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254Knowing Right From WrongOxford University Press. 2012.Can we have objective knowledge of right and wrong, of how we should live and what there is reason to do? Can it be anything but luck when our moral beliefs are true? Kieran Setiya confronts these questions in their most compelling and articulate forms, and argues that if there is objective ethical knowledge, human nature is its source.
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198Akrasia and the Constitution of AgencyIn Practical Knowledge: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press. 2016.Argues that we do not act intentionally ‘under the guise of the good.’ This makes it hard to explain why akrasia is distinctively irrational; but this is no objection, since it is just as hard to explain on the opposing view. Ends with a problem of akrasia for ethical rationalists.
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341Does Moral Theory Corrupt Youth?Philosophical Topics 38 (1): 205-222. 2010.Argues that the answer is yes. The epistemic assumptions of moral theory deprive us of resources needed to resist the challenge of moral disagreement, which its practice at the same time makes vivid. The paper ends by sketching a kind of epistemology that can respond to disagreement without skepticism: one in which the fundamental standards of justification for moral belief are biased toward the truth
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872The Midlife CrisisPhilosophers' Imprint 14. 2014.Argues that philosophy can solve the midlife crisis, at least in one of its forms. This crisis turns on the exhaustibility of our ends. The solution is to value ends that are ‘atelic,’ so inexhaustible. Topics include: John Stuart Mill's nervous breakdown; Aristotle on the finality of the highest good; and Schopenhauer on the futility of desire.
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334Sympathy for the devilIn Sergio Tenenbaum (ed.), Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good, Oxford University Press. pp. 82--110. 2010.Argues that, while human beings may act "under the guise of the good," this is not true of rational agents, as such. Themes discussed along the way – extending the argument of "Reasons without Rationalism" (Princeton, 2007) – include: desires as appearances of the good, the intelligibility of vice, and the kind of essentialist claim that permits exceptions.
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308Practical Knowledge RevisitedEthics 120 (1): 128-137. 2009.Argues that the view propounded in "Practical Knowledge" (Ethics 118: 388-409) survives objections made by Sarah Paul ("Intention, Belief, and Wishful Thinking," Ethics 119: 546-557). The response gives more explicit treatment to the nature and epistemology of knowing how.
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342Internal ReasonsIn Kieran Setiya & Hille Paakkunainen (eds.), Internal Reasons: Contemporary Readings, Mit Press. 2012.Argues that "internalism about reasons" owes its appeal to a function argument from the nature of agency. Internalism is thus revealed as a species of ethical rationalism. (This paper introduces a volume of recent work on internal and external reasons.)
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38Practical Knowledge: Selected EssaysOxford University Press. 2016.In this collection, Kieran Setiya explores the place of agency in ethics, arguing for a causal theory of intentional action on which it is understood through the knowledge embodied in our intentions, and against the rationalist project of deriving norms of practical reason from the nature of the will.
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88Is efficiency a vice?American Philosophical Quarterly 42 (4). 2005.Argues against the form of instrumentalism on which being practically rational is being efficient in the pursuit of one's ends. The trait of means-end efficiency turns out to be a defect of character, and therefore cannot be identified with practical reason at its best.
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288Believing at WillMidwest Studies in Philosophy 32 (1): 36-52. 2008.Argues that we cannot form beliefs at will without failure of attention or logical confusion. The explanation builds on Williams' argument in "Deciding to Believe," attempting to resolve some well-known difficulties. The paper ends with tentative doubts about the idea of judgement as intentional action.
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151Review of Mark Johnston, 'Saving God' and 'Surviving Death' (review)Ethics 121 (2): 476-486. 2011.
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76Review of Sarah Stroud and Christine Tappolet, eds., 'Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality' (review)Philosophical Review 114 (1): 131-135. 2005.
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526Love and the Value of a LifePhilosophical Review 123 (3): 251-280. 2014.Argues that there is no one it is irrational to love, that it is rational to act with partiality to those we love, and that the rationality of doing so is not conditional on love. It follows that Anscombe and Taurek are right: you are not required to save three instead of one, even when those you could save are perfect strangers
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329Anscombe on Practical KnowledgeIn Practical Knowledge: Selected Essays, Oxford University Press. 2016.Argues that, for Anscombe, 'practical knowledge' is only sometimes 'the cause of what it understands.' It is the formal cause when its object is 'formally the description of an executed intention.' Nor is such knowledge confined to the present progressive: we have practical knowledge of the future and the past.
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38Review of Michael Slote, 'Morals from Motives' (review)Philosophical Review 111 (4): 616-618. 2002.
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595Explaining actionPhilosophical Review 112 (3): 339-393. 2003.Argues that, in acting for a reason, one takes that reason to explain one's action, not to justify it: reasons for acting need not be seen "under the guise of the good". The argument turns on the need to explain the place of "practical knowledge" - knowing what one is doing - in intentional action. A revised and expanded version of this material appears in Part One of "Reasons without Rationalism" (Princeton, 2007).
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Action |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Mind |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |