Bøker av Kieran Setiya

A NEW YORKER AND THE ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF 2022"e;Life Is Hard is a humane consolation for challenging times. Reading it is like speaking with a thoughtful friend who never tells you to cheer up, but, by offering gentle companionship and a change of perspective, makes you feel better anyway"e; The New York Times Book Review'An eloquent, moving, witty and above all useful demonstration of philosophy's power to help us weather the storms of being human' Oliver Burkeman, author of FOUR THOUSAND WEEKS______________________________________Pain, Loneliness, Grief, Injustice ... Hope?Life is hard - as the past few years have made painfully clear. From personal trauma to the injustice and absurdity of the world, sometimes simply going on can feel too much.But could there be solace - and even hope - in acknowledging the hardships of the human condition? Might doing so free us from the tyranny of striving for our "e;best lives"e; and help us find warmth, humanity, and humour in the lives we actually have? Could it inspire in us the desire for a better world?In this profound and personal book, Kieran Setiya shows how philosophy can help us find our way. He shares his own experience with chronic pain and the consolation that comes from making sense of it. He asks what we can learn from loneliness and loss about the value of human life. And he explores how we can fail with grace, confront injustice, and search for meaning in the face of despair. Drawing on ancient and modern philosophy, as well as fiction, comedy, social science and personal essay, Life is Hard is a book for this moment - a work of solace and compassion. It draws us towards justice, for ourselves and others, by acknowledging what it means to be alive.

Modern philosophy has been vexed by the question "e;Why should I be moral?"e; 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 "e;should"e; 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 as reasons to act. Proposing a new framework for debates about practical reason, Setiya argues that the only alternative to this "e;virtue theory"e; is a form of ethical rationalism in which reasons derive from the nature of intentional action. Despite its recent popularity, however, ethical rationalism is false. It wrongly assumes that we act "e;under the guise of the good,"e; or it relies on dubious views about intention and motivation. It follows from the failure of rationalism that the virtue theory is true: we cannot be fully good without the perfection of practical reason, or have that perfection without being good. Addressing such topics as the psychology of virtue and the explanation of action, Reasons without Rationalism is essential reading for philosophers interested in ethics, rationality, or the philosophy of mind.