Douglas W. Portmore

Doug joined the University of Notre Dame in August 2025. Before that, he was Professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University for twenty years. Currently, he serves as Editor-in-Chief of Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political and Legal Philosophy. His research focuses on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two, but he has also written on well-being, moral worth, posthumous harm, moral responsibility, and the non-identity problem.

Representative Publications

Morality and Practical Reasons. Elements in Ethics. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021). 

Opting for the Best: Oughts and Options. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

“Latitude, Supererogation, and Imperfect Duties.” In David Heyd (ed.), Handbook of Supererogation (Singapore: Springer, 2023), pp. 63–86.

“A Comprehensive Account of Blame: Self-Blame, Non-Moral Blame, and Blame for the Non-Voluntary.” In Andreas Brekke Carlsson (ed.), Self-Blame and Moral Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), pp. 48–76.

“Consequentializing Agent-Centered Restrictions: A Kantsequentialist Approach,” Analytic Philosophy 64 (2023): 443–67.

“Moral Worth and Our Ultimate Moral Concerns,” Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 12 (2022): 276–98.