Career
Gibbard has written three books in ethical theory: Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judgment (1990) develops a general theory of moral judgment and judgments of rationality; Thinking How to Live (2003) offers an argument for reconfiguring the distinctions between normative and descriptive discourse; Reconciling Our Aims: In Search of Bases for Ethics (2008) argues in favour of a broadly utilitarian approach to ethics.
Gibbard has been a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Econometric Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He served as President of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association from 2001 to 2002.
Gibbard received his BA in mathematics from Swarthmore College in 1963 with minors in physics and philosophy. After teaching mathematics and physics in Ghana with the Peace Corps (1963-1965), Gibbard studied philosophy at Harvard University, participating in the seminar on social and political philosophy with John Rawls, Kenneth J. Arrow, Amartya K. Sen, and Robert Nozick. In 1971 Gibbard earned his Ph.D., writing a dissertation under the direction of John Rawls.
Soon after his doctoral degree, Gibbard provided a first proof of a conjecture that strategic voting was an intrinsic feature of non-dictatorial voting systems with at least three choices, a conjecture of Michael Dummett and Robin Farquharson. Once established, this result has been known as the Gibbard-Satterthwaite theorem.
He served as professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago (1969-1974), and the University of Pittsburgh (1974-1977), before joining the University of Michigan. Gibbard chaired the University of Michigan's Philosophy Department (1987-1988) and has held the title of Richard B. Brandt Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy since 1994.
In 2009, Gibbard became one of three living philosophers to be elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences.
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