The Ethics & Legal Studies Doctoral Program at Wharton trains students in the fields of ethics and law in business. Students take a core set of courses in the area of ethics and law in business together with courses in an additional disciplinary concentration such as management, philosophy/ethical theory, finance, marketing, or accounting.
The program size and flexibility of the PhD Legal Studies and Business Ethics allow students to tailor their program to their individualized research interests and to pursue a joint degree with the Law School. Resources for current PhD students can be found on the Wharton Website.
The University’s world-class faculty take seriously the responsibility of training graduate students for the academic profession. Faculty work closely with students to help them develop their own distinctive academic interests. The curriculum crosses many disciplinary boundaries.
Faculty and student intellectual interests include a range of topics such as:
- Philosophy & Ethics: • philosophical business ethics • normative political philosophy • rights theory • theory of the firm • philosophy of law • philosophy of punishment & coercion • philosophy of deception and fraud • philosophy of blame and complicity • climate change ethics • effective altruism • integrative social contracts theory • corporate moral agency
- Law & Legal Studies: • law and economics • corporate penal theory • constitutional law • bankruptcy • corporate governance • corporate law • financial regulation • administrative law • empirical legal studies • blockchain and law • antitrust law • environmental law and policy • corporate criminal law • corruption • negotiations.
- Behavioral Ethics: • neuroscience and business ethics • moral psychology • moral beliefs and identity • moral deliberation • perceptions of corporate identity
Students must apply and gain admission separately to each department. Applications to the Department of Legal Studies & Business Ethics are welcomed contemporaneously with the Law School application and vice versa.
Applications for Fall 2021 Wharton admission opened September 15th, 2020. The deadline to apply is December 15th, 2020. In assessing your application, the Wharton admissions committee considers previous academic work, standardized graduate examination performance (GRE/GMAT), and the evaluations of instructors and professional supervisors. More information is on the Wharton Doctoral Admissions Website.
For more information, admitted or current JD students should contact Amanda S. Aronoff. Applicants or prospective applicants to the Law School should contact contactadmissions@law.upenn.edu.