BASIC RESEARCH | ETHICS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Good thinking
MIT philosopher Kieran Setiya analyzes sources of moral action.
Famous philosophers are often depicted as taking up the subject for reasons that, in retrospect, seem obvious. Plato, it is said, turned toward philosophy after the execution of Socrates soured him on everyday Athenian politics. The young David Hume became fascinated by Cicero’s philosophical writings. Jean-Paul Sartre claimed he grew up reading his way through his grandfather’s library.
Kieran Setiya, a philosophy professor at MIT, was drawn into the discipline in a slightly less traditional manner: “I got interested in philosophy through science fiction,” he says.