Professor Norman (Ph.D. London School of Economics, 1988) is the Mike and Ruth Mackowski Distinguished Professor of Ethics in Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke. He previously held Chairs in Business Ethics at the Université de Montréal and the University of British Columbia, and before that taught at the University of Ottawa and the University of Western Ontario. He has held visiting appointments in eight countries and been published in 10 languages. He has taught mainly in philosophy departments, but also in two MBA programs, and a political science department.

Norman plays blues guitar and sings in a band called Mona Lisa's Highway Blues, which won “Most Original Performance” at the 2015 Triangle Battle of the Bands charity event, and in Yoga Imposters. He is working on a collection of "Ivory Tower Rocks" songs about philosophical arguments, like this one on the Trolley Problem.

Professor Norman is a cat person.

• Business Ethics on the Fly. A short tool-kit-style alternative to a textbook.
• The Ethical Adversary: Can you play fair when you're playing to win? An enquiry into the challenges posed to standard accounts of justice and ethics by institutions that are deliberately designed to harness competition (such as sports, markets, the adversarial legal system, and democratic politics).
• Whiteface: What midcentury vinyl album covers teach us about race and gender in American, then and now. An "intellectual coffee table book" featuring ~300 LPs from Norman's private collection.

• Negotiating Nationalism: Nation-building, Federalism, and Secession in the Multinational State, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. xxi + 250.
• D. Karmis and W. Norman (eds), Theories of Federalism, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan Publishing, 2005, pp. xiv + 325.
• W. Kymlicka and W. Norman (eds), Citizenship in Diverse Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. xii + 444.
• Taking Freedom Too Seriously? An essay on analytic and post-analytic political philosophy, New York & London: Garland Publishing, 1991, pp. xii + 184.

• W. Norman, "Deep Thoughts with Short Words," Blog of the APA, 23 July 2020.
• Wayne Norman & Aaron Ancell, “Democratic Theory and the Regulatory State,” Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 49/4, 2018, 536-563.
• W. Norman, "Rawls on Markets and Corporate Governance," Business Ethics Quarterly 25, 2016, pp 29-64.
• W. Norman, “When is a Sport Not a Sport?” in Kim Flachmann and Michael Flachmann, eds, The Prose Reader: Essays for Thinking, Reading, and Writing 11^th edition, New York: Pearson Publishing, 2017.
• J. Heath and W. Norman, “Stakeholder Theory, Corporate Governance and Public Management: what can the history of state-run enterprises teach us in the post-Enron era?,” in J. Heath, Ethics, Competition, and the Firm, Oxford University Press, 2014 (Reprinted from Heath & Norman 2004).
• W. Kymlicka & W. Norman, “Citizenship in Culturally Diverse Societies: Issues, Contexts, Concept,” in Richard Bellamy and Madeleine Kennedy-Macfoy, eds, Citizenship, v. II, part 5, New York: Routledge, 2014, 41pp. (Reprinted from Kymlicka & Norman 2000).
• W. Norman, "Is there a 'Point' to Markets? A Response to Martin," Business Ethics Journal Review 2(4), 2014, 22-28.
• W. Norman & Pierre-Yves Néron, “Mondialisation économique et éthique des affaires,”R. Chung and J.B. Jeangène Vilmer (eds), Éthique des relations internationales, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2013, 329-51.
• W. Norman, “Business Ethics,” in the 10-volume International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Hugh LaFollette, editor-in-chief), New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2013, pp. 652-668 (the longest-format article in the Encyclopedia).
• W. Norman, “Stakeholder Theory,” in the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Hugh LaFollette, editor-in-chief), New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2013, pp. 5002-11.
• W. Norman, “Whither Business Ethics,” Ethics Forum, 7/3, 2012, 31-40.
• W. Norman, “Business Ethics as Self-Regulation: Why principles that ground regulations should be used to ground beyond-compliance norms as well,” Journal of Business Ethics, v. 102, supp. 1, 2011, pp. 43-57.
• J. Heath, J. Moriarty, W. Norman, “Business Ethics and (or as) Political Philosophy,” Business Ethics Quarterly, 2010.
• W. Norman, "The Financial Theory of the Firm," in J. Boatright, ed, Companion to Ethics in Finance, John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
• W. Norman, "From Quid Pro Quo to Modus Vivendi: can legalizing secession strengthen the multinational federation?" in F. Requejo and M. Caminal, eds, Political liberalism and Multinational Democracies, London: Routledge, 2010.
• C. MacDonald & W. Norman, “Conflicts of Interest and Professional Ethics,” in G. Brenkert & T. Beauchamp, eds, Oxford Handbook in Business Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 441-470.
• W. Norman, P. Bélanger, and C. Roux, “Recognizing Business Ethics,” Journal of Business Ethics 86/3, 2009, 257-271.
• Pierre-Yves Néron and W. Norman, "Corporations as Citizens: Political not Metaphorical, A Reply to Critics," Business Ethics Quarterly, January 2008.
• Pierre-Yves Néron and W. Norman, "Citizenship Inc.: Do we really want businesses to be good corporate citizens?," Business Ethics Quarterly, January 2008.
• J. Heath and W. Norman, "Stakeholder Theory, Corporate Governance and Public Management: what can the history of state-run enterprises teach us in the post-Enron era?," Journal of Business Ethics 53, 2004: 247-265.
• W. Norman and C. MacDonald, "Getting to the Bottom of Triple Bottom Line," Business Ethics Quarterly 14/2, 2003: 243-262.

• From Business-as-Usual to Suddenly-Unacceptable: Lessons for Ethical Business Today from the “Whiteface” Marketing of Black Music by the American Recording Industry, 1956-68; Minnesota State University, Mankato, April 2023. 

• “When the Outrageous Hides in Plain Sight: the Curious Case of the Trans-racial Whitewashed LP Cover in Midcentury America”. An hour-long multimedia presentation at the annual meetings of the Society for Business Ethics, Seattle, August 2022.

• “Business Ethics Without Ethical Theory”, a 90-minute presentation at the Global Business Ethics Workshop, Bentley University, Boston, June 2022.

• The Market-failures Approach to Business Ethics: a Restatement, to the Annual Meetings of the Society for Business Ethics (on Zoom in 2021), July 2021.

• Who knows what? Corporate Responsibility in the 21^st-century regulatory state (with Aaron Ancell), to the Annual Meetings of the Society for Business Ethics, Boston, August 2019.

• Plato on Wall Street (with Eric Orts), to the Annual Meetings of the Society for Business Ethics, Boston, August 2019. (Including a performance of my song, “The Ballad of Gyges’ Ring”)

• The role of ordinary morality in business ethics, to the Annual Meetings of the Society for Business Ethics, Boston, August 2019.

• The Very Idea of an Adversarial Ethics, to the Zicklin Workshop in Business Ethics Research, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 8 February 2019.

• The Ultimate Federalist Defence, to the International Conference on Defensive Federalism: Self-government and the Tyranny of the Majority, Institut d’Estudis de l’Autogovern, Barcelona, November 28-29, 2019.
• Who knows what? Corporate Responsibility in the 21^st-century regulatory state (with Aaron Ancell), to the Annual Meetings of the Society for Business Ethics, Boston, August 2019.
• Plato on Wall Street (with Eric Orts), to the Annual Meetings of the Society for Business Ethics, Boston, August 2019. (Including a performance of my song, “The Ballad of Gyges’ Ring”)
• The role of ordinary morality in business ethics, to the Annual Meetings of the Society for Business Ethics, Boston, August 2019.
• The Very Idea of an Adversarial Ethics, to the Zicklin Workshop in Business Ethics Research, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, 8 February 2019.
• The Ethical Adversary: How to Play Fair When You’re Playing to Win, chapters 1 & 2, Adversarial Ethics Workshop, Program in Ethics, Politics, and Economics, at Yale University, 20 April 2018.
• Return to ‘Return of the Citizen’, Instituto de investigaciones filosóficas, UNAM, Mexico City, 10 November 2017.
• Justice and Markets – new challenges to open borders in the face of rising popular opposition to globalization, to the workshop on Justice and Markets, University of Ottawa, October 2017.
• Why Would Anybody Voluntarily Study Business Ethics?, Bentley University, March 30, 2017.
• How to be an Ethical Adversary Without Tying One Hand Behind Your Back, Bentley University, March 29, 2017.
• Business Ethics, Democratic Theory, and the Regulatory State, presented to the conference on Normative Ethics and Welfare Economics, Harvard Business School, Cambridge MA, October 22, 2016.
• Myths, Economics, and the ‘Real World’ in Nationalist Politics, presented to the conference on Integrated Society: The Experience of Latvia and Canada, Riga Stradiņš University, Latvia, October 18, 2016.
• What Can Philosophers Tells us about the Nature and Ethics of Nationalism? Keynote address at the conference on The Ethics and Politics of Nationalism, Latvian Academy of Sciences, Riga, Latvia, October 17, 2016.
• Éthique + Finance ? Keynote address (“Conférencier d’honneur”) to the Réseau transnational de droit bancaire et financier, Montreal, Canada, October 2016.

Office Location: 201 West Duke Building, BOX_90743, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:

Education:
Ph.D., University of London (United Kingdom), 1988

Specialties:

Political Philosophy
Ethics

Research Interests: Business Ethics, Political Philosophy

Most of Norman's recent research falls under two broad headings:

BUSINESS ETHICS, where he has looked critically at a number of popular and quasi-academic frameworks for identifying and justifying beyond-compliance obligations (e.g. CSR, corporate citizenship, sustainability, triple bottom line, stakeholder theory...). His working hypothesis is that beyond-compliance obligations can be justified by using the same concepts and methods we use in justifying particular regulations. ("Business ethics as self-regulation".) He focuses on "ethical lobbying," and more generally on the nature of responsible conduct in business-government relations in a democratic society.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, where he has published extensively on nationalism, citizenship, constitutionalism, federalism, secession, and multiculturalism.

Selected Recent Publications (5 books, 75+ articles):

SELECTED BOOKS

• Negotiating Nationalism: Nation-building, Federalism, and Secession in the Multinational State, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006, pp. xxi + 250.
• D. Karmis and W. Norman (eds), Theories of Federalism, New York: Palgrave-Macmillan Publishing, 2005, pp. xiv + 325.
• W. Kymlicka and W. Norman (eds), Citizenship in Diverse Societies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. xii + 444.

SELECTED RECENT ARTICLES

• W. Norman, "Is there a 'Point' to Markets? A Response to Martin," Business Ethics Journal Review 2(4): 2014: 22–28.

• W. Kymlicka & W. Norman, “Citizenship in Culturally Diverse Societies: Issues, Contexts, Concept,” in Richard Bellamy and Madeleine Kennedy-Macfoy, eds, Citizenship, v. II, part 5, New York: Routledge, 2014, 41pp. (Reprinted from Kymlicka & Norman 2000).

• W. Norman & Pierre-Yves Néron, “Mondialisation économique et éthique des affaires,” R. Chung and J.B. Jeangène Vilmer (eds), Éthique des relations internationales, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2013, 329-51.
• W. Norman, “Business Ethics,” in the 10-volume International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Hugh LaFollette, editor-in-chief), New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2013, pp. 652-668 (the longest-format article in the Encyclopedia).
• W. Norman, “Stakeholder Theory,” in the International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Hugh LaFollette, editor-in-chief), New York-Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, 2013, pp. 5002-11.
• W. Norman, “Whither Business Ethics,” Ethics Forum, 7/3, 2012, 31-40.
• W. Norman, “Business Ethics as Self-Regulation: Why principles that ground regulations should be used to ground beyond-compliance norms as well,” Journal of Business Ethics, v. 102, supp. 1, 2011, pp. 43-57.
• J. Heath, J. Moriarty, W. Norman, “Business Ethics and (or as) Political Philosophy,” Business Ethics Quarterly, 2010.
• W. Norman, "The Financial Theory of the Firm," in J. Boatright, ed, Companion to Ethics in Finance, John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
• W. Norman, "From Quid Pro Quo to Modus Vivendi: can legalizing secession strengthen the multinational federation?" in F. Requejo and M. Caminal, eds, Political liberalism and Multinational Democracies, London: Routledge, 2010.
• C. MacDonald & W. Norman, “Conflicts of Interest and Professional Ethics,” in G. Brenkert & T. Beauchamp, eds, Oxford Handbook in Business Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 441-470.
  
• W. Norman, P. Bélanger, and C. Roux, “Recognizing Business Ethics,” Journal of Business Ethics 86/3, 2009, 257-271.
  
• Pierre-Yves Néron and W. Norman, "Corporations as Citizens: Political not Metaphorical, A Reply to Critics," Business Ethics Quarterly, January 2008.
• Pierre-Yves Néron and W. Norman, "Citizenship Inc.: Do we really want businesses to be good corporate citizens?," Business Ethics Quarterly, January 2008.
• J. Heath and W. Norman, "Stakeholder Theory, Corporate Governance and Public Management: what can the history of state-run enterprises teach us in the post-Enron era?," Journal of Business Ethics 53, 2004: 247-265.
• W. Norman and C. MacDonald, "Getting to the Bottom of Triple Bottom Line," Business Ethics Quarterly 14/2, 2003: 243-262.

• PHIL 590S.02, Special fields seminar (top) Synopsis

  Class Bldg 125, Th 03:05 PM-05:35 PM

Teaching (Spring 2025):

• ETHICS 89S.02, First-year seminar (top) Synopsis

  West Duke 107F, M 01:40 PM-04:10 PM

• PHIL 270.01, Business ethics Synopsis

  Crowell 107, W 03:05 PM-05:35 PM

Recent Publications

• W. Norman. "Is there a "Point" to Markets? A Response to Martin." Business Ethics Journal Review 2.4 (2014): 22-28. [available here]