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Michael Walzer, author of more than 20 books and a professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., spoke on “Beyond Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights in Global Society” 7:30 p.m. today in the Kirby Hall of Civil Rights auditorium.
Free and open to the public, the talk was the 2004-05 Daniel L. Golden ’34 Lecture.
Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy: political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He has played a part in the revival of a practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. He is working on the toleration and accommodation of “difference” in all its forms and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.
His books have been translated into many languages, including Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Estonian, Romanian, Polish, and Turkish. He is editor of Dissent, a member of the editorial board for Philosophy and Public Affairs, Political Theory, a contributing editor for The New Republic, a member of the Board of Governors at Hebrew University, and a former member of the Board of Trustees at Brandeis University (1983-88).
He earned a B.A. at Brandeis University in 1956, studied at Cambridge University on a Fulbright Fellowship from 1956-57, and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1961. He taught at Princeton University from 1962-66 and at Harvard from 1966-80.