Rate My Professor Michael Frazer

Michael Frazer is a Lecturer in Politics (Political & International Studies) at the University of Glasgow School of Social and Political Sciences. In the field of political science, his research focuses on canonical moral and political philosophy, emphasizing its relevance to contemporary political theory, ethics, and the philosophy of social science. Frazer received his BA from Yale University and his PhD from Princeton University. His career includes previous appointments as Associate Professor in Political and Social Theory at the University of East Anglia, Postdoctoral Fellow at Brown University's Program in Political Philosophy and Practical Politics, and Instructor in the Department of Government at Harvard University.

Frazer is the author of the book The Enlightenment of Sympathy: Justice and the Moral Sentiments in the Eighteenth Century and Today (Oxford University Press, 2010), a seminal work on moral sentimentalism that has garnered over 470 citations. His publications feature prominently in leading journals, including 'Respect for Subjects in the Ethics of Causal and Interpretive Social Explanation' (American Political Science Review, 2020), 'Activism and Objectivity in Political Research' (Perspectives on Politics, 2023), 'The Ethics of Interpretation in Political Theory and Intellectual History' (The Review of Politics, 2019), 'Utopophobia as a Vocation: The Professional Ethics of Ideal and Nonideal Political Theory' (Social Philosophy and Policy, 2016), and 'Including the Unaffected' (Journal of Political Philosophy, 2014). Frazer has also contributed chapters to edited collections such as Methods in Analytical Political Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2017), where he wrote on 'Moral Sentimentalism,' and Ethical Sentimentalism: New Perspectives (Cambridge University Press, 2017). His scholarship engages historical thinkers like Hume, Adam Smith, Rawls, and Nietzsche, applying their ideas to modern debates on sympathy, justice, scholarly objectivity, activism, and interpretive ethics in political research. Frazer has presented his work at international conferences, including the ECPR General Conference.