Gwen Bradford

Gwen Bradford served as Associate Professor of Philosophy at Rice University from 2017 until 2024, having joined the institution as Assistant Professor in 2010. She earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University in 2010, with Shelly Kagan as her primary advisor, and her B.A. Honors in Philosophy from Trinity College, University of Toronto, in 2003. Bradford's academic interests center on value theory and normative ethics, exploring topics such as the nature and value of achievement, perfectionism as a theory holding that the excellent exercise of human capacities is intrinsically good, uniqueness and its relation to value, and ill-being as the counterpart to well-being. During 2013-2014, she held a Faculty Fellowship at the Murphy Institute Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at Tulane University.

Bradford's book Achievement (Oxford University Press, 2015), which proposes that achievements are valuable due to their difficulty and develops a perfectionist theory incorporating the will, won the American Philosophical Association Book Prize in 2017. Prominent publications include "Perfectionist Bads" (The Philosophical Quarterly, 2021), "The Badness of Pain" (Utilitas, 2020), "Problems for Perfectionism" (Utilitas, 2017), "Achievement, Wellbeing, and Value" (Philosophy Compass, 2016), "The Value of Achievements" (Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 2013), and "Evil Achievements and the Principle of Recursion" (Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol. 3, 2013). She received the Duncan Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement from Rice University in 2019, Rice Humanities Research Center Faculty Fellowships in multiple years including 2017-2018 and 2012-2013, and Yale's Prize Teaching Fellowship in 2010. At Rice, Bradford engaged in extensive service, including as Faculty Senate Senator from 2014 to 2020, Parliamentarian from 2019 onward, member of the University Committee for Fellowships and Awards from 2020, Faculty Associate and Resident Associate at Will Rice College from 2011, and steering committee member for the Center for Energy & Environmental Research in the Humanities.

Professional Email: gwen.bradford@rice.edu