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