Samuel Scheffler

SAMUEL SCHEFFLER (B.A., Harvard; Ph.D., Princeton) works mainly in the areas of moral and political philosophy and the theory of value. His publications include six books: The Rejection of Consequentialism (1982, rev. ed. 1994), Human Morality (1992), Boundaries and Allegiances (2001), Equality and Tradition (2010), Death and the Afterlife (Ed. Niko Kolodny, 2013), and Why Worry about Future Generations? (2018), all published by Oxford University Press. He has received Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, and has been a Visiting Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.  He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters, and a foreign member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

moral and political philosophy

theory of value

• Interview with Luc Foisneau and Veronique Munoz-Darde on Canal-U web t.v. (France)
  
• Interview with Richard Marshall in 3:AM Magazine
• Interview with Robert Siegel on NPR’s All Things Considered
  
• Interview in UCTV’s Conversations with History series 
  
• Philosophy Bites interview with Nigel Warburton and Dave Edmonds
  
• Interview with Edward Stourton on BBC Radio 4 Analysis 
  
• Interview with John Perry and Ken Taylor on Philosophy Talk
  
• Interview with Dave Edmonds on the BBC World Service series, The Big Idea
• Interview with Jeffrey Church on The Political Theory Review
  

• “Relational Equality and Pluralism about Justice,” in R. Chang and A. Srinivasan eds., New Conversations in Philosophy, Law, & Politics (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
• “Moral Independence Revisited: A Note on the Development of Rawls’s Thought From 1977-1980 and Beyond,” in P. Weithman ed., Rawls’s A Theory of Justice at 50 (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
• “Partiality, Deference, and Engagement,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 122(2022): 319-341, https://doi.org/10.1093/arisoc/aoac012.
•  "Temporal Neutrality and the Bias toward the Future," in J. McMahan, T. Campbell, J. Goodrich, and K. Ramakrishnan, eds., Principles and Person: The Legacy of Derek Parfit (Oxford University Press, 2021), pp. 85-114.
• "Meaning and Value Across the Generations," in S. Gardiner ed., The Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics (Oxford University Press). DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190881931.013.27
  
• "Humanity and the Future: Replies to TIna Rulli and Jay Wallace," Inquiry 64 (2021): 699-710.
• “Is Economic Inequality Really a Problem?,” The New York Times, July 1, 2020.
• “A World Without Children,” The Point, Issue 20 (Fall, 2019).
  
• “The Rawlsian Diagnosis of Donald Trump,” Boston Review, February 12, 2019. 
  
• “Membership and Political Obligation," Journal of Political Philosophy 26(2018): 3-23. 
• “Aging as a Normative Phenomenon,"(PDF) Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2(2016): 505-22.
• “Distributive Justice, the Basic Structure and the Place of Private Law,"Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 35(2015): 213-35.
• “The Practice of Equality," in C. Fourie, F. Schuppert, and I. Wallimann-Helmer, Social Equality: Essays on What it Means to be Equals (Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 21-44.
• “The Idea of Global Justice: A Progress Report,"(PDF) The Harvard Review of Philosophy, Volume XX (2014): 17-35.
• “The Afterlife,” in M. Matheson ed., The Tanner Lectures on Human Values 32 (Salt Lake City, Utah: The University of Utah Press, 2013), pp. 129-181.
• “The Good of Toleration,"(PDF) in Equality and Tradition, pp. 312-336.
• “The Normativity of Tradition,” in Equality and Tradition, pp. 287-311.
• “Morality and Reasonable Partiality,"(PDF) in Equality and Tradition, pp. 41-75. Also published in B. Feltham and J. Cottingham, eds., Partiality and Impartiality:Morality, Special Relationships, and the Wider World (Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 98-130.
• “Valuing," in Equality and Tradition, pp. 15-40. Also published in R. J. Wallace, R. Kumar, and S. Freeman eds., Reasons and Recognition: Essays on the Philosophy of T.M. Scanlon (Oxford University Press, 2011).
• “Cosmopolitanism, Justice, and Institutions,"(PDF) Daedalus 137 (Summer, 2008): 68-77. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “Potential Congruence,” in P. Bloomfield ed., Morality and Self-Interest (Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 117-35.
• “Immigration and the Significance of Culture,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 35(2007): 93-125. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “Is Terrorism Morally Distinctive?"(PDF), Journal of Political Philosophy 14(2006): 1-17. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “Is the Basic Structure Basic?”, in C. Sypnowich ed., The Egalitarian Conscience: Essays in Honour of G.A. Cohen (Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 102-129. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “The Division of Moral Labour: Egalitarian Liberalism as Moral Pluralism,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 79(2005): 229-253. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “Choice, Circumstance, and the Value of Equality,” Politics, Philosophy & Economics 4(2005): 5-28. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “Doing and Allowing,” Ethics 114(2004): 215-39. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “Projects, Relationships, and Reasons,” in R.J. Wallace, P. Pettit, S. Scheffler, and M. Smith eds., Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz (Oxford University Press, 2004), pp. 247-69.
• “What is Egalitarianism?”, Philosophy and Public Affairs 31(2003): 5-39. Reprinted in Equality and Tradition.
• “Rawls and Utilitarianism,” in S. Freeman ed., The Cambridge Companion to Rawls (Cambridge University Press, 2003): 426-59. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “Justice and Desert in Liberal Theory," (PDF) California Law Review 88(2000):965-90. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “Conceptions of Cosmopolitanism,” Utilitas 11(1999): 255-76. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “The Conflict Between Justice and Responsibility,” in L.Brilmayer and I. Shapiro eds., NOMOS XLI: Global Justice (New York University Press, 1999): 86-106. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “Relationships and Responsibilities,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 26(1997): 189-209. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
  
• “Families and Friends First?” [Review of Martha Nussbaum et. al., For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism], in The Times Literary Supplement, 27 December 1996: 8-9.
• “Against the System” [Review of J.E.J. Altham and R. Harrison eds., World, Mind, and Ethics and Bernard Williams, Making Sense of Humanity], in The Times Literary Supplement, 16 February 1996: 13-14.
• “Families, Nations, and Strangers,” The Lindley Lecture (University of Kansas, 1995). Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “Individual Responsibility in a Global Age,” Social Philosophy and Policy 12(1995): 219-36. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “The Appeal of Political Liberalism,” Ethics 105(1994): 4-22. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “Responsibility, Reactive Attitudes, and Liberalism in Philosophy and Politics,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 21(1992): 299-323. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “Naturalism, Psychoanalysis, and Moral Motivation,” in Jim Hopkins and Anthony Savile eds., Psychoanalysis, Mind and Art: Perspectives on Richard Wollheim (Basil Blackwell, 1992): 87-109.
• “Objectivity” [Review of Susan Hurley, Natural Reasons], in the London Review of Books 13 September 1990: 9-10.
• “The Problem of Vividness” [Review of Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality], in The Times Literary Supplement, 1-7 September 1989: 941.
• “Morality through Thick and Thin” [Critical Notice of Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy], Philosophical Review 96(1987): 411-34. Reprinted in Boundaries and Allegiances.
• “Morality’s Demands and Their Limits,” Journal of Philosophy 83(1986): 531-7.
• “Agent-Centered Restrictions, Rationality, and the Virtues,” Mind 94(1985): 409-19.
• “Ergo: Less Ego” [Review of Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons], in The Times Literary Supplement, 4 May 1984: 483-4.
• “Moral Independence and the Original Position,” Philosophical Studies 35(1979): 397-403.