Kyle Fritz
Associate Professor of Public Policy Leadership, Department of Public Policy Leadership, College of Liberal Arts
BIO
Kyle Fritz earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Florida State University. He conducts research in three broad areas: (1) moral authority, (2) ethical punishment, and (3) conscientious objection. His work on moral authority concerns moral standing, or the right to hold others accountable, and what can undermine that right. This idea is especially important for leadership, as an individual’s hypocrisy or complicity in wrongdoing can plausibly compromise their moral standing and their ability to effectively lead. His work on ethical punishment is also connected to standing and integrity: what might compromise the state’s moral authority to punish criminal offenders, and how can society punish in a way that maintains our integrity? Finally, policies regarding conscientious objection aim to protect an individual’s integrity, but such policies also come with social costs. Weighing individual integrity against these costs is an important task for ethical public policy.
Dr. Fritz’s research has been published in Ethics, Ergo, Criminal Law and Philosophy, Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, Journal of Business Ethics, and American Journal of Bioethics, among other journals. His papers and recent class syllabi can be found on his website: https://kylegfritz.com/.
WHY CLI?
Leaders who are hypocritical lack the moral authority needed to hold followers responsible and lead effectively, so I am interested in the way the virtue of integrity impacts a leader’s authority. Relatedly, however, it seems plausible that in virtue of their position, leaders may sometimes be justified in not following a rule that they nevertheless expect their followers to obey, and this raises important questions of what the virtue of fairness in leadership looks like.