Alison M. Jaggar papers (MS.2021.001)

Biographical/Historical Note

Alison M. Jaggar is one of the foremost political philosophers in the United States, and is widely credited with having been a pioneer in the field of feminist philosophy and the philosophy of gender, as well as with introducing gender as a category of analysis into the philosophical debate on global justice.

Jaggar earned a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of London in 1964, a Master of Letters in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh in 1967, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy from the State University of New York, Buffalo, in 1970.

Jaggar works in the areas of contemporary social, moral and political philosophy, often from a feminist perspective. In the past decade, her work has introduced gender as a category of analysis into the philosophical debate on global justice. Currently, Jaggar is a member of a "Fempov," a multi-disciplinary and international research team whose aim is to produce a new poverty standard or metric capable of revealing the gendered dimensions of global poverty. In addition, Jaggar is exploring the potential of a naturalized approach to moral epistemology for addressing moral disputes in contexts of inequality and cultural difference.

Jaggar joined the faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1990 and held a joint appointment with the Department of Women and Gender Studies. She was also a faculty affiliate in Ethnic Studies. Jaggar is a College Professor of Distinction and has lectured and held visiting positions at many universities in the United States and abroad. She has been awarded numerous distinguished lectureships and fellowships, including the Dewey Lecturer, APA (2019), American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017), "Best Should Teach" Award (2012), CU Gee Memorial Lectureship, two National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, Society for Women in Philosophy Distinguished Woman Philosopher, Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, and other honors. Jaggar has also published many books and articles and her work has been widely translated.

Jaggar's career has included a great deal of service to professional philosophy. She was a founder of the Society for Women in Philosophy and the Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory. Since the 1970s, she has been an active citizen of the American Philosophical Association and in 2020 she began her second term on the American Philosophical Association Committee for the Defense of the Professional Rights of Philosophers. Jaggar retired from the University of Colorado in August 2020.