George Sher

George Sher is the Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Rice University, where he has been since 1991. He previously held positions at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the University of Vermont. As Department Chair from 1993–2000, he shaped Rice's philosophy program. His research bridges ethics, political philosophy, and moral psychology, with a focus on justice, equality, and moral responsibility. Key works include Desert (1987), A Wild West of the Mind (2021), and influential essays on compensatory justice and blame theory.

His scholarship critiques empirical influences in philosophy, maintaining commitment to armchair analysis. Recent work explores freedom of thought, rejecting moral restrictions on internal cognition, and addresses topics like offensive speech suppression, adaptive preferences, and temporal ethics. Teaching spans undergraduate courses on moral issues and graduate seminars on equality and moral psychology.

No scientific awards are explicitly listed, but his academic contributions are recognized through his prolific publications. He advises no named students in the provided text. His intellectual trajectory reflects a dynamic engagement with normative philosophy, balancing theoretical rigor with applied ethical inquiry.