Sebastiano MAFFETTONE

Professor of Political Philosophy and Dean of the Political Science Department, LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome

Sebastiano Maffettone is an Italian philosopher, currently University Professor at Luiss University of Rome and Visiting at Stanford University (US). He graduated from the University of Naples in 1970 and then he completed his graduate studies in social philosophy at the London School of Economics in 1976, under the supervision of philosophers such as Karl Popper and Amartya K. Sen.

Maffettone translated in Italian John Rawls’ main work, A Theory of Justice. This book defined the focus of the philosophical problems that were to become the permanent themes of his life-long research (his introductory book on Rawls, published by Polity Press UK, is worldwide read and appreciated). Maffettone taught Rawls to generations of Italian and foreign students.

Other themes of research concern international political philosophy and the relation between applied philosophy and liberalism. He has been founder and first president of SIFP (the Italian society of political philosophy), has founded the research centre POLITEIA and the humanitarian association Humanity (which he chaired), is director of CERSDU (research center on human rights) now called Center in Ethics and Global Politics at LUISS University, editor in chief of the journal Filosofia e Questioni Pubbliche (now in English as Philosophy & Public Issues). He has got many foreign appointments (among which Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, U-Penn, BC, Tufts, LSE, Mumbai, Moscow, Delhi and Paris Sciences-Po) and has written columns on many national newspapers (among which Corriere della Sera, Panorama, Espresso, il Sole 24 ore, il Mattino).