Arizona State University

Faculty Member, School of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies

Associate Professor

College of Letters and Sciences

About

Douglas W. Portmore is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies at Arizona State University. His research focuses mainly on morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two, but he also writes on wellbeing, posthumous harm, and the nonidentity problem. He recently finished a book entitled: Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. The book defends a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral convictions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons. In addition, he is the author of several journal articles, appearing in Ethics, Noûs , Mind, Ratio, Utilitas, Philosophical Studies, Philosophy Compass, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, American Philosophical Quarterly, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, and the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. Currently, he is working on a couple of papers concerning the principle that holds that we ought to perform our best option -- that is, the option that we have most reason, all things considered, to perform. Before coming to Arizona State University, he taught at the College of Charleston and California State University, Northridge. He received a bachelor's in philosophy and political science from the University of California, San Diego, and a master's and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of California, Santa Barbara. During the 2008-09 academic year, he was a Faculty Fellow at the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs, Murphy Institute, Tulane University. Portmore is also one of the founding members and current co-editor of PEA Soup, a blog dedicated to the discussion of philosophy, ethics, and academia.

See also his Personal Webpage at https://sites.google.com/site/commonsenseconsequentialism/

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