Allan Gibbard
Richard B. Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy

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

 

• Summary

• My books

• Picture

• Classes

• Vita

• Publications

• Family
  
  

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) and Thinking How to Live (2003). 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. My current research centers on claims that the concept of meaning is a normative concept. I am interested in the bearing of evolutionary theory on moral psychology.

My books

• Thinking How to Live (2003, Harvard University Press).
  
  
• Wise Choices, Apt Feelings (1990)
• from Harvard University Press in the Americas
  from Oxford University Press in the European Union
  
  
• Reconciling our Aims: In Search of Bases for Ethics (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008))
• My 2006 U. C. Berkeley Tanner Lectures on Human Values, revised, with an Introduction by Barry Stroud, extended comments by Michael Bratman, John Broome, and F. M. Kamm, and my reply.
  
  
  

Classes

For the Fall term 2008, I am teaching Philosophy 429: Ethical Analysis at the advanced undergraduate / graduate level.  (I expect soon to have a website posted and a link here.)

 

In the Winter term 2008, I taught a seminar, Philosophy 611: Current Philosophy on the topic of meaning and normativity.

 

In the Fall term of 2007, I taught:

• Philosophy 297: Honors Introduction to Philosophy, Sec. 003
  
  
• Philosophy 597: Proseminar, co-taught with Prof. Eric Swanson
  
  

For the academic year 2006-07, I was on sabbatical doing research.

 

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

In Fall term, 2005, I taught:

• Philosophy 361: Ethics.  Here is the syllabus.
• Philosophy 697: Candidacy Seminar

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

In Fall term, 2004, I taught:

• Philosophy 429: Ethical Analysis
  
  
• Philosophy 597: Proseminar co-taught with Prof. Jamie Tappenden
  
  

Family

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