Sher earned his bachelor's degree at Brandeis University and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1972. He taught at the University of Vermont before moving to Rice.

His work has largely focused on liberalism, perfectionism, and issues in moral psychology.^[1] He is married to essayist and novelist Emily Fox Gordon.

• Desert, Princeton University Press, 1987; paperback, 1989.
• Beyond Neutrality: Perfectionism and Politics, Cambridge University Press, 1997. Chinese edition (Hebei People's Publishing House) forthcoming.
• Approximate Justice: Studies in Non-Ideal Theory, Rowman and Littlefield, 1997.
• In Praise of Blame, Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Who Knew? Responsibility Without Awareness, Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Equality for Inegalitarians, Cambridge University Press, 2014.
• Me, You, Us, Oxford University Press, 2017.

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

• George Sher - Rice University Philosophy