Prof Dr. Gregg Caruso, Fairfield University, United States.
Dr. Gregg D. Caruso is an American philosopher and scholar widely recognized for his work in free will, punishment, moral responsibility, and applied ethics. He currently serves as Professor of Applied Ethics and Director of the Patrick J. Waide Center for Applied Ethics at Fairfield University, as well as Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University in Australia. Caruso is internationally known for promoting the “public health-quarantine model” as a humane, evidence-based alternative to retributive punishment. He has held teaching and administrative positions at SUNY Corning Community College, Northeastern University London, and the University of Aberdeen, among others. He frequently lectures worldwide and collaborates on interdisciplinary projects addressing ethics, neurolaw, and justice reform. With over two decades of teaching and scholarship, Dr. Caruso’s leadership in the field has influenced contemporary debates across law, psychology, and neuroscience. 🧠📚🌍 His vision is rooted in compassion, prevention, and systemic transformation over blame and retribution.
👨🏫 Profile
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🎓 Education & Academic Experience
Gregg D. Caruso earned his Ph.D. (2011) and M.Phil. (2002) in Philosophy from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. Prior to that, he completed a B.A. in Philosophy from William Paterson University (1996) and an A.A.S. in Music from Nassau Community College (1995). His academic career spans nearly two decades, starting as a Graduate Teaching Fellow at Brooklyn College (2000–2003) and later as a Writing Fellow at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (2003–2005). He was appointed Assistant Professor at Brooklyn College (2005–2006) and SUNY Corning (2006–2012), where he rose to Associate and then Full Professor before becoming SUNY Distinguished Professor in 2024. Dr. Caruso also served as Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences at SUNY Corning. Currently, he is Professor of Applied Ethics at Fairfield University and continues as an Honorary Professor at Macquarie University. 🎓👨🏫📘 His diverse roles reflect deep commitment to teaching, ethics, and public service.
🧠 Research Interests
Dr. Gregg D. Caruso’s research spans multiple areas in philosophy and ethics, with a central focus on free will skepticism, moral responsibility, criminal punishment, and applied ethics. He is best known for defending the “public health-quarantine model” of justice, which views criminal behavior as a societal issue rooted in social determinants—emphasizing prevention, rehabilitation, and public health over retribution. His work also addresses neurolaw, neuroethics, philosophy of mind, and moral psychology. In addition to these core areas, Caruso engages with issues in business ethics, consciousness studies, environmental ethics, and biomedical ethics. He has collaborated with legal scholars, neuroscientists, and psychologists to examine how brain science informs our concepts of justice and punishment. 🧬⚖️🧠 His forward-thinking approach challenges traditional views of blame, arguing that people are not morally responsible in the basic desert sense. Instead, he proposes a compassionate, scientifically informed alternative to punitive systems.
🏆 Awards, Distinctions & Fellowships
Dr. Caruso has earned multiple prestigious awards and grants throughout his academic career. Most notably, he received the 2022 Joseph B. Gittler Award from the American Philosophical Association for his book Rejecting Retributivism, which recognizes outstanding contributions to the philosophy of social sciences. In 2024, he was named SUNY Distinguished Professor, one of the highest honors in the State University of New York system, acknowledging his international impact and research excellence. At Fairfield University, he was awarded a 2025 Summer Research Stipend to support his forthcoming book, Putting People Before Profit. Other accolades include SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship (2015), multiple sabbaticals for book projects, and over $23,000 in conference grants. 🏅💡📖 His awards underscore his role as a transformative thinker advocating justice without retribution, ethics over profit, and reasoned debate over punitive instinct. Caruso’s distinctions affirm his leadership in ethics, law, and public philosophy.
📚 Selected Publications
Free will and consciousness: A determinist account of the illusion of free will
Rejecting retributivism: free will, punishment, and criminal justice
Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, morals, and purpose in the age of neuroscience
Free will skepticism and criminal behavior: A public health-quarantine model
Justice without retribution: An epistemic argument against retributive criminal punishment
Free will skepticism and its implications: An argument for optimism
A non-punitive alternative to retributive punishment
Moral responsibility reconsidered
Free will skepticism and the question of creativity: Creativity, desert, and self-creation
Free will skepticism in law and society