I’ve mentioned Anderson’s important work here before. Her influence on my own research—especially her account of ‘relational equality’—has been enormous. Strangely, though, while Anderson was the Co-Chair of my dissertation committee at the University of Michigan, I have been far more influenced by her work post-PhD than I was while a graduate student. (The reason for this, I think, is that I only felt free to engage critically with her views once I had left the 'student-supervisor' relationship. This was my fault, I should emphasize, as she no doubt would’ve welcomed critical engagement with her work by graduate students.)
I do disagree with Anderson on some points. For instance, I remain critical of what I take to be her uncharitable characterization—and hence unfair criticism—of ‘ideal theory’ (as I explain in my chapter “Why Public Reasoning Involves Ideal Theorizing”.) But whatever disagreements I have with her are, so to speak, ‘minor quibbles’.
I’ve taught her criticisms of ‘luck egalitarianism’ and her arguments in favour of relational egalitarianism in many of my political philosophy courses over the years. And in my ‘political autonomy’ seminar last year I taught her book Private Government (which is mentioned towards the end of the article). Of all the works we discussed—including those by Rousseau and Rawls—this one generated the most intense discussions. No doubt part of the reason for this was that many of the students worked part-time—and hence were regularly subject to the arbitrary power of employers themselves.
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