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People

Alejandro Vesga

Assistant Professor


I’m an assistant professor at the University of Houston’s philosophy department.

My main interests lie in the intersections between philosophy of language, epistemology, social philosophy, and cognitive science. I also work in Latin American Philosophy – particularly in the Theology and Philosophy of Liberation.

I went to Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia) for my BA and MA in philosophy. I did my PhD at the Sage School of Philosophy, at Cornell University. Then, I was a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton’s University Center for Human Values, working in Tania Lombrozo’s lab.

I have written some journalism and public philosophy on ideology, gender, propaganda, and the politics of science. For now, this has been in Spanish.

Education

  • Lincoln College, Oxford University, 1983-6
    • B. A. with first class honours in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, July 1986.
  • Cornell University, 1986-93
    • M. A. in Philosophy, September 1989.
    • Ph. d in Philosophy, May 1993.

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Selected Publications

Books

  • Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics: A Guide (Oxford University Press, May 2022)
  • Rossian Ethics: W.D. Ross and Contemporary Moral Theory (Oxford University Press, July 2019)
  • Sidgwickian Ethics (Oxford University Press, October 2011)

Articles

  • "Sidgwick''s Kantian Account of Moral Motivation," in Paytas and Henning, eds., Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics (Routledge 2020)
  • "Sympathy for the Error Theorist: Parfit and Mackie," Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2014.
  • "Joseph Butler," in International Encyclopedia of Ethics 2013.
  • 'Mackie on Practical Reason,' Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2007, reprinted in A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory (Philosophical Studies Series), ed. Richard Joyce and Simon Kirchin (Springer: Jan 2010)
  • "Hume on Practical Reason: Normativity and Psychology in Treatise 2.3.3," Hume Studies, November 2005
  • "Thomson and the Semantic Argument against Consequentialism," Journal of Philosophy, September 2003.
  • "Butler and the Nature of Self-Interest," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, March 2000.
  • "Sidgwick, Dualism and Indeterminacy in Practical Reason," History of Philosophy Quarterly 1998.

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