Elizabeth Anderson

Professor Elizabeth Anderson specializes in moral, social and political philosophy, feminist theory, social epistemology, and the philosophy of economics and the social sciences. She is particularly interested in exploring the interactions of social science with moral and political theory, how we learn to improve our value judgments, the epistemic functions of emotions and democratic deliberation, and issues of race, gender, and equality. She is the author of Value in Ethics and Economics, The Imperative of Integration, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (And Why We Don't Talk About It), and, most recently, Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back. She has written numerous articles on value theory, the ethical limitations of markets, facts and values in social scientific research, feminist and social epistemology, racial integration and affirmative action, rational choice and social norms, democratic theory, egalitarianism, and the history of ethics. Professor Anderson is currently working on the history of egalitarianism. Professor Anderson is a MacArthur Fellow, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the British Academy. She designed and was the first Director of the Program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at UM.
FROM ELIZABETH ANDERSON'S PERSONAL PAGE:
I am Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's & Gender Studies, and Max Shaye Professor of Public Philosophy. I teach courses in ethics, social and political philosophy, political economy, philosophy of the social sciences, and feminist theory. My research focuses on democratic theory, equality in political philosophy and American law, racial integration, the ethical limits of markets, the philosophy of work, theories of value and rational choice (alternatives to consequentialism and economic theories of rational choice), pragmatism, social epistemology, and feminist epistemology and philosophy of science. I am currently working on the history of egalitarianism and challenges to creating a society of equals. I designed and was the first Director of the Program in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics.