He is O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and previously held a chair in the business school there.
His 2005 book, The Good in the Right, updates and strengthens Rossian intuitionism and develops the epistemology of ethics.
Audi has expanded his theory of justification to non-doxastic states, e.g. desires and intentions, by developing a comprehensive account of rationality.
Audi has also developed an account of autonomy, which he characterizes as the self-governing power to bring reasons to bear in directing one's conduct and influencing one's propositional attitudes.
"'Both liked to explain and comment on things,' Robert mused, 'and they often entertained people from the diplomatic world and medicine who argued about politics, religion and ideas in general.
He also thinks that basic beliefs need not be necessary truths, but merely have some structure which makes epistemic transition possible.
Audi is committed to a form of foundationalism: the idea that justified beliefs, or in his case, rational states in general, can be divided into two groups: the foundation and the superstructure.
[6]: 41–43 Audi asserts that all the basic sources providing justification for the foundational mental states come from experience.
As for beliefs, there are four types of experience that act as sources: perception, memory, introspection, and rational intuition.
Beliefs are needed here, as in the case of instrumental desires, to bridge a gap and link two elements.
[7] Gilbert Harman has criticized Audi's account of rationality because of its reliance on experience as the ultimate source of justification.
[11] This apparent consequence of Audi's account is opposed to the common-sense view that most people are rational at least some if not most of the time.
Robert Audi characterizes autonomy as the self-governing power to bring reasons to bear in directing one's conduct and influencing one's propositional attitudes.
An example would be a political prisoner who is forced to make a statement in favor of his opponents in order to ensure that his loved ones are not harmed.
As Audi points out, the prisoner lacks freedom but still has autonomy since his statement, though not reflecting his political ideals, is still an expression of his commitment to his loved ones.
[12]: 249, 257 A commitment to principles and projects, on the other hand, provides autonomous agents with an identity over time and gives them a sense of the kind of persons they want to be.
[12]: 247–8 Some form of motivational force or executive power is necessary in order to get from mere self-legislation to self-government.
One of the problems of instrumentalism is that it lacks the resources to distinguish between good and bad intrinsic desires.
Audi suggests that we should adopt a position known as axiological objectivism in order to avoid this counterintuitive conclusion.
[12]: 261ff The central idea of this outlook is that objective values, and not subjective desires, are the sources of normativity and therefore determine what we should do.
Reason can, through rational reflection, arrive at ideals of conduct in the light of these objective values, for example, to promote pleasure and to impede pain in oneself and others.