Robert Paul Wolff (New York, 1933 – 2025) was an American political philosopher and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Working within normative political philosophy and a broadly Marxist and libertarian tradition, he is best known for his defence of philosophical anarchism and for his critique of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice.
Wolff earned his doctorate at Harvard in 1957 and taught at Harvard, the University of Chicago and Columbia before joining the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1971, where he later moved to the Afro-American studies department. Early on he wrote commentaries on Kant, including studies of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
In Defense of Anarchism, his most widely read book, argues that if individual autonomy is understood in a robust sense, no state can be de jure legitimate. In Understanding Rawls (1977) he contended that Rawls's theory, by leaving private property and capitalist social relations largely unchallenged, amounted to a defence of the status quo. He also wrote on Marx and on the university, which he argued should be governed by faculty and students. His ideas remain part of the debate on anarchism and Anglo-American political philosophy.
Key ideas
- Individual autonomy: morality requires that each person obey only the reason they give themselves, which makes state authority incompatible with autonomy.
- Philosophical anarchism: without de jure state legitimacy, political obligation cannot be justified merely by living under a state.
- Critique of capitalism: markets and capitalist relations rest on exploitation and would remain unjust even without a state.
- Critique of Rawls: A Theory of Justice does not answer objections to private property and markets, and ends up defending the existing order.
- University democracy: universities should be governed by professors and students, resisting marketization and outside pressure.
Works in Filopedia
Curiosities
A bestselling book
The first edition of In Defense of Anarchism sold more than 200,000 copies.
Unexpected praise
His defence of anarchism was also praised by some right-wing libertarians, a response that surprised him.
Original Filopedia text based on Wikipedia (es) and Wikipedia (en) and Wikidata.