James Otteson

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James R. Otteson is an American philosopher. Formerly the chairman of the department of philosophy at the University of Alabama, he has just been instated as the Director of the Men's Honors Program at Yeshiva University. He is also professor of philosophy and economics at Yeshiva. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.

Otteson first became known for his writings on the ethics of Adam Smith. In his book, Adam Smith's Marketplace of Life (Cambridge University Press, 2002), he argued that Smith's moral philosophy proposed a "marketplace model" for the creation, development, and maintenance of large-scale human social orders, including morality. He also argues that this "market model" unifies Smith's two books, his 1759 Theory of Moral Sentiments and his 1776 Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, thereby resolving the long-standing "Adam Smith Problem."

In 2005, Otteson won the Atlas Economic Research Foundation Award. This award is for scholars working outside the traditional areas of economic study whose work is informed by an Austrian economic perspective.

Otteson's 2006 book Actual Ethics, which was published by Cambridge University Press, was recently named the first-prize winner of the 2007 Templeton Enterprise Award. This award is given annually to the best book published in the previous year in the subject of "humane economics" whose author is under forty years of age. First prize carries with it a $50,000 cash prize, more than is awarded with a Pulitzer Prize or a National Book Award.

Actual Ethics defends a classical liberal political order, based on a fusion of Kantian and Aristotelian moral themes. After developing and defending the moral basis of the position, he goes on to show how a classical liberal state would address several currently vexing moral and political issues, including affirmative action, homosexual marriage and adoption, speech codes, and the treatment of animals.

Otteson is married to Katharine LeJeune Otteson, whom he met at and who also graduated from Notre Dame; they have four children and live currently in New Jersey.