Kieran Setiya
Biographic Data
| ID | 982569 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kieran Setiya |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kieran |
| FAMILY NAME | Setiya |
| SIGNATURE | SETIYA K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pittsburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0669-8556 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 64 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
What is a Right
Human nature, history, and the limits of critique
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
Modern Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to Kant
There is a rift between ancient and modern moral philosophy: between their conceptual worlds, presuppositions, and problems. So, at least, it has seemed to many. “If someone professes to be expounding Aristotle and talks in a modern fashion about ‘moral’ such-and-such,” Elizabeth Anscombe (1958: 2) memorably quipped, “he must be very imperceptive if he does not constantly feel like someone whose jaws have somehow got out of alignment: the teeth d…
What is morality
Practical Knowledge: Selected Essays
In the last forty years, action theory has revitalized moral philosophy. Philosophers have explored the nature of agency; what is involved in acting for a reason; how we know what we are doing; the role of intention, desire, and belief in motivating action; and more. At their most ambitious, philosophers have claimed that action theory is the foundation of ethics. For rationalists or constitutivists, the standards of practical reason derive from …
Broome on Reasons to Act
The Ethics of Existence
The doctor brings disturbing news: you have a condition that will affect any child you conceive in the next two months. The effect of the condition is that the child will suffer a serious, incurable disability. It is the kind of disability people live through without regretting their existence: they regard themselves as having good and happy lives. But they experience hardships, due to their disability, that they would rather not have faced. Ther…
Love and the Value of a Life
This essay is about love and its place in ethics. It 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
Knowing Right From Wrong
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 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.
What is a reason to act
Sympathy for the Devil
When we act intentionally, do we act “under the guise of the good”? Must we see some value in what we are doing, or take our reasons to provide some justification for doing it? Debate about these questions has been pursued through a series of memorable examples: Satan in Paradise Lost, Anscombe’s saucer of mud, Watson’s mother drowning her baby in the bathtub. But the examples are inconclusive, and so the debate has stalled. This chapter attempts…
Reasons without Rationalism
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 a…
Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality
Book Review| January 01 2005 Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality Sarah Stroud and Christine Tappolet, eds. Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. x, 317. Kieran Setiya Kieran Setiya Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2005) 114 (1): 131–135. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-114-1-131 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video …
Transcendental Idealism in the “Aesthetic” 1
Hume on Practical Reason 1
Explaining Action
Research Article| July 01 2003 Explaining Action Kieran Setiya Kieran Setiya Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2003) 112 (3): 339–393. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-112-3-339 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Kieran Setiya…
Morals from Motives
Morals from Motives
Parfit on Direct Self-Defeat
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
What is a reason to act
Reasons without Rationalism
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 a…
Explaining Action
Research Article| July 01 2003 Explaining Action Kieran Setiya Kieran Setiya Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2003) 112 (3): 339–393. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-112-3-339 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Kieran Setiya…
Hume on Practical Reason 1
Love and the Value of a Life
This essay is about love and its place in ethics. It 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
Practical Knowledge: Selected Essays
In the last forty years, action theory has revitalized moral philosophy. Philosophers have explored the nature of agency; what is involved in acting for a reason; how we know what we are doing; the role of intention, desire, and belief in motivating action; and more. At their most ambitious, philosophers have claimed that action theory is the foundation of ethics. For rationalists or constitutivists, the standards of practical reason derive from …
The Ethics of Existence
The doctor brings disturbing news: you have a condition that will affect any child you conceive in the next two months. The effect of the condition is that the child will suffer a serious, incurable disability. It is the kind of disability people live through without regretting their existence: they regard themselves as having good and happy lives. But they experience hardships, due to their disability, that they would rather not have faced. Ther…
Transcendental Idealism in the “Aesthetic” 1
Parfit on Direct Self-Defeat
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
Morals from Motives
Morals from Motives
Explaining Action
Research Article| July 01 2003 Explaining Action Kieran Setiya Kieran Setiya Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2003) 112 (3): 339–393. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-112-3-339 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email Tools Icon Tools Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Kieran Setiya…
Transcendental Idealism in the “Aesthetic” 1
Hume on Practical Reason 1
Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality
Book Review| January 01 2005 Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality Sarah Stroud and Christine Tappolet, eds. Weakness of Will and Practical Irrationality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. x, 317. Kieran Setiya Kieran Setiya Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2005) 114 (1): 131–135. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-114-1-131 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video …
Reasons without Rationalism
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 a…
Sympathy for the Devil
When we act intentionally, do we act “under the guise of the good”? Must we see some value in what we are doing, or take our reasons to provide some justification for doing it? Debate about these questions has been pursued through a series of memorable examples: Satan in Paradise Lost, Anscombe’s saucer of mud, Watson’s mother drowning her baby in the bathtub. But the examples are inconclusive, and so the debate has stalled. This chapter attempts…
Knowing Right From Wrong
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 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.
What is a reason to act
The Ethics of Existence
The doctor brings disturbing news: you have a condition that will affect any child you conceive in the next two months. The effect of the condition is that the child will suffer a serious, incurable disability. It is the kind of disability people live through without regretting their existence: they regard themselves as having good and happy lives. But they experience hardships, due to their disability, that they would rather not have faced. Ther…
Love and the Value of a Life
This essay is about love and its place in ethics. It 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
Broome on Reasons to Act
Practical Knowledge: Selected Essays
In the last forty years, action theory has revitalized moral philosophy. Philosophers have explored the nature of agency; what is involved in acting for a reason; how we know what we are doing; the role of intention, desire, and belief in motivating action; and more. At their most ambitious, philosophers have claimed that action theory is the foundation of ethics. For rationalists or constitutivists, the standards of practical reason derive from …
What is morality
Human nature, history, and the limits of critique
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
Modern Moral Philosophy: From Grotius to Kant
There is a rift between ancient and modern moral philosophy: between their conceptual worlds, presuppositions, and problems. So, at least, it has seemed to many. “If someone professes to be expounding Aristotle and talks in a modern fashion about ‘moral’ such-and-such,” Elizabeth Anscombe (1958: 2) memorably quipped, “he must be very imperceptive if he does not constantly feel like someone whose jaws have somehow got out of alignment: the teeth d…
What is a Right
Epistemology (15 works) · Philosophical Ethics and Theory (15 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (6 works) · Citation (5 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (5 works) · Free Will and Agency (5 works) · Analytic philosophy (4 works)