Jeff McMahan is an American philosopher and anti-transgender activist from the movement’s “academic freedom” faction.
Background
Jefferson Allen McMahan was born on August 30, 1954. McMahan earned a bachelor’s degree from University of the South and a bachelor’s degree from University of Oxford. McMahan earned a doctorate in 1986 from Cambridge.
McMahan taught at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign from 1986 to 2003, then at Rutgers University from 2003 to 2014.
Like many anti-trans activists, McMahan advocates for effective altruism and serves on the editorial board of anti-trans publication The Journal of Controversial Ideas. That publication is designed to allow academics to publish using fake names, thus relieving them of responsibility and accountability that are foundational to academic freedom.
2019 open letter
McMahan is upset that trans people object to academic exploitation of sex and gender minorities, particularly in philosophy. Among other statements, McMahan as among “12 leading scholars” who declared:
We reject calls for censuring or deplatforming any of our colleagues on the basis of their philosophical arguments about sex and gender identity, or their social and political advocacy for sex-based rights.
Signatories
- José Luis Bermudez, Texas A&M University
- Clare Chambers, University of Cambridge
- Cordelia Fine, University of Melbourne
- Edward J. Hall, Harvard University
- Benj Hellie, University of Toronto
- Thomas Kelly, Princeton University
- Jeff McMahan, University of Oxford
- Francesca Minerva, University of Ghent
- John Schwenkler, Florida State University
- Peter Singer, Princeton University and University of Melbourne
- Nicole A. Vincent, University of Technology Sydney
- Jessica Wilson, University of Toronto
References
Flaherty, Colleen (July 18, 2019) The Trans Divide: The disagreement over scholarly debate about gender identity rages on. Inside Higher Ed https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/19/divide-over-scholarly-debate-over-gender-identity-rages
“12 Leading Scholars” (July 21, 2019). Philosophers Should Not Be Sanctioned Over Their Positions on Sex and Gender. Inside Higher Ed https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2019/07/22/philosophers-should-not-be-sanctioned-their-positions-sex-and-gender-opinion
Resources
University of Oxford Philosophy (philosophy.ox.ac.uk)
- Jeff McMahan
- https://www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk/people/jeff-mcmahan
Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org)