Austen McDougal
708 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
adm560@nyu.edu
Austen McDougal’s work takes a motives-first approach to both ethical theory and agency: he uses the tools of analytic philosophy to identify normative reasons for what we ought to do as well as motivating reasons for what we do in fact do. He is currently focusing on a set of related projects about various kinds of reasons for love and compassion. He also enjoys teaching about these issues and their applications within social / political contexts.
Before coming to NYU, he was a postdoc at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values with the Princeton Project in Philosophy and Religion. Prior to that, he received a PhD in Philosophy at Stanford University and a BA in Philosophy with a minor in Computer Science at Princeton University.
Education:
PhD, Stanford University
BA, Princeton University
Areas of Research and Interests:
Ethics; Moral Psychology; Philosophy of Religion; Ethics of Technology; Philosophy of Law; Latin American Philosophy
Recent Publications:
“Loving Your Enemy”, Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion (forthcoming)
“Amnesia and Punishment”, Ethics (2024)
“When a Free Act Costs a Motive: Clearing Consequentialism of Conflict”, Utilitas (2023)
