James B. Murphy, Ph.D.

James Bernard Murphy is Professor of Government at Dartmouth College, where he has taught since 1990. After graduating from Yale College in 1980, he earned a Master’s in City Planning from M.I.T. and worked as a city planner in the City of New York. He earned a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Political Science from Yale University in 1990.

His research interests include: Aristotle, jurisprudence, semiotics, political economy, philosophy of education, and political theology. In 2008, Professor Murphy founded the Daniel Webster Project at Dartmouth College to provide greater structure and focus for the liberal arts experience. The Webster Project sponsors conferences and lectures as well as proposals for curricular reform.

He has published three single-authored books: The Moral Economy of Labor: Aristotelian Themes in Economic Theory, The Philosophy of Positive Law, and The Philosophy of Customary Law. Professor Murphy’s most recent book manuscripts are “A Genealogy of Violence: René Girard in Dialogue” and “Why Grow Up? Childhood, Adulthood, and Humanhood.” Professor Murphy has also co-edited four other books and published numerous articles in scholarly journals. He has also published Op-Ed essays in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.