Duke Philosopher Elected to American Academy of Arts & Sciences

David Wong’s work studying morality is recognized by one of the oldest learned societies in the country

David Wong headshot on a stylized blue gothic architecture background.
David Wong is a philosopher at Duke University.

Duke philosopher David Wong is among 252 leaders in academia, the arts, industry, journalism, philanthropy, policy, research and science elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, one of the oldest learned societies in the United States.

Wong is the Susan Fox Beischer and George D. Beischer Trinity College Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and an affiliate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. He is a leading expert researching questions of morality on the personal and societal levels.

“A core theme of my work has concerned the value of interdependence and the challenge it poses to the tendency to overvalue independence,” said Wong. “I therefore thank the colleagues and students over the 25 years I’ve been here at Duke for the ways they have nourished this work in conversation and writing.”

In addition to numerous research publications, Wong has published multiple books, including “Moral Relativity”(University of California Press, 1984), “Natural Moralities” (Oxford University Press, 2006), “Moral Relativism and Pluralism”(Cambridge University Press, 2023), and “Metaphor and Analogy in Chinese Thought”(Oxford University Press, 2025).

“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 and former Dean of Trinity College of Arts & Sciences at Duke, 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, chartered in 1780, was established to recognize accomplished individuals and engage them in addressing the greatest challenges facing the young republic. The first members elected to the Academy include George Washington, who said – in his first annual message to Congress in 1790 – “Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”

Other members inducted this year include actor and filmmaker Jodie Foster, mathematician Nataša Pavlović, and authors Barbara Kingsolver and Colson Whitehead.

Wong joins a historic group. Since its founding in 1780, the academy has elected leading thinkers from each generation, including Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton in the 18th century, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Darwin in the 19th century, and Albert Einstein and Margaret Mead in the 20th century. This century, those elected include Jennifer Doudna and Duke President Vincent Price.

Induction ceremonies for new members will take place in Cambridge, Mass., in October 2026. Learn more about the Academy and its history.