Robert Adams is a Professor Emeritus of Yale University. His 1973 paper “A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness” sparked a revival of interest in divine command theory. More recently, in his Finite and Infinite Goods, he presented a framework for theistic ethics, with normative moral concepts being analysed in terms of divine commands but evaluative moral concepts being analysed in terms of semblance to God.

He is married to Marilyn McCord Adams, Regius Professor of Divinity at Christ Church, Oxford, and ordained priest of the Episcopal church.