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Walter Sinnott-Armstrong

Chauncey Stillman Distinguished Professor of Practical Ethics
Philosophy
Duke Box 90743, Durham, NC 27708-0743
Duke University Box 90432, 203B West Duke Bldg, Durham, NC 27708

Overview


Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. He has secondary appointments in the Law School and the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, and he is core faculty in the Duke Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, and the Duke Center for Interdisciplinary Decision Sciences. He serves as Resource Faculty in the Philosophy Department of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Partner Investigator at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, and Research Scientist with The Mind Research Network in New Mexico. He has visited at National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, the Macquarie Research Center for Agency, Values, and Ethics in Australia, and the National Institutes of Health in Washington. He has received fellowships from the Harvard Program in Ethics and the Professions, the Princeton Center for Human Values, the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, the Center for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the Australian National University, and the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has served as co-chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association, co-director of the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Project, and co-PI of the project on the Neuroscience and Philosophy of Free Will and Moral Responsibility at Chapman University. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Amherst College and his doctorate from Yale University. He has published widely on ethics (theoretical and applied as well as meta-ethics), empirical moral psychology and neuroscience, philosophy of law, epistemology, philosophy of religion, and informal logic. Most recently, he is the author of  Think Again: How to Reason and Argue, Morality Without God?and Moral Skepticisms; co-author with Robert Fogelin of Understanding Arguments, Ninth Edition, and with Jesse Summers of Clean Hands: Philosophical Lessons of Scrupulosity; and editor of Moral Psychology, volumes I-V. His numerous articles have appeared in a variety of philosophical, scientific, and popular journals and collections. He performs various experiments in moral psychology and brain science with his Moral Attitudes and Decisions (MAD) Lab. He is working on one book on moral artificial intelligence and another book that will develop a contrastivist view of freedom and responsibility. He co-directs Summer Seminars in Neuroscience and Philosophy (SSNaP) with Felipe De Brigard and teaches a popular MOOC, Think Again, on the Coursera website with Ram Neta. 

Current Appointments & Affiliations


Chauncey Stillman Distinguished Professor of Practical Ethics · 2010 - Present Philosophy, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor of Philosophy · 2010 - Present Philosophy, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience · 2019 - Present Psychology & Neuroscience, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences
Member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience · 2011 - Present Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences · 2011 - Present Duke Institute for Brain Sciences, University Institutes and Centers
Associate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society · 2017 - Present Duke Science & Society, University Initiatives & Academic Support Units

In the News


Published December 3, 2024
Research & Innovation Seed Grants Total Nearly $2 Million
Published September 6, 2023
How Duke Researchers Defend the Brain
Published March 23, 2023
Duke Digital Courses Come to Ukraine, Kazakhstan

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Recent Publications


U.S. citizens' judgments of moral transgressions against fellow citizens, refugees, and undocumented immigrants.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · February 2025 Prior work shows that people are often more sensitive to moral transgressions that target ingroup members than outgroup members. But does that depend on which groups are involved? We investigate how lifelong U.S. citizen participants make judgments about m ... Full text Cite

Who did it? Moral wrongness for us and them in the UK, US, and Brazil

Journal Article Philosophical Psychology · January 1, 2025 Morality has traditionally been described in terms of an impartial and objective “moral law”, and moral psychological research has largely followed in this vein, focusing on abstract moral judgments. But might our moral judgments be shaped not just by what ... Full text Cite

From Contextualism to Contrastivism in Moral Theory

Journal Article Utilitas · January 1, 2025 In Morality by Degrees, Alastair Norcross presents contextualist accounts of good and right acts as well as harm and free will. All of his analyses compare what is assessed with "the appropriate alternative,"which is supposed to vary with context. This pap ... Full text Cite
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Recent Grants


Tests of consciousness in humans, animals and AI: An in-person meeting

ConferencePrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Canada Institute for Advanced Research · 2024 - 2026

Making Moral AI

ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by OpenAI LP · 2022 - 2026

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Recent Artistic Works


A 60-Limerick Canon

Video Recording May 1, 2015

4’33’

Musical Performance June 1, 2005

Tom Thumb

Musical Performance June 1, 2005

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Education, Training & Certifications


Yale University · 1982 Ph.D.
Amherst College · 1977 A.B.