Philip Pettit

Philip Pettit (born in Ballygar, County Galway, in 1945) is an Irish philosopher and political theorist whose work has shaped contemporary debates on republicanism. He belongs to the tradition of civic republicanism, which understands freedom as the absence of domination, and he has built a distinctive theory around that idea.

He was educated at Garbally College, at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and at Queen's University Belfast. For many years he taught social and political theory at the Australian National University, and he is now Laurance Rockefeller University Professor of Human Values at Princeton. He has received many honours, including an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland.

His central book, Republicanism: A Theory of Freedom and Government (1997), argues that freedom is not merely the absence of interference but the absence of dependence on the arbitrary will of others. This leads to the demand that citizens be protected both from public power and from private power, through a separation of powers, a dispersal of authority, a welfare state and officials who answer to the public. His work in philosophy of mind and of the social sciences supports this political theory.

His influence extends to political theory and to discussions of democracy. His ideas were part of the background to political reforms in Spain under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, an experience he later examined in a book co-written with José Luis Martí.