Herman was born in New York City to Ruth and Robert Herman. Her mother was a secretary and father a union organizer and professional fund-raiser. Her brother is physicist Jay Herman. Herman attended Flushing High School in Queens until 1962, after which she studied history at Cornell University. While a senior at Cornell, Herman was "the first woman to live at Telluride House under the new arrangements" after "Convention for the first time was able to grant full residential preferment to an undergraduate woman." There she lived alongside fellow house members Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Clare Selgin Wolfowitz, and Paul Wolfowitz, as well as in-house faculty members that included the 4th United States Secretary of LaborFrances Perkins and the British philosopherPaul Grice. She has since taught Telluride Association Summer Program seminars at Deep Springs College and the Cornell branch. Shortly after graduating from Cornell with a B.A. in 1966, Herman began doctoral studies in the history program at Harvard University. Soon, however, she discovered her affinity for philosophy and transferred to the Philosophy Department, but not before taking an M.A. in Modern European History. Studying under Stanley Cavell and John Rawls, Herman wrote a dissertation entitled "Morality as Rationality: A Study of Kant's Ethics" in 1976. Of Herman's time at Harvard, Martha Nussbaum said during her introduction to the Dewey Lecture at the University of Chicago Law School:
On a personal note I remember feeling the power of that captivating presence on the memorable occasion when I first heard Barbara Herman speak. She probably doesn't remember this at all, but she was an older graduate student at Harvard and she was famous among us younger graduate students as one of the best, but I had never really met her or heard her even talk. And on this occasion she was addressing the whole faculty of the Harvard philosophy department about why the graduate students wanted to form a union. And I remember—and this is a pretty daunting occasion with Van Quine, Nelson Goodman and all these people sitting there who were actually not very friendly to the idea of a graduate student union—but I remember the confidence, incisiveness, and great humor with which she faced down that group, and I remember thinking: this is a truly wise person as well as one who is a lot of fun.
From 1973-1980 Herman was assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, before joining the faculty at the University of Southern California, first as a Visiting Assistant Professor and subsequently as an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and finally Professor of Philosophy and Law in 1992. In 1994 Herman was appointed Griffin Professor of Philosophy at UCLA and in 2006 was jointly appointed to the law school.
Herman succeeds in presenting an interpretation of Kant's ethics that shows it to be a powerful alternative to the empiricist utilitarian, neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, and the post-modernist individualist or existentialist ethical theories which have enjoyed such prominence in recent years... What has given us is a deeply compelling picture of both the structure and power of Kant's regulative ideal of moral deliberation, and that is much to be grateful for indeed.
And on her collection of essays entitled Moral Literacy, philosopher Stephen Darwall writes:
Rawls pointed out that it was one of Hegel's aims to overcome the many dualisms that he thought disfigured Kant's transcendental idealism. Herman's essays, in my view, are distinctive for this same emphasis. Throughout, she stresses continuities where more orthodox Kantian thought insists on separation. And she argues that Kant's central insights are not only preserved, but improved, when one appreciates these continuities. Thus, where orthodox Kantian thought sharply distinguishes desire from reason, love from reason, particular judgment from principle, and so on, Herman argues that these pairs should all be seen as continuous and interconnected and that a Kantian take on ethics is enhanced by so viewing them. She is tough-minded and rigorous, philosophically. And she doesn't waste words. Herman has an economy of expression and a penchant for illuminating philosophical coinage.
To which legal theorist Lawrence Solum adds on his blog:
In my opinion, Herman's recent work represents the very best of contemporary moral philosophy in the tradition of Kant--only a handful of scholars combine her deep appreciation of Kant, philosophical rigor, and genuine intellectual flexibility. A superb book. What I can I add to Darwall's high praise, except to say, "Highly Recommended!"
In 2014 Herman delivered the Dewey Lectureship in Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School entitled "The Moral Side of Non-Negligence."
