Allan Gibbard
Richard B. Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy Emeritus

Department of Philosophy
University of Michigan
Angell Hall, 435 South State Street
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1003
E-mail: gibbard [at-sign] umich.edu

Translated by Sandra Laugier as Sagesse des choix, justesse des sentiments: une theorie du jugement normatif (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1996).

This is a printing of my 1971 dissertation in the series Harvard Dissertations in Philosophy, Robert Nozick, ed.

o   Hattiangadi critique and article

o   Supplemental Note to Meaning and Normativity (2012)

Summary (see also Philosophy Faculty)

My field of specialization is ethical theory. Within ethical theory, much of my work has been in metaethics, on what moral terms and statements mean and what moral judgments are. I am author of Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (1990), Thinking How to Live (2003), and a new book Meaning and Normativity (2012). I have also worked in normative ethics, in the theory of social choice (which straddles philosophy, economics, and political science), and to some degree in philosophy of language and metaphysics. The 2012 book explores claims that the concept of meaning is a normative concept. I am interested in the bearing of evolutionary theory on moral psychology.

Classes

I retired as of 2016 January. The last class I taught was in Winter term, 2015.

 

2016 Winter on: Retired

 

2015 Fall: Retirement Furlough; no formal teaching

 

2015 Winter: Philosophy 640: Seminar in Ethics. Exchanges with Parfit, reviews of Meaning and Normativity.

 

2014 Fall: Philosophy 429: Ethical Analysis. This course was originated by C.L. Stevenson, and it is a survey of metaethics, at the mixed undergraduate-graduate level, which I taught regularly over the years.

 

2014 Winter: Philosophy 611: Seminar in Current Philosophy. on global expressivism

 

2013 Fall:

 

 

2013 Winter: Philosophy 429, Ethical Analysis.

2012 Fall:

2010 Winter: Philosophy 296: Honors Introduction to Logic

 

2009 Fall: Philosophy 429: Ethical Analysis and the Candidacy Seminar.

 

2009 Winter: Philosophy 640: Seminar in Ethics, on current metaethics.

 

2008 Fall: Philosophy 429: Ethical Analysis at the advanced undergraduate / graduate level.

 

2008 Winter: Philosophy 611: Current Philosophy on the topic of meaning and normativity.

 

2007 Fall: I taught

Academic year 2006-07: On sabbatical doing research.

 

2006 Winter: I co-taught with Professors Peter Railton and Chandra Sripada, Philosophy 640: Seminar in Ethics on the topic of evolution and morality.


2005 Fall: I taught

2005 Winter: I taught Philosophy 611: Seminar in Current Philosophy, on the topic Meaning and Normativity.

2004 Fall: I taught

Family

I am married to Beth Genne and my sons are Stephen Gibbard and George Gibbard.