Chair, Associate Professor of Philosophy
Ethics, Action Theory, Metaethics
Old Main, 110
651-696-6246
[email protected]
he/they
Website: http://www.samuelasarnow.com
Professor Asarnow wants to know whether anything really matters in life, and, if anything does, what it is. He regularly teaches courses in ethics, metaethics, bioethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of race and gender.
Asarnow’s research is primarily in ethics and the philosophy of action, with special emphasis on questions about the metaphysics and ethical significance of human motivation: what it is to have an intention or act for a reason, and whether our intentions and reasons for acting matter morally. More broadly, he is interested in questions about what people should do, questions about questions about what people should do, the relationship between mind and world (if such there be), and connections between philosophical ethics and other disciplines (including law, medicine, social work, and software engineering).
Asarnow’s articles have been published in journals such as Ethics, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Philosophical Quarterly. For a CV and more information, please see his website.
PhD: Stanford University, 2015
BA: Swarthmore College, 2008