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145Reasons Without RationalismPrinceton University Press. 2007.Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "Why should I be moral?" and by doubts about the rational authority of moral virtue. In Reasons without Rationalism, Kieran Setiya shows that these doubts rest on a mistake. The "should" of practical reason cannot be understood apart from the virtues of character, including such moral virtues as justice and benevolence, and the considerations to which the virtues make one sensitive thereby count as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for deb…Read more
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164Hume on practical reasonPhilosophical Perspectives 18 (1). 2004.Argues that Hume was a sceptic about practical reason only on a rationalist account of what it would have to be. (This version differs substantially from the published paper.).
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76Wrong-Making ReasonsIn Simon Kirchin (ed.), Reading Parfit, Routledge. pp. 123-134. 2017.Argues that there is a problem of redundancy for Kantian Contractualism in light of plausible claims about the reason-giving force of wrong-making facts.
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332Reasons and CausesEuropean Journal of Philosophy 19 (1): 129-157. 2011.Argues for a causal-psychological account of acting for reasons. This view is distinguished from a more ambitious causal theory of action, clarified as far as possible, and motivated—against non-reductive, teleological, and behaviourist alternatives—on broadly metaphysical grounds
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388Knowledge of intentionIn Anton Ford, Jennifer Hornsby & Frederick Stoutland (eds.), Essays on Anscombe's Intention, Harvard University Press. pp. 170--197. 2011.Argues that it is not by inference from intention that I know what I am doing intentionally. Instead, the reverse is true: groundless knowledge of intention rests on the will as a capacity for non-perceptual, non-inferential knowledge of action. The argument adapts and clarifies considerations of "transparency" more familiar in connection with belief.
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44Review of Adrian Haddock and Fiona Macpherson, eds., 'Disjunctivism: Perception, Action, Knowledge' (review)Mind 118 (472): 834-840. 2009.
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172Intention, Plans, and Ethical RationalismIn Manuel Vargas & Gideon Yaffe (eds.), Rational and Social Agency: The Philosophy of Michael Bratman, Oxford University Press. pp. 56-82. 2014.Argues from the planning theory of intention – as an account of means-end coherence – to a comprehensive form of ethical rationalism. Having raised objections to this result, the paper ends by sketching a way out.
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124The Ethics of ExistencePhilosophical Perspectives 28 (1): 291-301. 2014.Argues that inadvisable procreative acts should often be affirmed in retrospect. This shift is not explained by attachment or love but by the moral impact of existence.
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258Other PeopleIn Sarah Buss & Nandi Theunissen (eds.), Rethinking the Value of Humanity, Oup Usa. 2023.Argues for the role of personal acquaintance in both love and concern for individuals, as such. The challenge is to say what personal acquaintance is and why it matters in the way it does. These questions are addressed through the work of Emmanuel Levinas. Topics include: the ethics of aggregation, the basis of moral standing, and the value of human life.
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194Reasons without rationalism * by Kieran Setiya * princeton university press, 2007. IX + 131 pp. 22.50: SummaryAnalysis 69 (3): 509-510. 2009.Reasons without Rationalism has two related parts, devoted to action theory and ethics, respectively. In the second part, I argue for a close connection between reasons for action and virtues of character. This connection is mediated by the idea of good practical thought and the disposition to engage in it. The argument relies on the following principle, which is intended as common ground: " Reasons: The fact that p is a reason for A to ϕ just in case A has a collection of psychological states, …Read more
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378Epistemic agency: Some doubtsPhilosophical Issues 23 (1): 179-198. 2013.Argues for a deflationary account of epistemic agency. We believe things for reasons and our beliefs change over time, but there is no further sense in which we are active in judgement, inference, or belief.
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492Practical knowledgeEthics 118 (3): 388-409. 2008.Argues that we know without observation or inference at least some of what we are doing intentionally and that this possibility must be explained in terms of knowledge-how. It is a consequence of the argument that knowing how to do something cannot be identified with knowledge of a proposition.
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274IntentionStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2009.Philosophical perplexity about intention begins with its appearance in three guises: intention for the future, as when I intend to complete this entry by the end of the month; the intention with which someone acts, as I am typing with the further intention of writing an introductory sentence; and intentional action, as in the fact that I am typing these words intentionally. As Elizabeth Anscombe wrote in a similar context, ‘it is implausible to say that the word is equivocal as it occurs in thes…Read more
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230Against internalismNoûs 38 (2). 2004.Argues that practical irrationality is akin to moral culpability: it is defective practical thought which one could legitimately have been expected to avoid. It is thus a mistake to draw too tight a connection between failure to be moved by reasons and practical irrationality (as in a certain kind of "internalism"): one's failure may be genuine, but not culpable, and therefore not irrational.
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253Knowing 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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47Review of Sergio Tenenbaum, 'Appearances of the Good' (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (5). 2007.
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195Akrasia 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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338Does 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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860The 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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307Practical 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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332Sympathy 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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341Internal 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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33Practical 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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281Believing 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.
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 |