David Shoemaker

Wyn and William Y. Hutchinson Professor in Ethics and Public Life

Overview

My work is in moral psychology, agency and responsibility, the nature of the self (including self-ownership), personal identity and ethics, and the philosophy and moral psychology of humor (especially as it is affected by and bears on morality). My previous book Responsibility from the Margins (OUP 2015) developed a pluralistic theory of responsibility, drawn in part from empirical work on agents with various mental and personality disorders, and leaning heavily on a wide array of human emotional responses. The book I’m currently working on will be called Wisecracks, about the surprisingly intimate relationship between humor and morality.

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