Judith Jarvis Thomson has made major contributions to moral theory and metaphysics. In addition to several books in these areas, she has written more than seventy articles on a range of topics, including action theory, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. She was educated at Barnard College, Cambridge University, and Columbia University, the last awarding her a doctoral degree in 1959. Since 1962, Thomson has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she became a full professor in 1969.

In moral theory, much of Thomson's work concerns what it is to have a moral right. Thomson's 1971 article "A Defense of Abortion"—an important contribution not only to ethics but also to feminist philosophy—revolutionized the abortion debate, which had previously focused largely on the question of whether the fetus has a right to life. Thomson grants, for the sake of argument, that the...