Nancy Sherman

Nancy Sherman
Born	1951 (age 74–75)
Awards	American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2022) Guggenheim Fellowship (2013)
Education
Education	Bryn Mawr College (AB) University of Edinburgh (MLitt) Harvard University (PhD)
Academic advisor	John Rawls
Philosophical work
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Virtue ethics
Institutions	Georgetown University, United States Naval Academy, Yale University
Main interests	Ethics, military ethics, history of moral philosophy, ancient philosophy, moral psychology, emotions, psychoanalysis
Notable ideas	Moral injury, Stoic resilience, moral psychology of war
Website	nancysherman.com

Nancy Sherman (born 1951) is an American philosopher and Distinguished University Professor of philosophy at Georgetown University, where she also holds an affiliate appointment with Georgetown Law's Center on National Security and the Law. She works in ethics, military ethics, the history of moral philosophy, ancient philosophy, the emotions, moral psychology, and psychoanalysis. She is the author of seven books, including Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons for Modern Resilience (2021), Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers (2015), and The Untold War (2010), a New York Times Notable Book. Her forthcoming book, Feed the Soul: Lessons from Aristotle on Living Well, is scheduled for publication by Yale University Press in January 2027.

From 1997 to 1999, Sherman served as the inaugural Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the United States Naval Academy. She was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022.

Early life and education

Sherman earned a BA magna cum laude with honors in philosophy from Bryn Mawr College in 1973. She studied at the University of Edinburgh as a Vans Dunlop Scholar, receiving an MLitt in philosophy in 1976, and in the spring of 1978 she was a Visiting Research Scholar in philosophy and classics at King's College, Cambridge. She received her PhD from Harvard University in 1982, where her doctoral dissertation on ancient philosophy was awarded the George Plympton Adams Prize for the most distinguished thesis in the history of philosophy.

Sherman later completed research training at the Washington Center for Psychoanalysis, where she is a fellow.

Academic career

Sherman joined Yale University as an assistant professor of philosophy in 1982 and was promoted to associate professor in 1988. In 1989, she moved to Georgetown University as a tenured associate professor, was promoted to full professor in 1994, and was named Distinguished University Professor in 2001. She has been an affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown since 1989, served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law from 2004 to 2016, and has held an affiliate appointment with Georgetown Law's Center on National Security and the Law since 2014. She spent a term as visiting professor of philosophy at Johns Hopkins University in 1995 and two terms at the University of Maryland in 1995 and 1996.

From January 1997 to June 1999, Sherman was the inaugural holder of the Distinguished Chair in Ethics at the United States Naval Academy, during which time she advised the Superintendent of the Naval Academy, the Secretary of the Navy, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Commander of Naval Education and Training on ethics.

Sherman has served in a variety of posts in the American Philosophical Association and other professional organizations.

In 2005, she was invited by the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs to visit Guantanamo Bay detention camp to witness the conditions detainees were being held in, and to provide ethical advice as to their continued treatment. She also acted as an observer to the Vice Chief of the Army's Suicide Review Board in 2011.

Research areas

Sherman has conducted research in general ethics, the history of philosophy, and moral psychology. In recent years her research has been primarily focused on military ethics and related matters. She has worked and published extensively on such issues as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), military suicide, and the honor, guilt, and shame associated with war. Sherman has written about how ancient theories of stoicism may be modified and helpfully applied to the modern world and the modern soldier. Her conclusions have been criticized on the basis that such applications may be actively counterproductive.

Sherman writes about courage and the use of emotions from a soldier's point of view in her book Stoic Warriors. She asserts that soldiers returning home often receive insufficient care, leaving them ill-prepared for non-violent civilian life. Following this, she considers post-traumatic stress disorder), comparing the dysfunctional anger shown by some soldiers after they come home from war to the anger that may be functional on the battlefield as a way of summoning courage. Though the relationship of anger to courage may be deemed controversial to stoic views of the perfect warrior, Sherman sees this as a relationship in displaying courage since soldiers must suppress their anger, fear, and other battlefield emotions, inducing a disorder that releases these emotions after a battle, in non-violent situations. Thus the process by which courage is summoned and displayed on the battlefield can lead directly to PTSD when they return home—a process that can be addressed effectively by proper care upon their return.

In her most recent book Stoic Wisdom, Sherman argues for a credible modern Stoicism based on ancient Greek and Roman texts. She makes the case that Stoicism is not a philosophy of acquiescence or retreat, but a practical philosophy of engagement in the world that requires cultivated emotions and a commitment to the common good. In a talk for House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining program, Sherman said, “Stoic philosophy sort of captured, I think terrifically by Seneca, who says, at the very end of On Anger, this wonderful treatise, he says, ‘Let us cultivate humanity.’ And essentially, that's the rallying call for it, for this idea of the Stoics, are worth reading, it's because they exhort us to rise to our fullest potential through reason, cooperation, and, you know, and a sense of selflessness when it's required.” In her previous book Afterwar, Sherman explores questions of moral injury and healing in war. The moral dimensions of returning soldiers' psychological injuries—guilt, shame, feeling responsible for doing wrong or being wronged—are often ignored and elude conventional treatment.

Publications

Sherman has published a large number of peer-reviewed papers and has also authored six books. Sherman's books include Stoic Wisdom: Ancient Lessons For Modern Resilience (Oxford 2021);Afterwar: Healing the Moral Wounds of Our Soldiers (Oxford 2015); The Untold War: Inside the Hearts, Minds, and Souls of our Soldiers (W.W. Norton 2010); Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind (Oxford 2005); Making A Necessity of Virtue: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue (Cambridge 1997); and The Fabric of Character: Aristotle's Theory of Virtue (Oxford 1989). She is the editor of Aristotle's Ethics: Critical Essays (Rowman&Littlefield 1999).