Elizabeth S. Anderson

Elizabeth S. Anderson (born 5 December 1959), is Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan and is a notable American philosopher specializing in moral and political philosophy.

Anderson received a B.A. with high honors in philosophy with a minor in economics from Swarthmore College in 1981. In 1987 Anderson completed a Ph.D. in Philosophy at Harvard University. She was a visiting instructor of philosophy at Swarthmore College 1985-86 and took up a position at the University of Michigan in 1987. She was Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies 1993-1999 and was promoted to professor in 1999. In 2004 she was named Arthur F. Thurnau Professor. In 2005 she was named John Rawls Collegiate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, and in 2013 the John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies. Anderson was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008. In 2013, Anderson received a Guggenheim Fellowship to support her work.

Anderson's research covers topics in social philosophy, political philosophy and ethics, including: democratic theory, equality in political philosophy and American law, racial integration, the ethical limits of markets, theories of value and rational choice (alternatives to consequentialism and economic theories of rational choice), the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, and feminist epistemology and philosophy of science.

Anderson's book The Imperative of Integration, was winner of the American Philosophical Association's 2011 Joseph B. Gittler Award, for "an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences." She is also author of Value in Ethics and Economics, and dozens of articles.