Chuck Beitz teaches contemporary political philosophy and the history of modern political philosophy. He has special interests in global political theory, theories of human rights, democratic theory, theories of property, and theories of justice from Hobbes to the present.

His 2022 Berkeley Tanner lectures have been published as For the People? Democratic Representation in America (2024). His other books include The Idea of Human Rights (2009), winner of the 2011 Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Award; Political Equality: An Essay in Democratic Theory (1989); Political Theory and International Relations (1979, rev. ed. 1999); and Global Basic Rights (2009, coedited with Robert Goodin). His articles have appeared in various journals of political theory, political science, and philosophy. He was editor Philosophy & Public Affairs from 1999 to 2010 and now serves as an advisory editor.

Beitz came to Princeton in 2001 from Bowdoin College, where he was dean for academic affairs and professor of government and legal studies. He previously taught political science and chaired the department at Swarthmore College. At Princeton he has been director of graduate studies in the Politics Department, director of the University Center for Human Values, and director of the Program in Political Philosophy.

He was educated at Colgate University (B.A., history, summa cum laude), the University of Michigan (M.A., philosophy), and Princeton (M.A. and Ph.D., politics and the Program in Political Philosophy). He has held fellowships from the Rockefeller, MacArthur and Guggenheim Foundations, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the American Council on Education, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He won the APSA Sigma Alpha Award for Outstanding Teaching and the Princeton McGraw Center Graduate Mentoring Award, both in 2006.

Selected Publications

• “The Practice and its Authority: An Elaboration,” Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 25 (2022), 9-28
• “How is Partisan Gerrymandering Unfair?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 46 (2018), 323-58. 
• “Property and Time.” Journal of Political Philosophy 26 (2018), 419-40.
• “The Force of Subsistence Rights.” Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights. Ed. R. Cruft, S. M. Liao and M. Renzo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 535-51.
• “Human Rights and Human Dignity: Nothing but a Phrase?” Philosophy & Public Affairs 41 (2013), 259-90.

Selected Honors and Awards

• Estoril Global Issues Distinguished Book Award (for The Idea of Human Rights), 2011
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 2008
• Graduate Mentoring Award, McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, Princeton University, 2006