Gideon Yaffe Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

Gideon Yaffe, the Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence, has been elected to the 2026 class of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Announced on April 22, the 252 members elected to the Academy in 2026 are distinguished leaders in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research, and science.

“We celebrate the achievement of each new member and the collective breadth and depth of their excellence — this is a fitting commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary,” said Academy President Laurie Patton. “The founding of the nation and the Academy are rooted in the inextricable links between a vibrant democracy, the free pursuit of knowledge, and the expansion of the public good.”

The Academy is an honorary society and independent research center founded in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock, “and 60 other scholar-patriots who understood that a new republic would require institutions able to gather knowledge and advance learning in service to the public good,” according to the Academy.

“We invite all of our members to celebrate their election and to join in the Academy’s work advancing the common good across the arts, democracy, education, global affairs, and science,” said Chair of the Board Goodwin Liu ’98, associate justice of the California Supreme Court. “Our nonpartisan and interdisciplinary commitment to knowledge and democracy began in 1780 and continues in 2026 with pursuits never more important than they are now. We know such endeavors will be expanded and deepened by these newest members.”

At Yale, Yaffe serves as Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld Professor of Jurisprudence, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Psychology. His primary area of research is the philosophy of law, particularly the philosophy of criminal law. He makes progress on the study of intention and the theory of action in an effort to understand and evaluate the way in which criminal responsibility is assessed. He has also published books and articles about the history of early modern philosophy. Yaffe collaborates with several neuroscientists to devise experiments that aim to be of legal and philosophical significance and has written about the relevance of the neuroscience of addiction to the criminal culpability of addicts.

His 2010 book “Attempts: In the Philosophy of Action and the Criminal Law,” concerns the philosophical foundations of the law governing attempted crimes. His 2018 book “The Age of Culpability: Children and the Nature of Criminal Responsibility” explores the philosophical grounds for leniency towards child criminals. 

He holds an A.B. in philosophy from Harvard and a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford. He was a member of the MacArthur Foundation’s Law and Neuroscience Project and has held fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Mellon Foundation, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and was named a Guggenheim Fellow in 2015.

More than 14,500 members have been elected to the Academy since 1780. Members of the Academy are leaders in arts and sciences, business, philanthropy, and public affairs who explore challenges in society and apply their expertise to provide solutions for the common good. The Academy’s projects and publications are focused on the arts and humanities, democracy and justice, education, energy and the environment, global affairs, and science and technology.