Education
She was awarded a first class degree in philosophy from Birkbeck College, London in 1932, followed by a Doctor of Philosophy in 1934. While at Cambridge, she studied under General Electric Moore and was part of the inner circle of students that Ludwig Wittgenstein taught.
Career
Margaret MacDonald was an abandoned child. Her supervisor was Susan Stebbing and she provided her with financial assistance during her research. MacDonald joined Girton College, Cambridge as a Pfeiffer Research Fellow in Moral Sciences between 1934-1937.
Along with fellow student Alice Ambrose she secretly (since he did not allow this) made notes during Wittgenstein"s lectures, which were later published.
They later convinced Wittgenstein to allow them to write his lectures down. From 1937-1941 MacDonald taught philosophy at Street Hilda"s, Oxford where she was also librarian.
During the war she was temporary principal in the Board of Trade. This was followed by a lectureship at Bedford College, London.
At this time, she was one of a very small number of women teaching philosophy outside of Oxford University.
From 1947 she was also a lecturer on Ethics to staff at the Home Office. She became reader in philosophy at Bedford College in 1955. She remained very active in academic philosophy for the rest of her life.
Her early articles were criticisms of the work of contemporary philosophers, however she later concentrated on the field of aesthetics.
She was also interested in political philosophy and published a significant article "Natural Rights". In this paper she argues against the idea that natural rights are founded on the natural law.
Her work attracted substantial attention at the time. Two of her articles were reprinted in the Logic and Language (1951) series which included articles that were representative of current philosophical trends.
MacDonald helped to found the philosophy journal Analysis together with Susan Stebbing, Central America Mace and Gilbert Ryle in 1933.
She was also the journal"s editor from 1948 until her death in 1956 following heart surgery.