Gregory Robson

Academic Appointments

• Associate Research Professor, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, July 2024-present
• Assistant Professor, Iowa State University (and visiting faculty, Notre Dame), January 2020-May 2024
• Research Associate, Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University, 2018-2019

Education

• University of Arizona, Ph.D. in Philosophy, 2019
  Dissertation on justice; program top-ranked globally in political philosophy
• Duke University, M.A. in Philosophy, 2012
• Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (Italy), Intensive Program in Philosophy, 2008-2010
• Harvard University, A.L.M. in Government, 2008
• Vanderbilt University, B.S. in Economics and Human & Organizational Development, 2004

Edited Collections

• Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (co-edited with Jonathan Tsou; revised and expanded second edition), Routledge, under contract
• Anarchy, State, and Utopia: Robert Nozick’s Classic at 50, symposium issue for The Independent Review, 2024
• Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (Routledge 2023; co-editor with Jonathan Tsou)

Journal Articles

Publication Profile

52 essays published (29 articles) in, for instance, Journal of Philosophy, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Ethics, Erkenntnis, Philosophers’ Imprint, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Economics and Philosophy, Journal of Business Ethics, Ethics and Information Technology, and The Urban Lawyer (ABA).

Publication Data

Top 5% in citations and top 2% in research volume in value theory (including ethics) over the past 5 years when data last available, per https://philpeople.org/ (a leading site on the philosophy profession).

• “Mapping Justice,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, forthcoming
• “Advice to Christian Philosophers, 40 Years Later” (with Christian Miller, Meghan Sullivan, Matt Frise, Devin Gouvea, and Philip Swenson), Faith and Philosophy, forthcoming
• “Distributism 2.0: Putting Holiness Back in Commercial Society,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming
• “A Call for Epistemic Humility in Political Philosophy,” Public Affairs Quarterly, forthcoming (lead article)
• “Freedom in Business: Elizabeth Anderson, Adam Smith, and the Effects of Dominance in Business,” Philosophy of Management (with James R. Otteson), forthcoming

         *Recipient of Mendoza Mission Research Award for 2024-2025, University of Notre Dame, co-won with James R. Otteson, May 2025                   Featured in Mendoza Exchange Research Roundup, highlighting faculty achievement, October 2024

• “The Ethics of Profit-Maximizing Firms,” Philosophy Compass, invited for publication
• “Are Social Contracts Possible Without Actual Negotiation?” (with Randall Holcombe), Constitutional Political Economy, forthcoming
• “The Varieties of Moral Vice: An Aristotelian Approach,” Erkenntnis, vol. 89 (2024): 1993-2012
• “Theories, Facts, and Meanings in Political Philosophy” (with Guido Pincione), Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 24 (2024): 1-14
• “Can We Morally Assess Business?“,  Library of Economics and Liberty (feature article), October 2024
• “The Profit System: How (and Why) to Deflect the Radical Critique,” Constitutional Political Economy, vol. 35 (2024): 109-122
• “Christianizing Nozick,” The Independent Review, vol. 29 (2024): 289-302
• “How to Object to the Profit System (and How Not To),” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 188 (2023): 205-219
• “The Duty to be Transparent When Supporting Laws in Public Discourse,” Social Theory and Practice, vol. 49 (2023), 337-362
• “Magistrates, Mobs, and Moral Disagreement: Countering the Actual Disagreement Challenge to Moral Realism,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 51 (2021), 416-435
• “The Rationality of Political Experimentation,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics, vol. 20 (2021), 67-98 (15,800 words)
• “The Right to Inquire Into the Personal Worldviews of Candidates for Political Office,” Public Affairs Quarterly vol. 34 (2020), 72-96
• “Two Underappreciated Reasons to Value Political Tradition,” Journal of Value Inquiry, vol. 54 (2020), 519-538
• “To Profit Maximize, or Not to Profit Maximize?: For Firms, This Is A Valid Question” Economics & Philosophy vol. 35 (2019), 307-320
• “Punishment: A Costly Signal?” The Journal of Philosophy vol. 114 (2017), 208-219
• “The Threat of Comprehensive Overstimulation in Modern Societies” Ethics and Information Technology vol. 19 (2017), 69-80
• “On Lawrence C. Becker’s ‘The Neglect of Virtue’” Ethics vol. 125 (July 2015, retrospective essay), 1151-1153
• “Two Psychological Defenses of Hobbes’s Claim Against the Fool” Hobbes Studies vol. 28 (2015), 132-148
  *Top 0.1% of recently downloaded papers, philpapers.org (as of Sept. 2022, when data available)
• “What We Owe the Global Poor: In Defense of a Moderate Principle of Sacrifice” International Journal of Applied Philosophy vol. 27 (Fall 2013), 251-263
• “A Better Basis for Liberal Equality?: Waldron’s Locke and the Rawlsian Alternative” Locke Studies vol. 12 (2012), 149-182
• “Assisting the Least Well-Off: An Essay on Human Rights, Information Structures, and the Value of Intercity Partnerships” Review of Contemporary Philosophy, vol. 11 (2012), 72-91
• “The Ontological Argument: Kant’s Criticisms, Plantinga’s Reply” Kant Studies Online (2012), 122-171. (17,600 words)
• “Reconsidering the Necessary Beings of Aquinas’s Third Way” European Journal for Philosophy of Religion vol. 4 (Spring 2012), 219-241
  *Top 0.2% of recently downloaded papers, philpapers.org (as of Sept. 2022, when data available)
• “The Ironic Legislative Response to Kelo” The Municipal Lawyer (NY State Bar Association) vol. 26 (Summer 2012), 24-28
• “Kelo v. City of New London: Its Ironic Impact on Takings Authority” The Urban Lawyer (American Bar Association) vol. 44 (Fall 2012), 865-908 (17,500 words)
  *Cited by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Reading Area Water Authority v. Schuylkill River Greenway Association (2014)

Chapters

• “Echo Chambers, Commerce, and Human Flourishing,” in Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (Routledge, eds. Gregory Robson and Jonathan Tsou, 2nd ed.), forthcoming
• “Social Media Firms, Echo Chambers, and the Good Life” (2023: 204-214), in Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (Routledge, eds. Gregory Robson and Jonathan Tsou)
• “Justice Theorizing and Local Knowledge” (2018: 35-54), in Exploring the Political Economy and Social Philosophy of F. A. Hayek (eds. Peter J. Boettke, Virgil Henry Storr, Jayme S. Lemke), New York: Rowman & Littlefield International

Short Essays

• “Theories, Facts, and Meanings in Political Philosophy,” with Guido Pincione, New Work in Philosophy (co-edited online by Marcus Arvan and Barry Maguire), forthcoming
• “Freedom in Business: Elizabeth Anderson, Adam Smith, and the Effects of Dominance in Business,” (with James R. Otteson), New Work in Philosophy, forthcoming.
• “The Business of Liberty and the Liberty of Business: Nozick’s Contribution,” The Independent Review (introduction to symposium on Nozick), 29 (2024): 209-214
• “Big Events Now” (Letter to the editor of Harvard Magazine on the geopolitical risk of social media use), January-February 2024
• “Technology Ethics: A New Resource for Teachers,” New Work in Philosophy (co-edited online by Marcus Arvan and Barry Maguire), May 2023
• “Whence our Prosperity? McCloskey on the Great Enrichment,” Qeios, March 2023
• “Can We Assess Society-Wide Systems of Firms and Markets?“, New Work in Philosophy (co-edited online by Marcus Arvan and Barry Maguire), February 2023
• “Servant Leadership and the Common Good,” invited essay for the Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, November 2022
• “Justice and Community: The Rationality of Learning by Doing,” Research Outreach (co-authored with Research Outreach) vol. 131, August 2022
• “The Effects of Market Exchange on Human Welfare,” Philosophy, Ethics, Academia (PEA Soup blog, Princeton), March 2021
• “Profitable Business: Smith’s Moral Assessment,” Speaking of Smith, AdamSmithWorks.org, January 2021
• “Response to Gerald Gaus’s ‘Self-Organizing Moral Systems’,” Philosophy, Ethics, Academia (PEA Soup blog, Princeton), November 2019

Book Reviews

• “Review of Alexander William Salter’s The Political Economy of Distributism: Property, Liberty, and the Common Good,” The Independent Review, vol. 29 (winter 2024-25)
• “Review of J. Budziszewski’s How and How Not to be Happy,” The Independent Review, vol. 28 (2023)
• “Review of Marcus Arvan’s Neurofunctional Prudence and Morality: A Philosophical Theory,” Journal of Moral Philosophy, vol. 19 (2022), 327-330
• “Review of James R. Otteson’s Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society,” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 172 (2021), 191-193
• “Review of The Dialectics of Liberty” (Roger Bissell, Chris Sciaberra, Edward Younkins, eds.), The Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 71 (2021), 925-928
• “Review of Political Utopias: Contemporary Debates” (Michael Weber and Kevin Vallier, eds.), Journal of Moral Philosophy vol. 17 (2020), 367-370

Selected Honors and Fellowships

• Mendoza Mission Research Award (for 2024-2025), Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, co-won with James R. Otteson, May 2025
• Stipendiary Fellowship, Organs and Origins Conference (on purpose in the cosmos), McGrath Institute for Church Life, University of Notre Dame, April 2025
• Faculty Fellow, Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, Fall 2022-Spring 2023
• Research Grant, Center for Excellence in the Arts & Humanities, Iowa State University, 2022
• Research and Travel Grant, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Iowa State University, 2022
• Publication Subvention Grant for Scholarly Works, Awarded by Iowa State University, 2021 (co-recipient with Jonathan Tsou, co-editor of Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings)
• Grant recipient for research on Understanding Justice: Learning from Practice in Political Liberalism, Institute for Humane Studies Discourse Initiative, John Templeton Foundation, 2021
• Grant recipient for co-edited book, Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (under contract with Routledge), Institute for Humane Studies Key Challenges Project, John Templeton Foundation, 2021
• Riesen Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper, co-winner, “Punishment: A Costly Signal?”, Philosophy Department, University of Arizona, 2017
• Essay Competition Winner ($35,000 prize, co-authored with Daniel Cummings), Virtual Integrated Networking Experience competition (topic: Emerging Market Investment, Geographic Information Systems, & Global Poverty), Social Equity Venture Fund (Templeton), 2009
• Graduate Student Essay Competition Winner ($20,000 prize, co-authored with Karina Robson; topic: Enterprise-Based Solutions to Global Poverty), Social Equity Venture Fund (Templeton), 2008
• Best Senior Thesis Award (human & organizational development major), Vanderbilt, 2004

Teaching

Instructor

• Business Ethics and Society Program (BESP) Fellows Colloquium, Fall 2024-Spring 2025
• Ethics of Data Analytics, Spring 2025
• Why Business? (co-teacher), Fall 2022, Fall 2023-present
• Foundations of Ethical Behavior, Spring 2023-Spring 2024
• O’Hara Scholars Colloquium, Fall 2023-Spring 2024
• Deloitte Scholars Colloquium (x4), Fall 2022-Spring 2023
• Philosophy of Technology (x7), Spring 2020-Spring 2022
• Contemporary Political Philosophy (undergraduate and graduate), Spring 2022
• Social and Political Philosophy, Spring 2021
• Aquinas’s Ethics, independent study, Fall 2021
• Moral Criticisms of Capitalism, Fall 2019
• Business Ethics (co-teacher), Fall 2017
• Environmental Ethics (co-teacher), Summer 2017

Teaching Assistant

• University of Arizona: Justice and Virtue; The Ethics and Economics of Wealth Creation (x2); Mind, Matter, and God
• Duke University: Existentialism; Human Rights: Theory and Practice
• Harvard University: The UN, Peacebuilding, and the Future of the State

Graduate Tutor in Government

• Harvard University: Winthrop House (2007-2008)

Selected Presentations

• “Profitable Business and the Common Good” (Keynote Address), Investing for the Good conference, Ave Maria University, March 2025
• “Is Belief in God Rational?,” Podcast interview, Spotlight, February 2025
• “Justice, Rectification, and the Common Good: Comments on Daniel Philpott’s Resurrecting Justice,” Business Ethics and Society Program workshop, Notre Dame, February 2025
• “Technology in the Meaningful Life: AI, Public Discourse, and the Common Good,” Work and Professional Ethics Research Group, online, November 2024
• “Nozick, the State, and God,” Independent Institute, Oakland, CA, November 2024
• Panelist, “Putting AI to Work: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” ASQ Quality Innovation Summit Panel in Milwaukee, online, October 2024
• “The Purpose of Christian Political Economy,” Markets and Society Conference, Washington D.C., October 2024
• Panelist, “Navigating Appropriate and Effective Use of AI and Large Language Models for BME Students,” online, Iowa State University, September 2024
• “The Liberty of Business,” University of Fribourg Research Workshop, Kandersteg, Switzerland, September 2024
• “Commercial Society: The Difficulty of Systemic Critique” (plenary), Institute for the Study of Political Economy, Midwest Institutes Conference at Ball State University, May 2024
• “AI and Economic Planning,” Institute for the Study of Political Economy, Midwest Institutes Conference at Ball State University, May 2024
• “Business, Political Economy, and God,” Podcast interview, Spotlight, May 2024
• “Planning Future Economies: Can AI Be Trusted?,” Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame Ethics Week, February 2024
• “Echo Chambers, Business, and the Good Life,” Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University, February 2024
• “Representing Citizens and Representing Justice,” Monash University Prato Centre, online, February 2024
• “Echo Chambers, Business, and the Good Life,” Business Ethics and Society Program (BESP), Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, January 2024
• “Experiments in Polycentricity,” PPE Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 2023
• Iowa Catholic Radio podcast, “Justice as a Virtue,” February 2023
• “The Justice of Upholding (Some) Political Traditions,” PPE Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 2022
• “Objecting to the Profit System: The Demandingness of Systematic Critique,” Georgetown University, Faculty Workshop in the McDonough School of Business, October 2022
• “The Promises and Perils of Profit Maximization,” meeting of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, Las Vegas, April 2022
• “Reconciling Persons and Profits,” meeting of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, Las Vegas, April 2022
• “Reasons Across Persons: Comment on the Division of Agential Labor,” meeting of the Central States Philosophical Association, University of Nebraska, April 2022
• “How to Object to the Profit System (and How Now To),” PPE Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, February 2022
• “Federalism, Justice, and Experiments in Living,” MANCEPT Federalism Workshop, Manchester Centre for Political Theory, online, September 2021
• Discussant and chair, Society for Business Ethics “Coffee with an Author” session with James Otteson, on his Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society, online, July 2021
• “How to Object to the Profit System and How Not To,” Society for Business Ethics, online, July 2021
• “How to Object to the Profit System and How Not To,” meeting of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, April 2021
• “The Ethics of the Firm,” Iowa State University (ISU Research Days), online, March 2021
• “Combining Philosophy and Parenthood,” Tulane University (talk for graduate students), online, March 2021
• “Comments on Marcus Arvan’s Neurofunctional Prudence and Morality,” American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division), online, January 2021
• “Justice and Experiments in Living,” Iowa State University (and elsewhere, as job talk), February-March 2019
• “Justice and Experiments in Living,” Eudaimonia Institute, Wake Forest University, January 2019
• “Justice and Experiments in Living,” Davidson College, November 2018
• “Firm Paternalism and Business Ethics,” PPE Society, New Orleans, March 2018
• “To Profit Maximize, or Not to Profit Maximize: For Firms, This Is A Valid Question,” Wake Forest University School of Business, February 2018
• “Action Guidance in Moral and Political Theory: A Hayekian Account,” Mercatus Center, April 2017
• “The Worldviews of Political Leaders and the Rights of Citizens,” St. Thomas Summer Seminar, 2016
• “A Hayekian Knowledge Problem for Political Theorists,” Mercatus Center, June 2016
• “The Structure of Virtue and the Structures of Vice,” Virtue Ethics Workshop, University of Arizona, November 2015
• “Quadragesimo Anno” (session presenter), Lumen Christi Seminar on Catholic Social Thought, University of California, Berkeley, August 2015
• “Summa Theologica” (session presenter; excerpts on free choice), Lumen Christi seminar on St. Thomas Aquinas on Free Choice, Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, Rome, Italy, June 2014
• “Reconsidering the Necessary Beings of Aquinas’s Third Way,” North Carolina Philosophical Society/South Carolina Society for Philosophy conference, Elon University, February 2012
• “Normative Issues in Eminent Domain Law,” Law and Philosophy Society (student group), Harvard University, November 2008

Other Research and Internships

• Research Assistant for Allen Buchanan, Summer 2011-Spring 2012
• Business Ethics Internship, Carnegie Mellon (Tepper School of Business), Summer 2007
• Merrill Lynch and Legg Mason, summer internships, 2002-2003

Professional Service

• Coordinator, BESP Fellows Program, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, Fall 2024-present
• Co-Founder and Board Member, Work and Professional Ethics Research Group (research and teaching collaborative with international faculty focused on the dignity of work), Spring 2024-present
• Co-Editor of The Independent Review: A Journal of Political Economy, December 2021-present
• Co-Organizer, Mendoza Mission Project, Spring 2025
• Organizer, Business Ethics and Society Program (BESP) Workshop on Daniel Philpott’s Resurrecting Justice, University of Notre Dame, February 2025
• Co-Organizer, Ethics Week, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame, February 2025
• Interviewee on Recent FTC ruling, MLex Market News & Insight: Regulatory News and Reports, October 2024
• SBE (Society for Business Ethics) Co-Representative in 2023-2024, Central Division meetings of the American Philosophical Association (sole organizer of 2024 six-faculty extended panel on “The Ethics of Profit-Maximizing Firms”)
• Coordinator, O’Hara Scholars Program, Mendoza College of Business, Fall 2023-Spring 2024
• Reviewer, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, AI and Ethics, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Philosophical Review, Society for Business Ethics, Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Constitutional Political Economy, Economics and Philosophy, Episteme, Erkenntnis, Ethics and Information Technology, Journal of Social Philosophy, Philosophia, Public Affairs Quarterly, Review of Austrian Economics, Social Philosophy and Policy, The Independent Review, Philosophy Compass
• Interviewee on Recent FTC ruling, MLex Market News & Insight: Regulatory News and Reports, October 2024
• Moderator, publicly interviewed Chris Arnade (author of Dignity) for the Berges Lecture, University of Notre Dame, Mendoza College of Business, November 2022
• Moderator, “PPE & the Environment,” PPE Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, November 2022
• Chair, “Liberalism, Egalitarianism, and Ideology,” PPE Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, February 2022 (rescheduled from 2021)
• Chair, “The Future of Lockean Property Rights,” PPE Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, February 2022 (rescheduled from 2021)
• Judge, National High School Ethics Bowl, February 2022
• Leader, Character development reading group, Spring 2022
• Founder and Leader, Publication Paper Exchange, 2014-2023 (led a group of faculty and graduate students who gave monthly feedback on each other’s work)
• Organizer and Chair, honorary panel for David Schmidtz, meeting of the Association of Private Enterprise Education, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, April 2021
• Leader, Reading group on Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now, Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University, March-April 2019
• Organizer, Workshop on Daniel Layman’s Locke Among the Radicals: Natural Property and Economic Liberty in the Nineteenth Century, April 2019
• Chair, Culture, Religion, and Eudaimonia Conference, Eudaimonia Institute, March 2019
• Member, Templeton Reading Group on Honesty, with Christian Miller, Wake Forest University, September-December 2018
• Chair, Theistic Ethics Workshop, Wake Forest University, October 2018
• Film Interview on Aristotelian ethics, Green Olive Films, Winston-Salem, NC, May 2018
• Chair, “PPE & the Environment: The Role of Norms in Driving Pro-Environmental Behavior,” PPE Society Annual Meeting, New Orleans, March 2018
• Chair, Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy workshop, Stephen Galoob’s “Injustice, Reparation, and Legitimacy,” Tucson, October 2017
• Commentator, The Ethics of Capitalism by John Thrasher and Daniel Halliday, Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, University of Arizona, September 2017
• Webpage Manager, Center for the Philosophy of Freedom, Fall 2017-Spring 2019
• Course Developer, Fundamentals of Political Economy, Ormond College, University of Melbourne, 2015-2016 (1 semester/year)
• Content Curator, PPE Network, University of Arizona, 2014-2018
• Judge, University of Arizona Graduate School Travel Awards Program, November 2016
• Chair, Manuscript Workshop for Fabian Wendt’s Political Morality Beyond Justice, University of Arizona, September 2015
• Judge, National Undergraduate Bioethics Conference, Duke, Spring 2011
• Judge, S.E.VEN Fund International Graduate Essay Competition, Spring 2010