The Witherspoon Institute is an independent research center that works to enhance public understanding of the moral foundations of free and democratic societies. Located in Princeton, New Jersey, the Institute promotes the application of fundamental principles of republican government and ordered liberty to contemporary problems. In light of this purpose, the Institute has a special interest in higher education and the formation of the next generation of scholars.

The Witherspoon Institute furthers its educational mission through research, publication, fellowships and events of the Center on Religion and the Constitution and the Center on Ethics and Scholarship. These two centers provide opportunities to high school, undergraduate and graduate students to examine the moral foundations of political, philosophical and social thought.

The Witherspoon Institute assists its Fellows in conducting research through its six Research Programs focused on the actors and institutions of modern society: the individual, the family, the corporation, the university and the state.

Bioethics and Human Dignity
Business and Ethics
Ethics, Culture, and Economic Development
Family, Marriage, and Democracy
Political Thought and Constitutional Government
Religion and Civil Society

Fellows of the Institute are usually faculty members of the leading colleges and universities of North America, Africa and Europe, and are selected both for the excellence in scholarship as well as teaching.

The Institute is named for John Witherspoon, a leading member of the Continental Congress, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the sixth president of Princeton University, and mentor to James Madison. As important as these credentials and his other accomplishments are, however, it is Witherspoon's commitment to liberal education and republican government that inspire this Institute's name.