Bedau, Hugo Adam

Hugo Bedau was a long time faculty member of the Department of Philosophy. He received his undergraduate education at the naval training program at USC and at the University of Redlands, where he graduated in 1949. He completed his masters at Boston University (1951) and his PhD (1961) at Harvard. Prior to coming to Tufts, Bedau taught at Dartmouth, Princeton, and Reed, as well as serving as an adjunct or visiting lecturer at several colleges. In 1966 he joined the Tufts faculty were his refusal to take a Loyalty Oath required by the state of Massachusetts nearly ended his Tufts career before it began. However, a court injunction and subsequent vindication by the Massachusetts Supreme Court solidified his place among the faculty for many years to come.

Hugo A. Bedau (Ph.D., Harvard, 1961) is a commentator, scholar, and activist for the abolition of capital punishment. He is a prominent spokesperson in the abolitionist movement and well-known for his scholarship and writing concerning the death penalty and the challenge to separate logical arguments from moral arguments. He was Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University from 1966-1999, where he helped found the Center for the Study of Decision Making. Bedau is the author of such works as the Death Penalty in America (4th edition, 1997), Courts the Constitution and Capital Punishment (1977); Death is Different (1987); Current Issues and Enduring Questions (4th edition, 1996). His Romanell - Phi Beta Kappa lectures delivered at Tufts in the spring of 1995, were published by Oxford University Press under the title, Making Moral Choices. In addition he has written hundreds of journal articles on the subject of Capital Punishment and been published in a number of diverse publications. He has also written stories and op-ed pieces for many prominent newspapers. Bedau was recently the chairman of the board for the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. He has been a board member for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts and the American League to Abolish Capital Punishment. He has also been an active member of the Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty for many years. He has also served as a member of such organizations as the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Amnesty International. Bedau has frequently testified before state and federal legislative committees as an expert on the issue of Capital Punishment.