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9Believing at WillIn Felicia Ackerman (ed.), Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 1981.This chapter contains sections titled: I II III IV References.
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48Human nature, history, and the limits of critiqueEuropean Journal of Philosophy 32 (1): 3-16. 2024.This essay defends a form of ethical naturalism in which ethical knowledge is explained by human nature. Human nature, here, is not the essence of the species but its natural history as socially and historically determined. The argument does not lead to social relativism, but it does place limits on the scope of ethical critique. As society becomes “total”, critique can only be immanent; to this extent, Adorno and the Frankfurt School are right.
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31Life is hard: how philosophy can help us find our wayRiverhead Books. 2022.Infirmity -- Loneliness -- Grief -- Failure -- Injustice -- Absurdity -- Hope.
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Sympathy for the DevilIn Sergio Tenenbaum (ed.), Desire, Practical Reason, and the Good, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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38Review of Cheryl Misak, 'Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers' (review)London Review of Books. 2021.
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389What is morality?Philosophical Studies 179 (4): 1113-1133. 2021.Argues, against Anscombe, that Aristotle had the concept of morality as an interpersonal normative order: morality is justice in general. For an action to be wrong is not for it to warrant blame, or to wrong another person, but to be something one should not do that one has no right to do. In the absence of rights, morality makes no sense.
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136"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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93Review of Edouard Machery, 'Philosophy Within its Proper Bounds' (review)London Review of Books. 2018.
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226HumanismJournal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (4): 452-70. 2018.Argues for a form of humanism on which we have reason to care about human beings that we do not have to care about other animals and human beings have rights against us other animals lack. Humanism respects the equal worth of those born with severe congenital cognitive disabilities. I address the charge of 'speciesism' and explain how being human is an ethically relevant fact.
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31Review of Jennifer Summit and Blakey Vermeule, 'Action versus Contemplation' (review)Los Angeles Review of Books. 2018.
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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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133Ignorance, 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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516Must Consequentialists Kill?Journal of Philosophy 115 (2): 92-105. 2018.Argues that the ethics of killing and saving lives is best described by agent-neutral consequentialism, not by appeal to agent-centred restrictions. It does not follow that killings are worse than accidental deaths or that you should kill one to prevent more killings. The upshot is a puzzle about killing and letting die.
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74Midlife: 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
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 |