Dr Benjamin Sachs-Cobbe

Director of Impact

Senior Lecturer

Phone: +44 (0)1334 46 4439
Email: bas7@st-andrews.ac.uk

Biography

Dr. Sachs-Cobbe was born and raised in San Diego, California. He received a bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois and a PhD at the University of Wisconsin. Prior to coming to St. Andrews he was an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow in the Program in Environmental Studies and the Department of Bioethics at New York University, and prior to that a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health (U.S.).

Teaching

Dr. Sachs-Cobbe teaches classes on ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of law, animal ethics, philosophy of economics, and distributive justice.

Research areas

Dr. Sachs-Cobbe is working on issues concerning work and the welfare state. We have a welfare state already, and we could make it bigger/more generous and thereby move towards a world in which each individual's share of society's wealth is less connected to the work they do. Dr. Sachs-Cobbe's research is exploring whether there are good reasons not to make that move. More narrowly, his current work is on meritocracy, the distinction between good and bad work, making welfare conditional on work, on whether the state should institute a job guarantee, and on moral issues concerning the state pension.

Prior to adopting the above-mentioned research focus, Dr. Sachs-Cobbe's research included work on contractarianism, on how individuals and the state ought to treat non-human animals, on ethical theory, on coercion, and on the ethics of reesearch on human subjects.

PhD supervision

Ida Miczke

Selected publications

Open access
Taking jobs and doing harm
Pummer, T. & Sachs-Cobbe, B., 3 Sept 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Journal of Applied Philosophy. Early view, 16 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open access
Why enable retirement?
Sachs-Cobbe, B., 28 Jul 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Journal of Social Philosophy. Early view, 11 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open access
The ethics of the state pension
Sachs-Cobbe, B., 3 Sept 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Philosophy Compass. 20, 9, e70053.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open access
Meritocracy in the political and economic spheres
Sachs-Cobbe, B. A. & X. Douglas, A., Jan 2024, In: Philosophy Compass. 19, 1, 15 p., e12955.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open access
Problems with the Living Wage Movement
Sachs-Cobbe, B. A., 16 Jul 2023, (E-pub ahead of print) In: International Journal of Applied Philosophy. 36, 2, p. 123-143
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open access
Recent work on meritocracy
Sachs-Cobbe, B., 11 Aug 2023, In: Analysis. 83, 1, p. 171-185 15 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open access
The conservatism objection to educating for the virtues of citizenship
Sachs-Cobbe, B. A., 1 Jul 2023, In: Theory and Research in Education. 21, 2, p. 135-154 20 p.
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open access
Factory farm abolition the moderate way
Sachs-Cobbe, B., 19 Sept 2022, Justice Everywhere.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
Open access
Why we can’t have it all when it comes to the future of work
Sachs-Cobbe, B. A., Thomas, D. M. & Xavier Douglas, A., 3 Mar 2022, Justice Everywhere.
Research output: Contribution to specialist publication › Article
Open access
Connecting moral status to proper legal status
Sachs, B., 5 Aug 2021, Rethinking moral status. Clarke, S., Zohny, H. & Savulescu, J. (eds.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 215-230 16 p.
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

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