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172RetrospectionPhilosophers' Imprint 16. 2016.Argues from the rationality of nostalgia, affirmation, and regret to a principle of ‘specificity’: it can be rational to respond more strongly to facts that provide us with reasons than to the fact that such reasons exist.
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161Hume 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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151Review of Mark Johnston, 'Saving God' and 'Surviving Death' (review)Ethics 121 (2): 476-486. 2011.
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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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144Transparency and InferenceProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 112 (2pt2): 263-268. 2012.Argues that doubts about the inference from 'p' to 'I believe that p' do not support reflective theories of self-knowledge over an inferential or rule-following view. (This note is a reply to Matthew Boyle, "Transparent Self-Knowledge," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 85: 223-241.)
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126Reply to Bratman and SmithAnalysis 69 (3): 531-540. 2009.To begin with, I am deeply grateful to Michael Bratman and Michael Smith for their generosity in responding to my book, for the care with which they have read it, and for the challenge of meeting their objections. I am also grateful for their support and encouragement over the years. It is a pleasure to engage with them here.Because their comments raise many related difficulties, this reply will treat them together, beginning with brief consideration of issues in action theory before turning to …Read more
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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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121"The Colour Out of Space": Lovecraft on InductionPhilosophy and Literature 45 (1): 39-54. 2021.Argues for a reading of H. P. Lovecraft’s 1927 short story, "The Colour out of Space," as an affective response to the problem of induction. Lovecraft weighs the meaning of our epistemic frailty, drawing on George Santayana’s "Scepticism and Animal Faith." His writing elicits inductive vertigo, the fear that our concepts fail to carve nature at the joints.
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118Ignorance, Beneficence, and RightsJournal of Moral Philosophy 17 (1): 56-74. 2020.I argue that ignorance of who will die makes a difference to the ethics of killing. It follows that reasons are subject to ‘specificity’: it can be rational to respond more strongly to facts that provide us with reasons than to the fact that such reasons exist. In the case of killing and letting die, these reasons are distinctively particular: they turn on personal acquaintance. The theory of rights must be, in part, a theory of this relation.
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93Review of Edouard Machery, 'Philosophy Within its Proper Bounds' (review)London Review of Books. 2018.
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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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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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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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72Midlife: A Philosophical GuidePrinceton University Press. 2017.Philosophical wisdom and practical advice for overcoming the problems of middle age How can you reconcile yourself with the lives you will never lead, with possibilities foreclosed, and with nostalgia for lost youth? How can you accept the failings of the past, the sense of futility in the tasks that consume the present, and the prospect of death that blights the future? In this self-help book with a difference, Kieran Setiya confronts the inevitable challenges of adulthood and middle age, showi…Read more
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64Review of Justin Broackes, ed., 'Iris Murdoch, Philosopher' (review)Philosophical Quarterly 62 (249): 878-881. 2012.
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47Review of Sergio Tenenbaum, 'Appearances of the Good' (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (5). 2007.
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46Parfit on direct self-defeatPhilosophical Quarterly 49 (195): 239-242. 1999.In the first part of Reasons and Persons, Derek Parfit argues that common‐sense morality, or M, is self‐defeating, so that it must be rejected or revised. I defend M. We can rebut Parfit’s argument if we make an assumption about the moral importance of doing what is morally right. We need to assume that this end has sufficient weight in M
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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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42Review of Peter Singer, 'Does Anything Really Matter?' and Derek Parfit, 'On What Matters: Volume Three' (review)Times Literary Supplement. 2017.
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38Review of Michael Slote, 'Morals from Motives' (review)Philosophical Review 111 (4): 616-618. 2002.
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 |