Gregory Robson

My research centers on justice, virtue, and how businesses, markets, and technologies can help people lead better lives.

Edited Collections (Technology Ethics, Political Economy)

Co-Editor, Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (Routledge, 2023; *2nd edition under contract)

Editor, Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia at 50, symposium issue for The Independent Review (2024).

Selected Articles

“Freedom in Business: Elizabeth Anderson, Adam Smith, and the Effects of Dominance in Business” (with James R. Otteson) Philosophy of Management (forthcoming).

We build on Anderson and Smith to identify surprisingly concerning conditions of modern work.

“A Priori Action Guidance and the Non-Substitution Thesis,” Public Affairs Quarterly (forthcoming).

I examine the epistemic value of a priori theorizing in a way that is appropriately sensitive to diverse sources of information about justice.

“Distributism 2.0: Putting Holiness Back in Commercial Society,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (forthcoming).

An invited article in which I examine how and how far distributism is compatible with other systems of political economy and can increase holiness in society.

“Theories, Facts, and Meanings in Political Philosophy” (with Guido Pincione), Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 24 (2024): 1-14. 

We develop a highly novel argument for how to assess normative political theories.

“The Profit System: How (and Why) to Deflect the Radical Critique,” Constitutional Political Economy, vol. 35 (2024): 109-122.

I develop a novel counterargument to radical criticisms of profit-oriented political economy.

“The Variety of Moral Vices,” Erkenntnis, vol. 89 (2024): 1993-2012.

I argue that the complexity of human lives and societies renders the moral vices far more diverse than many scholars of virtue ethics realize.

“Social Media Firms, Echo Chambers, and the Good Life,” in Technology Ethics: A Philosophical Introduction and Readings (Routledge, 2023), 204-214.

A chapter in which I show how social media echo chambers undermine productive discourse and then propose solutions.

“How to Object to the Profit System (and How Not To),” Journal of Business Ethics 188 (2023), 205-219.

I argue that successfully objecting to a whole system of political economy usually requires a representative sample of activity within the system. Social complexity renders it difficult or impossible to get one.

“The Duty to be Transparent When Supporting Laws in Public Discourse,” Social Theory and Practice 49 (2023), 337-362.

I argue that citizens have a moral duty to be transparent in particular ways when advocating for laws in public political discourse.

“Magistrates, Mobs, and Moral Disagreement: Countering the Actual Disagreement Challenge to Moral Realism,” The Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 51 (2022), 416-435.

Abstract here. I develop novel arguments for why moral realism is compatible with the extents, kinds, and distributions of moral disagreement we see in the world today.

The Rationality of Political Experimentation, Politics, Philosophy & Economics, vol. 20 (2021), 67-98 (15,800 words).

Abstract here. I show why experimenting with different social and political arrangements helps societies to learn about justice.

To Profit Maximize, or Not to Profit Maximize?: For Firms, This Is A Valid Question, Economics and Philosophy vol. 35 (2019), 307-320.

According to an influential argument in business ethics and economics, firms are normatively required to maximize their contributions to social welfare, and the way to do this is to maximize their profits. Against Michael Jensen’s version of the argument, I argue that even if firms are required to maximize their social welfare contributions, they are not necessarily required to maximize their profits. I also consider and reply to Waheed Hussain’s “personal sphere” critique of Jensen. My distinct challenge to Jensen seems to me fatal to any view according to which firms are normatively required to maximize their profits.

Punishment: A Costly Signal?, The Journal of Philosophy vol. 114 (2017), 208-219.

Jim Staihar has argued that prisons should provide inmates with opportunities to sacrifice in ways that signal their genuine reform to others. I argue that costly signaling programs will usually either not be sufficiently costly to be taken seriously by the signal’s receivers or not be rational for inmates in harsh prison environments to complete. I also show why costly signaling programs could nonetheless be valuable parts of hybrid programs of legal punishment.

The Threat of Comprehensive Overstimulation in Modern Societies, Ethics and Information Technology vol. 19 (2017), 69-80.

Members of modern, digital societies experience a tremendous diversity of stimuli from computers, televisions, other electronic media, and various forms of advertising. I argue that the presence of such stimuli in a modern society poses a special risk to the welfare of its members. By considering the set of stimuli in a comprehensive way, we can see why the perceptual and informational spaces in which modern life occurs can be sources of disvalue, even though they also add great value to the lives of members of modern societies.

Two Psychological Defenses of Hobbes’s Claim Against the Fool, Hobbes Studies vol. 28 (2015), 132-148.

A striking feature of Hobbes’s account of political obligation is his discussion of the Fool, who thinks it reasonable to adopt a policy of selective, self-interested covenant (e.g., contract, promise) breaking. I advance and critically assess two psychological arguments according to which the Fool’s policy of self-interested covenant breaking is prudentially irrational. According to the first argument, the deep guilt from early-stage covenant breaking, the cumulative guilt from continued covenant breaking, and the high statistical risk of detection render the Fool’s policy irrational. According to the second argument, the Fool’s policy is irrational because it puts him at risk of adopting a psychologically intolerable view of his fellow covenanters and the extent to which they can be trusted. I show that acting unjustly by breaking covenants is usually prudentially irrational for individuals with normal psychologies.

*Top 0.1% of recently downloaded papers, philpapers.org (as of Sept. 2022)

Reconsidering the Necessary Beings of Aquinas’s Third Way, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion vol. 4 (Spring 2012), 219-241.

Abstract here. I argue for an interpretation of Aquinas’s “third way” and show why it plausibly achieves its argumentative aim.

*Top 0.2% of recently downloaded papers, philpapers.org (as of Sept. 2022)

Kelo v. City of New London: Its Ironic Impact on Takings Authority, The Urban Lawyer (American Bar Association) vol. 44 (Fall 2012), 865-908.

I argue that Kelo ultimately decreased takings authority in many states because of the state-level legislative responses it sparked.

*Cited by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Reading Area Water Authority v. Schuylkill River Greenway Association (2014)