Research and Teaching Interests

Michael Stocker has led in revitalizing studies in moral psychology. His numerous articles in ethics and moral psychology deal with such topics as emotions, affectivity, pleasure, friendship and love. His writings include studies of classical and early modern moral theorists as well as critiques of contemporary ethical thinkers.

In his book Plural and Conflicting Values (Oxford, 1990) he develops a moral theory that takes seriously our concrete experience of the demands of morality, including our experience of moral conflict. Valuing Emotions (1996) is a study of emotions from the perspective of ethics, moral psychology, and psychoanalysis.

In 1986 he was elected to membership in the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

Selected Publications

Books:
1990, Plural and Conflicting Values (Oxford: Oxford University Press; reprinted, 1992).
1996, Valuing Emotions (with Elizabeth Hegeman) (New York: Cambridge University Press).

Articles and Chapters:
1965, "Mayo on the Open Future," Mind, 258.
1965, "Consistency in Ethics," Analysis Supplement, 116-122.
1966, "Memory and the Private Language Argument," The Philosophical Quarterly, 47-53.
1967, "Acts, Perfect Duties, and Imperfect Duties," The Review of Metaphysics, 507-517.
1967, "Professor Chisholm on Supererogation and Offense," Philosophical Studies, 87-94.
1968, "Duty and Supererogation," American Philosophical Quarterly Monograph # 1, 53-63.
1968, "Knowledge, Causation, and Decision," Nous, 65-73.
1968, "How to Prevent Self-Prediction," The Journal of Philosophy, 475-477.
1969, "Mill on Desire and Desirability," The Journal of the History of Philosophy, 199-201.
1969, "Consequentialism and its Complexities," American Philosophical Quarterly, 276-289.
1970, "Morally Good Intentions," The Monist, 124-141.
1970, "Intentions and Act Evaluations," The Journal of Philosophy, 589-602.
1970, "Moral Duties, Institutions, and Natural Facts," The Monist, 602-624.
1971, "'Ought' and 'Can'," The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 303-316.
1973, "Rightness and Goodness - Is There a Difference?" American Philosophical Quarterly, 87-98.
1973, "Act and Agent Evaluations," The Review of Metaphysics, 42-61.
1976, "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories," The Journal of Philosophy, 453-466.
1976, "Agent and Other: Against Ethical Universalism," The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 206-220.
1979, "Good Intentions in Greek and Modern Moral Philosophy," The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 220-224.
1979, "Desiring the Bad - An Essay in Moral Psychology," The Journal of Philosophy, 738-753.
1980, "Intellectual Desire, Emotion, and Action," in A.O. Rorty, ed., Explaining Emotion (Berkeley: University of California Press).
1981, "Values and Purposes: The Limits of Teleology and the Ends of Friendship," The Journal of Philosophy, 747-765.
1982, "Responsibility -- Especially for Beliefs," Mind, 398-417.
1982, "Panksepp on Hardwired Emotions," The Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 445-446.
1983, "Psychic Feelings: Their Importance and Irreducibility," The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 5-26.
1983, "Affectivity and Self-Concern: The Assumed Psychology in Aristotle's Ethics," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 211-229.
1984, "Some Structures for Akrasia," History of Philosophy Quarterly, 267-280.
1986, "Aristotle on Polity," (co-authored with Bruce Langtry), in David Muschamp, ed., Political Thinkers (Melbourne, Australia: Macmillan).
1986, "Dirty Hands and Conflicts of Values and of Desires in Aristotle's Ethics," The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 36-61.
1986, "Akrasia and the Object of Desire," in Joel Marks, ed., The Ways of Desire (Chicago: Precedent Books).
1986, "Friendship and Duty: Toward A Synthesis of Gilligan's Contrastive Ethical Concepts," in Eva Kittay and Diana Meyers, eds., Women and Moral Theory
(Totowa, N J: Rowman and Allanheld).
1987, "Emotional Thoughts," American Philosophical Quarterly, 59-69.
1987, "Some Problems With Counter Examples in Ethics," Synthese, 277-289.
1987, "Moral Conflicts: What They Are and What They Show," The Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 104-123.
1990, "Friendship and Duty: Some Difficult Relations," in A. O. Rorty and Owen Flanagan, eds., Identity, Character, and Morality: Essays in Moral Psychology
(Cambridge, Mass: MIT press).
1992, "Internalism and Externalism," (co-authored with John Robertson) in Lawrence Becker, ed., Encyclopedia of Ethics.
1994, "Self-Other Asymmetries and Virtue Theory," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 54, 689-694.
1994, "Emotions and Ethical Knowledge: Some Naturalistic Connections," Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 143-158.
1995, "Some Comments on [Thomas Hurka's] Perfectionism," Ethics, 386-400.
1996, "How Emotions Reveal Value and Help Cure the Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories," in Roger Crisp, ed., How Should One Live (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
1996, "Review of Thomas Hurka, 'Monism, Pluralism, and Regret' [Ethics, 1996, 355-75]," in James Dreier and David Estlund, eds., Brown Electronic Review Series,
World Wide Web (www.Brown.edu/Departments /Philosophy/ Bears/homepage.html), posted 9.3.96.
1997, "Aristotelian Akrasia and Psychoanalytic Regression," Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology, 4, 231-241.
1997, "Parfit and the Time of Value," in Jonathan Dancy, ed., Reading Parfit (Oxford: Blackwell).
1997, "Emotional Identification, Closeness, and Size: Some Contributions to Virtue Ethics" in Daniel Statman, ed., Virtue Ethics (Edinburgh, Scotland: University of
Edinburgh Press.)
1998, "Abstract and Concrete Value: Plurality, Conflict, and Maximization" in Ruth Chang, ed., Incommensurability and Value (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University
Press).
2000, “Aristotelian Akrasia, Weakness of Will, and Psychoanalytic Regression”, in Michael Levine, ed. The Analytic Freud (Routledge: London and New York).
2002, “Some Problems about Affectivity”, Philosophical Studies, 108, 151-158.
2002, “Some Ways to Value Emotions”, Understanding Emotions, ed. Peter Goldie (Ashgate: Aldershot, UK).
2003, “The Irreducibility of Affectivity”, What is an Emotion?, ed. Robert Solomon (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
2004, “Some Considerations about Intellectual Desire and Emotion”, Thinking About Feeling, ed. Robert Solomon (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
2004 “Raz on the Intelligiblity of Bad Acts,” in R. Jay Wallace, Philip Pettit, Samuel Scheffler, and Michael Smith, eds., Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral
Philosophy of Joseph Raz (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
2005 “Valuing Emotions: Some Remarks on ‘Emotion als Affekt’”, e-Journal Philosophie der Psychologie, 2, June, 1-4.
2005 [with Ben Bradley] “’Doing and Allowing’ and Doing and Allowing”, Ethics.
2007 “Shame, Guilt, and Pathological Guilt: A Discussion of Bernard Williams”, in Bernard Williams, ed. A. P. Thomas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
2007 “Shame and Guilt; Self-Interest and Morality”, Morality and Self-Interest, ed. Paul Bloomfield (New York: Oxford University Press).
2008 French translation of 'The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories', Journal of Philosophy, 1976; in Amitiés et partialité en éthique /Friendships and Partiality in Ethics, Les Ateliers de léthique, ed. C. Tappolet , (web publication) http://www.creum.umontreal.ca/spip.php?article681.
2008 'Some Questions About Emotions and Risk Evaluation', Pennumbra [University of Pennsylvania Law Review] vol. 156, Number 3, 412-420. [Their preferred
reference: Michael Stocker, Response, Some Questions About Emotions and Risk Evaluation, 156 U. PA. L. REV. PENNUMBRA 412 (2008), http://www.pennumbra.com/responses/03-2008/Stocker.pdf]
2008 'On the Intelligibility of Bad Acts', Moral Psychology Today: Essays on Values, Rational Choice, and the Will, ed. David Chan (Berlin, Germany: Springer).