Walker (born Margaret Urban)[5] received her bachelor's in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1969.[6] She went on to receive her master's in philosophy from Northwestern University in 1971, and her doctorate in philosophy, also from Northwestern, in 1975.[6]
Walker was a member of the Philosophy Department at Fordham University for 28 years before moving to Arizona State University from 2002 to 2010 (where she received the Defining Edge Research in the Humanities Award in 2007), and moving to Marquette University in 2010.[6] She retired in May 2017.[7] She held visiting appointments at Washington University in St. Louis, the University of South Florida, and the Catholic University of Leuven.[6] During her second visiting appointment at the Catholic University of Leuven, she was the first woman to hold the Cardinal Mercier Chair in Philosophy.[4] She also was a Laurance S. Rockefeller Fellow at Princeton University's Center for Human Values from 2003 to 2004.[4]
Walker's recent research has focused on repairing moral relations after wrongdoing, especially in relation to political violence.[1][4] She has contributed to research projects with the International Center for Transitional Justice on gender and reparations and truth commissions.[6] She was drawn to this area through her earlier work, in which she focused on the effects of social inequalities on the way morality is understood in ethics and everyday life.[4] Some of her earlier research focused on developing a social differences-focused approach to ethical theory.[1] She strongly defends the view that although moral understandings are inextricably linked to the historical and social practices that they derived from, that those historical and social practices not only can be, but must be critically assessed.[3]
Walker has authored seven books, numerous book chapters, and a large number of papers.[6]
Walker, Margaret Urban (2003). Moral contexts. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN9780742513792.
Walker, Margaret Urban (2006). Moral repair: reconstructing moral relations after wrongdoing. Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521009256.
Walker, Margaret Urban (2007) [1998]. Moral understandings: a feminist study in ethics (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN9780195315400.
Walker, Margaret Urban (1999). Mother time: women, aging, and ethics. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN9780847692613.
Walker, Margaret Urban; DesAutels, Peggy (2004). Moral psychology: feminist ethics and social theory. Feminist Constructions. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN9780742534803.
Walker, Margaret Urban; Lindemann, Hilde; Verkerk, Marian (2009). Naturalized bioethics: toward responsible knowing and practice. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521719407.
Walker, Margaret Urban (2010). What is reparative justice. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press. ISBN9780874621785.
Walker, Margaret Urban (2001), "Seeing power in morality: a proposal for feminist naturalism in ethics", in DesAutels, Peggy; Waugh, Joanne (eds.), Feminists doing ethics, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp. 3–14, ISBN9780742512115.
