton University, where he has taught political theory and philosophy in the departments of Philosophy and Politics since 2002. He holds a joint appointment as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Australian National University since 2012. Born and raised in Ireland, Pettit earned his BA and MA in Philosophy with first-class honours from Maynooth College, National University of Ireland, in 1966 and 1967 respectively, and his PhD in Philosophy from Queen's University Belfast, conferred in 1970. His early career included positions as assistant lecturer and college lecturer at University College Dublin (1968-1977), research fellow at Trinity Hall, Cambridge (1972-1975), and professor of philosophy at the University of Bradford (1977-1983), where he also chaired the School of Interdisciplinary Human Studies. From 1983 to 2002, he held professorial fellowships in Social and Political Theory and Philosophy at the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University.

Pettit works in moral and political philosophy and on background issues in philosophical psychology, social ontology, metaphysics, and epistemology. His major publications include Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (Oxford University Press, 1997), The Common Mind: An Essay on Psychology, Society and Politics (Oxford University Press, 1993), A Theory of Freedom: From the Psychology to the Politics of Agency (Oxford University Press, 2001), Rules, Reasons, and Norms: Selected Essays (Oxford University Press, 2002), On the People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Just Freedom: A Moral Compass for a Complex World (W.W. Norton, 2014), The Robust Demands of the Good: Ethics with Attachment, Virtue and Respect (Oxford University Press, 2015), The Birth of Ethics: Reconstructing the Role and Nature of Morality (Oxford University Press, 2018), and The State (Princeton University Press, 2023). He was appointed Companion of the Order of Australia in 2017, elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009, honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy in 2010, International Fellow of the British Academy in 2013, and Correspondant en Philosophie de l’Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (Institut de France) in 2019. Pettit has received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland, University of Crete, Université de Montréal, Queen's University Belfast, Lund University, University of Athens, and University of Buenos Aires. He served as joint editor of the Journal of Philosophy from 1999 to 2006 and has been on the editorial boards of numerous journals including Ethics, Journal of Political Philosophy, and Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

Professional Email: ppettit@princeton.edu