BIO

Madison Powers is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy and former Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. From 2000 to 2009, he served as Director of the Kennedy Institute. He is a Fellow of the Hastings Center, and from 2016 until 2020 he held the Francis J. McNamara, Jr. Chair at Georgetown University. Dr. Powers has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on a variety of topics in normative and practical philosophy, including a long-standing interest in questions of justice in public health, the environment, and social policy.

His most recent book is A Livable Planet: Human Rights in the Global Economy (Oxford University Press, 2024. He is co-author with Ruth Faden of two other books, Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Care Policy (NY: Oxford University Press, 2006; revised edition, 2008) and Structural Injustice: Power, Advantage, and Human Rights (NY: Oxford University Press, 2019, paperback edition 2023). Dr. Powers was a recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Investigator Award, and for many years he also served as a member and as chair of the National Advisory Committee for the Program. In addition, he has participated in many other private and governmental advisory bodies including a four-year term as a member of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC) for the National Institutes of Health. Before his professional career as a philosopher he was a lawyer working primarily in health and environmental law.

​Current research and other works in progress focus on issues of justice pertaining to climate change, the global production of food, and the management of water resources. The overall aim is to show how the production, distribution, and regulation of vital, and increasingly scarce resources affect paths to global development, poverty alleviation, and the capacity of individuals and nations to secure the basic requirements for decent human lives and to preserve sustainable human habitats. 

CV available on request.