Robert Hughes

Robert Hughes was appointed to the Wharton School as an assistant professor of business ethics in 2015. He received his Ph.D in philosophy from UCLA in 2010 and his A.B. in philosophy from Harvard University in 2001. He has completed postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and in the Law and Philosophy Program at UCLA.

Robert's areas of specialization include applied ethics, philosophy of law, and political philosophy. His work in legal philosophy focuses on the possibility of laws that lack coercive enforcement and the ethical obligation to obey unenforced and under enforced laws (including the obligation to obey such laws in business contexts). He has also worked on democratic theory and on issues of justice in medical care and research, including the ethics of conducting clinical research in low and middleincome countries.

Robert has taught a wide range of courses on applied and theoretical ethics, political philosophy, and legal theory. As a graduate student, he received a Yost Prize for his work as a teaching assistant in the UCLA Department of Philosophy.

Robert Hughes (2017), Would Many People Obey NonCoercive Law? , Jurisprudence.

Robert Hughes (2014), Justifying Community Benefit Requirements in International Research, Bioethics, 28, pp. 397404.

Abstract: Abstract It is widely agreed that foreign sponsors of research in low and middleincome countries (LMICs) are morally required to ensure that their research benefits the broader host community. There is no agreement, however, about how much benefit or what type of benefit research sponsors must provide, nor is there agreement about what group of people is entitled to benefit. To settle these questions, it is necessary to examine why research sponsors have an obligation to benefit the broader host community, not only their subjects. Justifying this claim is not straightforward. There are three justifications for an obligation to benefit host communities that each apply to some research, but not to all. Each requires a different amount of benefit, and each requires benefit to be directed toward a different group. If research involves significant net risk to LMIC subjects, research must provide adequate benefit to people in LMICs to avoid an unjustified appeal to subjects' altruism. If research places significant burdens on public resources, research must provide fair compensation to the community whose public resources are burdened. If research is for profit, research sponsors must contribute adequately to the upkeep of public goods from which they benefit in order to avoid the wrong of freeriding, even if their use of these public goods is not burdensome. © Published 2012. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA.

Robert Hughes (2014), Responsive Government and Duties of Conscience, Jurisprudence, 5, pp. 244264.

Robert Hughes, “Law and the Entitlement to Coerce”. In Philosophical Foundations of Nature of Law, edited by, (2013), pp. 183206

Abstract: Law and the Entitlement to Coerce * Robert C. Hughes DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199675517.003.0009 Abstract and Keywords This chapter argues that the justification of the power to make law does not entail the existence of an entitlement to use or to threaten coercion. In a society of morally very good people, there can be a justified legal system in which no public agency or private party has any entitlement to enforce law coercively. In such a society, neither the need to address goodfaith disagreement nor the need to provide a coercive assurance of people's rights would justify the risk to the innocent that coercive enforcement necessarily presents. In a society of flawed human beings, governments sometimes have an entitlement to coerce, but this entitlement may be more restrictive than is commonly supposed. A coercive response to freeriding is not always required to make laws morally binding. Depending on social circumstances, the need to address unjustified lawbreaking may or may not warrant exposing the innocent to risk. Keywords:   assurance, coercion, disagreement, enforcement, freeriding, law

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Robert Hughes (2013), Law and Coercion, Philosophy Compass, 8 (3), pp. 231240.

Abstract: Abstract Though political philosophers often presuppose that coercive enforcement is fundamental to law, many legal philosophers have doubted this. This article explores doubts of two types. Some legal philosophers argue that given an adequate account of coercion and coerciveness, the enforcement of law in actual legal systems will generally not count as coercive. Others accept that actual legal systems enforce many laws coercively, but they deny that law has a necessary connection with coercion. There can be individual laws that lack coercive sanctions, and it is at least conceptually possible for there to be a legal system that lacks coercive enforcement altogether. This article then examines why most political philosophers and some legal philosophers have been reluctant to treat the conceptual possibility of noncoercive law as significant.

Robert Hughes (2012), Individual Risk and Community Benefit in International Research, Journal of Medical Ethics, 38 (10), pp. 626629.

Abstract: Abstract It is widely agreed that medical researchers who conduct studies in low and middleincome countries (LMICs) are morally required to ensure that their research benefits the broader host community, not only the subjects. The justification for this moral requirement has not been adequately examined. Most attempts to justify this requirement focus on researchers' interaction with the community as a whole, not on their relationship with their subjects. This paper argues that in some cases, research must benefit the broader host community for researchers to treat subjects and prospective subjects ethically. If research presents substantial net risks to subjects, researchers can ethically ask LMIC citizens to participate only if people in LMICs, normally including people in the host community, stand to benefit.

Past Courses

LGST100 ETHICS & S0CIAL RESP

This course explores business responsibility from rival theoretical and managerial perspectives. Its focus includes theories of ethics and their application to case studies in business. Topics include moral issues in advertising and sales; hiring and promotion; financial management; corporate pollution; product safety; and decisionmaking across borders and cultures.

LGST210 CORP RESP AND ETHICS

This course explores business responsibility from rival theoretical and managerial perspectives. Its focus includes theories of ethics and their application to case studies in business. Topics include moral issues in advertising and sales; hiring and promotion; financial management; corporate pollution; product safety; and decisionmaking across borders and cultures.

LGST226 MARKETS,MORALITY&CAPITAL

Markets play a central role in the life of a capitalist democracy. But is this a good thing? Should we let markets decide who is rich and who is poor? Who makes decisions and who follows them? Whose ideas get heard and whose ideas do not? The goal of this class will be to examine the market from the perspective of various social values to see whether we should want a market system and, if so, what kind of market system we should want. Among the issues we will examine are the following. Does the market contribute to the common good? If so, how? Does the market conflict with the idea that all human beings are of equal value? What is the relation between the market and freedom? Does the market liberate us or oppress us? Can we reconcile the market with our democratic ideals? What role should corporations play in a healthy democracy? What role should markets play in an increasingly globalized world? We will read several important philosophers, economists and political theorists writing on these issues, including Adam Smith, John Rawls, Amartya Sen, Friedrich Hayek, Karl Marx, Robert Nozick, Jurgen Habermas, and others. Grades will be based on three papers and class participation.

Knowledge @ Wharton

How Business Can Take the Lead on Combating Climate Change, Knowledge @ Wharton 06/16/2017 Doing the Right Thing: When Moral Obligation Is Enough, Knowledge @ Wharton 11/19/2015