Cheshire Calhoun is a professor of Philosophy at Arizona State University and research professor at the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

. She is best known for her work in

feminist philosophy Feminist philosophy is an approach to philosophy from a feminist perspective and also the employment of philosophical methods to feminist topics and questions. Feminist philosophy involves both reinterpreting philosophical texts and methods in ...

as well as writing on gay and lesbian philosophy and the morality of same-sex marriage.

Education and career

Calhoun is the second daughter of John B. Calhoun, an

ethicist An ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by a specific community, and (importantly) is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgment. Following the advice of ...

best known for

behavioral sink "Behavioral sink" is a term invented by ethologist John B. Calhoun to describe a collapse in behavior which can result from overcrowding. The term and concept derive from a series of over-population experiments Calhoun conducted on Norway rats be ...

theory. She earned her Ph.D. in philosophy at the

University of Texas, Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

in 1981, and taught at

College of Charleston The College of Charleston (CofC or Charleston) is a public university in Charleston, South Carolina. Founded in 1770 and chartered in 1785, it is the oldest university in South Carolina, the 13th oldest institution of higher learning in the Unit ...

and

Colby College Colby College is a private liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine. It was founded in 1813 as the Maine Literary and Theological Institution, then renamed Waterville College after the city where it resides. The donations of Christian philant ...

before moving to Arizona State in 2007. In 2014, she was elected as the board chair of the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

where she has previously served on the executive committee for the APA's Eastern Division as well as the APA's committee for LGBT philosophers. In 2020, she was elected a Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

Philosophical work

Calhoun argues for same-sex marriage—and against the United States'

Defense of Marriage Act The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was a United States federal law passed by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. It banned federal recognition of same-sex marriage by limiting the definition of marr ...

—on the basis that equal access to the institution of marriage for homosexual and heterosexual people is the only way to guarantee equal citizenship and societal worth for lesbian and gay people.

Bibliography

* ''What is an Emotion?'' (co-edited with Robert C. Solomon; Oxford University Press, 1984) * ''Feminism, the Family, and the Politics of the Closet: Lesbian and Gay Displacement'' (Oxford University Press, 2000) * ''Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers'' (Oxford University Press, 2004) * ''Moral Aims: Essays on the Importance of Getting Things Right and Practicing Morality with Others'' (Oxford University Press, 2015) * ''Doing Valuable Time: The Present, the Future, and Meaningful Living'' (Oxford University Press, 2018)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Calhoun, Cheshire Living people 21st-century American philosophers Arizona State University faculty Feminist philosophers University of Arizona faculty Year of birth missing (living people) 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American women writers Presidents of the American Philosophical Association Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American women academics