Michael Laban Walzer

Professor Michael Walzer is the Professor Emeritus of Social Science at Institute for Advanced Study. Walzer started his career at Princeton, but then served at Harvard University as an Associate Professor before returning to Princeton. One of America’s foremost political thinkers, Michael Walzer has written about a wide variety of topics in political theory and moral philosophy, including political obligation, just and unjust war, nationalism and ethnicity, economic justice, and the welfare state. He has played a critical role in the revival of a practical, issue-focused ethics and in the development of a pluralist approach to political and moral life. Walzer’s books include Just and Unjust Wars (1977), Spheres of Justice(1983), On Toleration (1997), Arguing About War (2004), and Paradox of Liberation (2015); he served as co-editor of the political journal Dissent for more than three decades, retiring in 2014. Currently, he is working on issues having to do with international justice and the connection of religion and politics, and also on a collaborative project focused on the history of Jewish political thought.