Raised in Manchester, Connecticut, Anderson graduated from Manchester High School in 1977. Her father, an engineer for United Technologies, got her interested in philosophy by reading John Stuart Mill and Plato with her. 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 1994, she was named Arthur F. Thurnau Professor to recognize her dedication to undergraduate education with a demonstrable impact on the intellectual development and lives of her students. 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 was named a Progress Medal Laureate in February 2018 by the Society for Progress for her book Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives . In 2019, she received a "Genius Grant" from the MacArthur Fellows Program.
Philosophical 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, the philosophies of John Stuart Mill and John Dewey, and feminist epistemology and philosophy of science. Anderson's most cited work is her article in the Ethics journal, titled 'What is the Point of Equality'. Within the article, she harshly criticises Luck Egalitarianism: a contemporaneously popular view espoused by writers such as Ronald Dworkin. She advocates for a more relational understanding of equality founded upon democratic principles. 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.
Personal life
Anderson is married to David R. Jacobi, a medical doctor practicing in Detroit, Michigan. The couple have two children named Sean and Benjamin.
