USC.edu

Sharon Lloyd

Professor of Philosophy and Law
Email lloyd@usc.edu Office MHP 113 Office Phone (213) 740-5175

Research & Practice Areas

Political Philosophy, History of Political Philosophy, Ethics, Feminist Philosophy

Education

  • Ph.D. Philosophy, Harvard University, 1/1987
  • B.A. University of California – Los Angeles

  • Summary Statement of Research Interests

    Professor of Philosophy, Law, and Political Science Sharon Lloyd works in the history of political philosophy, with special attention to the moral and political theory of philosopher Thomas Hobbes.

    Trained and mentored by John Rawls, one of the most influential political philosophers of the 20th century, Lloyd’s scholarly interests in political philosophy and its history, contemporary liberalism and liberal feminist philosophy reflect that tutelage. She has particular interest in the moral and political theories of Machiavelli, Mill, Hobbes, Marx, and Rawls.

    Lloyd’s work in philosophy has attracted the interest of legal scholars and is often published in law reviews. Lloyd is regarded as an important voice in the current generation of liberal feminists.

    Lloyd enjoys teaching in USC’s honors program and general education on such topics as self-identity and moral responsibility, political obligation, and social ethics for earthlings and others through science fiction.

    Research Specialties

    Political Philosophy, History of Political Philosophy, Ethics, Feminist Philosophy

    Detailed Statement of Research Interests

    Lloyd has a new book on Hobbes’s moral philosophy forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Her article on Definitional Derivations is forcoming in Journal of the History of Philosophy, and her entry on Hobbes’s religious view in “A History of the Philosophy of Religion.” Her works on G.A. Cohen’s critique of Rawls, her Mill book, and her Hobbesian analysis of terrorism and democratic responsibility are in progress.

  • Book

    • Lloyd, S. A. (2019). Interpreting Hobbes’s Political Philosophy. (S.A. Lloyd, Ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
    • Lloyd, S. A. (2009). Morality in the Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: Cases in the Law of Nature. Cambridge University Press.
    • Lloyd, S. A. (1992). Ideals as Interests in Hobbes’s Leviathan (Cambridge University Press, 1992)Cases in the Law of Nature: The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (forthcoming).

    Book Chapters

    • Lloyd, S. A. (2019). Locating Sovereignty in Complex Systems of Government. Sovereignty and the New Executive Authority Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Administrative Appointments

    • Co-founder and Co-director, U.S.C. Center for Law and Philosophy, 2004 – 2005

  • Administative Appointment

    • Executive Committee, Pacific Philosophical Association, 2006-2007
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