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Roger Pilon (born November 28, 1942)[1] is an American philosopher and constitutional scholar working in the classical liberal tradition.[2] He is a senior fellow in the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, which he founded in January 1989 and directed until he became semi-retired on January 1, 2019.[3] He is the inaugural holder emeritus of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, Cato’s first endowed chair, established in 1998; and the publisher emeritus of the Cato Supreme Court Review,[4] which he founded in 2001.[3] From 1999 to 2019 he served also as Cato’s vice president for legal affairs.[3]

Personal Life and Education

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Pilon was born in Morrisville, Vermont. From the age of five he grew up in rural upstate New York, north of the village of Galway (pop. 150), in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains.[5] His early life is sketched in his 2022 intellectual autobiography, "An Unconventional Odyssey,"[5] and in a long 2017 interview at mimesislaw, "Cross: Roger Pilon, Defending Liberty at Cato."[6] He holds three degrees in philosophy: a B.A. from Columbia University‘s School of General Studies and an M.A. and Ph.D., both from the University of Chicago.[3] He also holds a J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law, which he earned while serving as a senior political appointee in the Reagan administration.[6] He is married to Juliana Geran Pilon,[7][8] who also is a philosopher with a B.A., M.A., and Ph.D., all from the University of Chicago. The Pilons have a daughter, a son, and a grandson.

Career

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After defending his dissertation at Chicago in November 1976, Pilon taught philosophy briefly at the California State University, Sonoma, and then philosophy of law at the Emory University School of Law in Atlanta.[6] While at Emory he was awarded a one-year National Fellowship by Stanford University's Hoover Institution, after which he was a senior fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies, located at the time in Menlo Park, California.[6] In April 1981, Pilon was invited to join the new Reagan administration as a senior political appointee, serving serially in the Office of Personnel Management, the State Department, and the Justice Department, which he left in October 1988 to join the Cato Institute.[6] He has also taught at the Federal Executive Institute in Charlottesville, Virginia; and, through The Fund for American Studies, he has been an adjunct professor in Georgetown University's Department of Government, teaching in that capacity in Washington and summers in Prague and Budapest.[9]

In early January 1988, when Pilon was serving as the first director of the Justice Department’s new, since renamed, Asylum Policy and Review Unit, the department's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) informed him that he was under a top secret investigation for possibly disclosing classified information to a foreign government. Nine months later, following a de novo review of the case, Pilon was cleared and his security clearances were restored. After another nine months, however, an erroneous account of the investigation surfaced in connection with OPR's annual report of its previous year's activities.[10] Two more de novo reviews again cleared Pilon.[11] When subsequent leaks to the media insinuated otherwise, Pilon brought suit against the Justice Department, claiming a violation of the Privacy Act. On January 16, 1996, a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found for Pilon.[12] After more than eight years, from start to finish, the case settled when the government awarded Pilon $250,000. Discovery during that time found that the illegal leaks had come from the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility.[13]

General Background

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Pilon's writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal,[14] the Washington Post,[15] the New York Times,[16] the Los Angeles Times,[17] the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy,[18] the Stanford Law & Policy Review,[19] the National Law Journal,[20] and elsewhere. He appears often on radio and television and testifies often before Congress. He has lectured and debated over 1,000 times at nearly every law school in the country, and he has lectured often abroad, in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, throughout Europe, including Russia, and China. Cato has sold over eight million copies of its pocket Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution,[21] which begins with Pilon's preface relating the two documents with regard to their underlying principles. In 1989, the National Press Foundation and the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution presented Pilon with its Benjamin Franklin Award for excellence in writing on the U.S. Constitution.[22] In June 1997, he gave his high school’s commencement address after he was inducted into the Galway Central School’s Hall of Fame.[23] In 2001, Columbia University’s School of General Studies awarded Pilon its Alumni Medal of Distinction; a year later, in June 2002, he gave the school's commencement address.[24] In April 2019, shortly after Pilon retired from 30 years as the founding director of Cato's Center for Constitutional Studies, Cato produced and ran a video of tributes to Pilon at its 31st Annual Benefactor Summit.[25] A full account of Pilon’s writings,speeches, media appearances, congressional testimonies, and more is available at his Cato Institute bio page.[26]

The Theory of Rights and the U.S. Constitution

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At the University of Chicago, Pilon wrote his doctoral dissertation, "A Theory of Rights: Toward Limited Government,"[27] under the direction of Professors Alan Gewirth and Alan Donagan in the philosophy department, and Milton Friedman in the economics department. He also studied with Professor Richard A. Epstein in the law school. Pilon draws on Gewirth's epistemological work in Reason and Morality to show that his mentor has made major advances in our ability to understand the truth conditions of statements about rights and to demonstrate, as against moral skeptics, that we have natural rights in the classical liberal tradition—rights to freedom from the interference of others. But contrary to Gewirth, Pilon argues, those findings, whatever one “ought” to do, do not support rights claims that entail positive correlative obligations, “rights” found in the modern welfare state. Thus, Pilon argues that, as a general matter, to the extent that such welfare rights undermine rights to freedom, they undermine the political legitimacy of states that provide and enforce them, for democratic will cannot legitimately undermine reason-based "self-evident" truths about rights. He then demonstrates how such fundamental moral and political principles, and principled exceptions to them, play out systematically over a range of cases, invoking long standing common law rules in the process.

Much of Pilon's then current and subsequent work has been aimed at showing, first, that those fundamental principles are reflected in America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution as corrected by the Civil War Amendments;[28] and, second, that they enable us to see the moral difficulties that arose with Progressivism and with the New Deal Supreme Court's progressive decisions, plus many decisions that have followed.[29] His work has focused especially on the role of the courts in developing that jurisprudence, particularly on the post-New Deal debate between liberal advocates of judicial activism and conservative advocates of judicial restraint.[30] Pilon has argued that the debate should have been more clearly focused on the Constitution itself and on whether the Court has read and applied the document’s provisions correctly in light of its text, structure, and history, a method that has come to be called "originalism" and a judicial approach that has come to be called "judicial engagement"—neither “activism,” amounting to judicial law-making, nor “restraint,” amounting to judicial abdication.[31]

Substantively, Pilon has argued that the Supreme Court has failed to keep Congress within its constitutionally enumerated powers, especially its power "to provide for the common Defence [sic] and general Welfare of the United States" and its power "to regulate Commerce among the several States."[32] The Court has also failed, he argues, to check Congress from delegating its legislative powers to the vast Executive branch agencies it has created, today’s administrative state where most of our laws, rules, regulations, and more are written, enforced and adjudicated by unelected bureaucrats.[33] And the Court’s oversight of the Executive branch has been uneven at best.[34]

Pilon has written on a wide variety of legal and constitutional issues from a classical liberal perspective: for example, on the origins of the modern libertarian legal movement;[35] natural and human rights;[36] the Russian,[37] Italian,[38] and Chinese Constitutions;[39] free speech,[40] including campaign finance;[41] property rights, especially regulatory takings;[42] term limits;[43] same-sex marriage;[44] religious freedom, including rights of association;[45] civil asset forfeiture;[46] corporate theory;[47] foreign affairs;[48] the Fourth Amendment;[49] the Ninth and Tenth Amendments;[50] affirmative action;[51] preemption;[52] abortion;[53] DC statehood,[54] and more. At present, he is at work on a book titled "The Moral Case for America: Rights, Powers, and the Constitution."

Selected Works

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  • Roger Pilon, “On the Origins of the Modern Libertarian Legal Movement,” Chapman Law Review 16(2) (2013): 255-268.[55]
  • Roger Pilon, A Theory of Rights: Toward Limited Government (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1979).[56]
  • Roger Pilon, "Ordering Rights Consistently: Or What We Do and Do Not Have Rights To," Georgia Law Review13 (1979): 1171–96.[57]
  • Roger Pilon, “Restoring Constitutional Government,” Cato Supreme Court Review, 2001-2002, ed. by James L. Swanson, Washington, DC (2002).[58]
  • Roger Pilon, “Ten Years in Perspective,” Cato Supreme Court Review, 2010-2011, ed by Ilya Shapiro, Washington, DC (2011).[59]
  • Roger Pilon, “Justice Scalia’s Originalism: Original or Post-New Deal?” Cato Supreme Court Review, 2015-2016, ed by Ilya Shapiro, Washington, DC (2026). [60]
  • Roger Pilon, “American Constitutional Theory and History: Implications for European Constitutionalism,” keynote address marking the 70th anniversary of the Italian Constitution, Rome, Italy, November 22, 2017.[61]
  • Roger Pilon, “Congress, the Courts, and the Constitution,” Cato Handbook for Policymakers, 9th edition, ed. by David Boaz, Washington, DC (2022).[62]

References

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  1. ^ Lindenberg, David Meyer (2017-02-22). "Cross: Roger Pilon, Defending Liberty at Cato". Simple Justice. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  2. ^ Pilon, Roger. "Roger Pilon". www.cato.org. Retrieved 2026-01-27.
  3. ^ a b c d "Roger Pilon". www.cato.org. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  4. ^ https://www.cato.org/search/category/reviews-journals+supreme-court-review/type/serial-issue
  5. ^ a b Pilon, Roger. "An Unconventional Odyssey". In Cavallo, Jo Ann; Block, Walter E. (eds.). Libertarian Autobiographies: Moving Toward Freedom in Today’s World (PDF). Palgrave MacMillan.
  6. ^ a b c d e "Cross: Roger Pilon, Defending Liberty at Cato". mimesislaw.com. Archived from the original on 2021-09-02. Retrieved 2026-01-26.
  7. ^ IHS, The (2020-07-08). "A Couple Who've Made Classical Liberal Ideas Matter: Drs. Roger and Juliana Pilon". The IHS. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  8. ^ "International Affairs". J G Pilon Website. Retrieved 2026-01-26.
  9. ^ "Roger Pilon". www.libertarianism.org. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  10. ^ "Ex-U.S. Worker Angry at Justice Dept. 'Misconduct' Report". Archived from the original on 2018-01-15. Retrieved 2026-01-26.
  11. ^ Michael Isikoff, Washington Post, “Former Justice Department Official Vindicated,” July 17, 1990, at A7; New York Times, “Settlement Reached in Justice Dept. Spying Inquiry,” July 17, 1990, at A16: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/us/settlement-reached-in-justice-dept-spying-inquiry.html.
  12. ^ Pilon v. Dept. of Justice, 73 F.3d 1111 (1996); https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=11547400601259815446&q=Pilon+v.+Department+of+Justice&hl=en&as_sdt=20000006&as_vis=1.
  13. ^ Washington Post, “Former Justice Department Official to Get $250,000,” July 15, 1996, at A6; Washington Post house editorial, “Mr. Pilon’s Privacy,” July 16, 1996, at A 14; Wall Street Journal house editorial, “Justice’s Lack of Privacy,” July 16, 1996, at A10: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB837486209534548500.
  14. ^ See, e.g., https://www.cato.org/commentary/rethinking-judicial-restraint.
  15. ^ See, e.g., https://www.cato.org/commentary/desecrating-principle-sake-symbol.
  16. ^ See, e.g., https://www.cato.org/commentary/link-up-and-cash-in.
  17. ^ See, e.g., https://www.cato.org/commentary/why-battle-was-so-vicious.
  18. ^ See, e.g., https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/property_responsibility_and_a_free_society.pdf.
  19. ^ See, e.g., https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/on_the_folly_and_illegitamacy_of_industrial_policy.pdf.
  20. ^ See, e.g., https://www.cato.org/commentary/fair-decision-same-sex-marriage-based-mostly-faulty-logic.
  21. ^ https://www.cato.org/books/cato-pocket-constitution.
  22. ^ Cato Policy Report (May/June 1989). “Pilon Essay Receives Award”. p. 4. https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/policy-report/1989/6/v11n3.pdf
  23. ^ "Pilon to join Galway High Hall of Fame". Schenectady Gazette. June 27, 1997. Retrieved Feb. 20, 2026. p. 18. https://www.oldnews.com/en/record?lang=en&record_id=record-10605-1122580&searchTerm=eJxtj7tOw0AQRX9lKyq0K7ORUApXgOgipIQi5WR9I4%2FYh%2BOdGJyvZ5xQAc3cM5o7r1OmhHajwRyzfeNYskIq9mGROpVqmyslVohLZbVI7dItr%2Bnof2hU791pOB8iBxIu2TVDpID2ZUIWA7FFeowGg92GHhlBqJvvnd%2Fg0%2Fl9GT%2BU3zMLOue3QoKqXt2ILwrya7KwRLRP5yolmcnuejj%2FTBxn51%2FpAhGYMMi%2FrZ1O%2FnPTbJv1%2BtEk6DPXpZUTRxq%2FAawJZic%3D&page_id=18.
  24. ^ Butterman, Eric (April 2023). "75 for 75: Meet 75 trailbrazers who studied at GS--and transformed the world". https://issuu.com/columbiags/docs/columbia-gs-owl-magazine-2022-2023?fr=sNzRiODMxMTkxMDA. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  25. ^ Cato video. Tribute to Roger Pilon from the 31st Annual Benefactor Summit. April 7, 2019. Retrieved Feb. 26, 2026. https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-video/tribute-roger-pilon-31st-annual-benefactor-summit.
  26. ^ Cato Institute Bio of Roger Pilon. Retrieved Feb. 26, 2026.https://www.cato.org/people/roger-pilon.
  27. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/a_theory_of_rights.pdf.
  28. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/pilon-iess-declaration.pdf; https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2023-07/pilon-preface-constiution-declaration.pdf.
  29. ^ https://www.cato.org/blog/progressivism-ropes.
  30. ^ https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/how-constitutional-corruption-has-led-ideological-litmus-tests-judicial-nominees; https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/online-alexander-bickel-sympo.pdf.
  31. ^ https://www.cato.org/testimony/judicial-misconduct-discipline; https://www.cato.org/commentary/engaged-trump-judges-may-restore-role-courts; https://www.cato.org/blog/proper-judging-means-principled-engagement-not-judicial-deference.
  32. ^ https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policymakers-9th-edition-2022/congress-courts-constitution.
  33. ^ https://www.cato.org/blog/how-far-can-congress-delegate-its-legislative-authority; https://www.cato.org/blog/reining-modern-executive-state.
  34. ^ https://www.cato.org/blog/win-major-missed-opportunity-nlrb-v-canning.
  35. ^ https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1284&context=chapman-law-review;https://www.cato.org/commentary/lessons-libertarian.
  36. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/the_idea_of_human_rights.pdf.;https://www.cato.org/commentary/missed-opportunity-struggle-human-rights.
  37. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/the_systematic_repression_of_soviet_jews.pdf.
  38. ^ Pilon, Roger. "American Constitutional Theory and History: Implications for European Constitutionalism". www.cato.org. Retrieved 2026-01-28.
  39. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2023-04/constitutionoflibertyforchina_sm.pdf.
  40. ^ https://www.cato.org/testimony/flag-desecration-amendment; https://www.cato.org/speeches/academic-freedom-free-speech.
  41. ^ https://www.cato.org/testimony/first-amendment-restrictions-political-speech; https://www.cato.org/blog/democracy-will-survive-citizens-united.
  42. ^ https://www.cato.org/testimony/property-rights-environmental-protection; https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/2025-10/Roger%20Pilon%20-%20Restoring%20the%20Right%20to%20Property%20as%20Fundamental%20to%20a%20Free%20Society.pdf.
  43. ^ https://www.cato.org/books/politics-law-term-limits; https://www.cato.org/commentary/whos-afraid-constitutional-amendment-term-limits.
  44. ^ https://www.cato.org/commentary/fair-decision-same-sex-marriage-based-mostly-faulty-logic;https://www.cato.org/blog/finding-rights-constitution; https://www.cato.org/blog/natural-law-gay-rights-state-departments-new-commission-unalienable-rights.
  45. ^ https://www.cato.org/commentary/whatever-happened-religious-freedom; https://www.cato.org/commentary/will-supreme-court-restore-religious-liberty.
  46. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/can_american_asset_forfeture_law_be_justified.pdf;https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/forfeiting_reason.pdf#:~:text=Criminal%20Justice%20Legal%20Foundation%2C%20Sacramento%2C,Continued%20from%20page%2011&text=Criminal%20Law%20and%20Procedure%20News,Volume%201%2C%20No.%202.
  47. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/in_defense_of_the_corporation.pdf;https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/corporations_and_rights.pdf.
  48. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/the_war_powers_in_brief.pdf; https://www.cato.org/commentary/nsa-surveillance-perspective.
  49. ^ https://www.cato.org/blog/another-close-fourth-amendment-decision; https://www.cato.org/testimony/constitutional-aspects-chemical-weapons-convention.
  50. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/policy-report/1991/9/theforgottenninthandtenthamendments.pdf; https://www.cato.org/commentary/bill-rights-day-lets-not-forget-9th-10th-amendments; https://www.cato.org/blog/more-protection-unenumerated-rights.
  51. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/discrimination_affirmative_action_and_freedom.pdf:https://www.cato.org/blog/reflections-schuette-v-coalition-defend-affirmative-action.
  52. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2011/9/preemptionpilon.pdf.
  53. ^ https://www.cato.org/commentary/alito-abortion; https://www.cato.org/commentary/how-bishops-undermined-individual-responsibility.
  54. ^ https://www.cato.org/testimony/examining-dc-statehood; https://www.cato.org/commentary/thirty-nine-professors-wrestle-dc-statehood-23rd-amendment.
  55. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/chapman_lr_final.pdf
  56. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/a_theory_of_rights.pdf
  57. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/articles/ordering_rights_consistently.pdf
  58. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2002/9/forward.pdf
  59. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2011/9/forewordpilon.pdf
  60. ^ https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/serials/files/supreme-court-review/2016/9/2016-supreme-court-review-foreword.pdf
  61. ^ https://www.cato.org/speeches/american-constitutional-theory-history-implications-european-constitutionalism
  62. ^ https://www.cato.org/cato-handbook-policymakers/cato-handbook-policymakers-9th-edition-2022/congress-courts-constitution
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