Debra Satz, the Marta Sutton Weeks Professor of Ethics in Society, is the senior associate dean for the humanities and arts. Satz, a philosophy professor, directs the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society. She earned a bachelor’s degree from City College of New York and a doctorate in philosophy from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After teaching at Harvard and Swarthmore College, Satz joined Stanford in 1988 as an assistant professor of philosophy. Her research focuses on the ethical limits of markets, the place of equality in a just society, theories of rational choice, democratic theory, feminist philosophy, ethics and education, and issues of international justice.

In 2004, Satz received the Walter J. Gores Award, Stanford’s highest teaching honor. She was awarded the Roland Prize in 2010 for faculty volunteer service. She also cofounded the Hope House Scholars Program, which pairs volunteer faculty with undergraduates to teach liberal arts courses to residents of a drug and alcohol treatment facility for women.

Satz has written and edited three books as well as dozens of articles, essays, and book reviews. She has also supervised 40 doctoral students and advised the thesis work of many undergraduates in philosophy and the Ethics in Society Program.

Her most recent work is “Why Some Things Should Not Be for Sale: The Moral Limits of Markets,” published by Oxford University Press in 2010. Some of her recent articles have been about compensation, reproduction, the family, child labor, and feminist approaches to politics.

She was the Vice President of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy from 2007 to 2010, the Associate Editor for “Ethics,” one of the most prestigious journals in her field, from 2002 to 2008, and the Associate Editor of “Politics, Philosophy, and Economics” from 2000 to 2004. In addition to Stanford, she has taught at the University of Michigan, Princeton University, and has received many grants.

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