Charles R. Beitz

Chuck Beitz’s research interests focus on global political theory, the theory of human rights, democratic theory, theories of property (both material and intellectual) and various other topics in contemporary political philosophy. His current work includes projects on the history of justice and beneficence and the temporal dimension of property.

He holds a B.A. degree, summa cum laude , in history from Colgate University, an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Michigan and an M.A. and Ph.D. in politics and the Program in Political Philosophy from Princeton. His first academic post was at Swarthmore College. In 1991 he was appointed dean for academic affairs at Bowdoin College, where he was also professor of government and legal studies. He returned to Princeton in 2001 as professor of politics. He is now also director of Princeton’s University Center for Human Values.

Beitz has held fellowship awards from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller and MacArthur Foundations, the American Council of Learned Societies and the American Council on Education. He has received awards for undergraduate teaching and graduate mentoring from Princeton’s politics department and McGraw Center for Teaching and the American Political Science Association. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. From 1999 until 2010 he was editor of the quarterly journal, Philosophy & Public Affairs. He has been a visiting scholar or professor at Columbia, Harvard, Oxford and Stanford universities and the New York University School of Law.

In the last decade his Princeton Ph.D. advisees have gone on to teaching and postdoctoral positions at Brigham Young, Brown, Georgetown, Harvard, Ohio State, Stanford, Texas Christian and Yale universities, Goethe University-Frankfurt, Dartmouth College, London School of Economics, University College London and the universities of Chicago, Richmond and Virginia.