mark schroeder - books

'Mark Schroeder has written a brilliant book. To my mind, it is the best book to have appeared in the field since Michael Smith’s The Moral Problem.'

- Russ Shafer-Landau, University of Wisconsin

'Who deserves credit for developing the most thorough-going and plausible version of a Humean theory of reasons? The answer is: Mark Schroeder, the author of the astonishingly rigorous and original, and yet still highly readable, Slaves of the Passions. Those who thought there was nothing new to be said about the Humean theory had better think again.'

- Michael Smith, Princeton University

'Slaves of the Passions is a tour de force. Schroeder as achieved the most sophisticated and resourceful defense of the Humean theory of practical reasons I know. In addition, he clarifies the debate by bringing out controversial suppressed premises that have confused previous discussion. A remarkably creative and insightful book.'

- Stephen Darwall, University of Michigan

'Mark Schroeder's Slaves of the Passions offers the best, most complete book-length defense available of a Humean conception of normative reasons for action. Part of what makes this book so needed, valuable, and worth celebrating is that it has had so few serious contenders for that title. But the book's virtues are not merely that it fills an exceedingly large gap in the literature. It is also wide-ranging, innovative, systematic, and rigorous.... The book is wide-ranging and complex.'

- David Sobel, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

'Mark Schroeder’s Slaves of the Passions is the most systematic defense yet constructed of a broadly ‘Humean’ conception of normative reasons for action, according to which all of one’s reasons are ultimately explained by facts about one’s psychology. This, however, radically undersells the book, which is simply breathtaking in its scope, originality, and density of powerful ideas. So: if you care about deep questions in ethics, you should read it. It is also rhetorically Humean, written so engagingly that even those without prior interest in its subject may simply enjoy witnessing such a superb example of philosophical argument.'

- Tristram McPherson, University of Minnesota - Duluth

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'All of the main points in this book will over time be assimilated into future work on these topics. Even as that happens people will want to go back to reread Schroeder’s exposition for its clear presentation and careful argument. It is hard to convey in a review the evident creativity with which Schroeder constructs solutions to problems for a research program he doesn’t himself endorse. But it makes engaging reading. More importantly, Schroeder’s excellent sense for the large picture and the explanatory burdens of philosophical theorizing inform the entire discussion at every level of detail. The result is a major contribution to our understanding of expressivism.'

- Mark van Roojen, Ethics.

'Expressivism has attracted a lot of attention recently and has several new and subtle defenders. This book is the first sustained and systematic critique of this popular position. It is extremely well done: clear, careful, and thorough.'

- Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Dartmouth College.

'Schroeder's Being For is the most sophisticated investigation to date of the prospects for expressivist semantics. The book sets out and argues for a set of constraints on expressivist handling of the infamous “embedding problem”, shows what a solution would look like, and explains the substantive commitments that such a solution must take on board. It is a philosophically serious and technically rigorous argument, and it establishes a kind of plateau from which future work on the subject will have to proceed.'

- Jamie Dreier, Brown University.

'An extremely impressive book - equally remarkable for the power of its arguments, for its clarity and precision, and for its striking inventiveness and methodological rigour. Above all, there is one striking respect in which it rises head and shoulders above all recent contributions to these debates.... [Schroeder] has articulated his version of expressivism in more precise detail than any of the avowed proponents of expressivism have ever done; and he never presents an objection to expressivism without deploying all of his formidable ingenuity to search for an expressivist response to the objection. In this way, he has taken the debate over the merits and demerits of expressivism to a new level of philosophical rigour and sophistication.... In short, this is an absolutely terrific book. No one who wants to think carefully about the semantic program of expressivism can afford to give it anything less than their most serious attention.'

- Ralph Wedgwood, Analysis Reviews

'[Q]uite impressive.... Being For [is] required reading for anyone with an interest in metaethics.'

- Robert Mabrito, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

'required reading for anyone interested in the expressivist program in meta-ethics.'

- Mark Richard, Philosophical Review.

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'Noncognitivism in Ethics is the best introduction to noncognitivism and to the complex philosophical issues it generates that I have seen. It is written with teaching in mind. While the discussion is advanced enough to maintain the interest of even a professional reader, it presupposes very little. Schroeder always takes care to explain the point of any philosophical technique that might otherwise put off newcomers.'

– Mark van Roojen, University of Nebraska

'Noncognitivism in Ethics combines sparkling clear presentation and balanced critical assessment with extremely thoughtful and well-crafted sets of exercises that accompany each chapter. This is an ideal book for undergraduates beginning serious study of metaethics, while the more advanced exercises and masterful overview of the challenges confronting noncognitivist views also make this a perfect text for graduate seminars.'

- Mark Timmons, University of Arizona

'It would be easy for those familiar with the quality of [Schroeder's] body of work to simply take for granted that this latest would follow suit. But we should not. For other than the shared idea that moral language and thought differ in kind from nonmoral language and thought, noncognitivist theories share little else, and their respective challenges and possibilities often differ markedly. Add that much of the noncognitivist literature is highly-specialized and technical and that Schroeder's book is, nevertheless, intended to be both beginner- as well as researcher-friendly, and the confluence of tasks Schroeder has set for himself with this book are demanding. That Schroeder pulls it off is an achievement.'

- Daniel Boisvert, Journal of Moral Philosophy

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