IU School of Liberal Arts

John J. Tilley

Campus Address: CA 344B
Phone: (317)274-4690
Email: jtilley@iupui.edu
Email

Appointments

Professor & Chair of Philosophy

Education

B.S., United States Military Academy, 1975; M.A., University of Georgia, 1983; Ph.D., University of Wisconsin, 1988

Academic Interests

Ethical theory, practical reason

Awards

FACET Award for Excellence in Teaching; Teaching Excellence Recognition Award (twice); I.U. President's Award for Distinguished Teaching; Liberal Arts Outstanding Faculty Service Award; Trustees Teaching Award; listed (twice) in Who's Who Among America's Teachers.

Publications

in moral theory, practical rationality, and related areas. Representative articles include:

"Accounting for the 'Tragedy' in the Prisoner's Dilemma," Synthese 99 (1994): 251-76.
"Motivation and Practical Reasons," Erkenntnis 47 (1997): 105-27.
"Cultural Relativism," Human Rights Quarterly 22 (2000): 501-47.
"Justifying Reasons, Motivating Reasons, and Agent Relativism in Ethics," Philosophical Studies 118 (2004): 373-99.
"Desires, Reasons, and Reasons to be Moral," American Philosophical Quarterly 41 (2004): 287-98.
"Is 'Why Be Moral?' a Pseudo-Question?: Hospers and Thornton on the Amoralist's Challenge," Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (2006): 549-66.
"Reasons, Rationality, and the Putative Pseudo-Question 'Why Be Moral?'" Synthese 161 (2008): 309-23.
"Dismissive Replies to 'Why Should I Be Moral?'" Social Theory and Practice 35 (2009): 341-68.
"Physical Objects and Moral Wrongness: Hume on the 'Fallacy' in Wollaston’s Moral Theory," Hume Studies 35 (2009): 87-101.
"Exciting Reasons and Moral Rationalism in Hutcheson's Illustrations upon the Moral Sense," Journal of the History of Philosophy 50 (2012): 53–83.
"Hedonism," forthcoming, Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, 2nd ed., ed. R. Chadwick (Elsevier).
"The Problem of Inconsistency in Wollaston's Moral Theory," forthcoming, History of Philosophy Quarterly.
"Wollaston's Early Critics," forthcoming, British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

Frequently Taught Courses:

P322: Philosophy of Human Nature (3 cr.): Are humans by nature selfish? Do they have souls as well as bodies? Are they born good, and then corrupted by society? Are they controlled by their genes? These are some of the questions addressed in this course. Readings are from such authors as Rene Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Darwin, Simone de Beauvoir, E. O. Wilson, and Susan Blackmore.

P418/P525: Hume's Skeptical Philosophy (3 cr.):
 Central to much of the Western philosophical tradition is the view that reason is the divine spark in human beings, something that makes humans not so much parts of nature as semi-divine spectators of nature. David Hume (1711–1776) vigorously opposed this view, partly by arguing that reason provides no foundation for our most fundamental beliefs. In this course we'll examine many of Hume's skeptical arguments, e.g., his criticism of induction, his skepticism about the external world, and his argument that moral beliefs are logically cut off from facts.

P326: Ethical Theory (3 cr.): Morality is a bit mysterious. Sometimes, we find ourselves with questions like these: "Just what is morality, anyway?" "Is anything objectively right or wrong, or is it all just a matter of custom, preference, or personal taste?" "What, if anything, really makes an action right or wrong, good or bad?" These questions, among others, are addressed in this course. Readings are from classical and contemporary sources.

P162: Logic (3 cr.): This course covers a variety of topics, each of them relevant to theoretical or practical reasoning. It typically includes decision theory, argument analysis, categorical logic, propositional logic, fallacy identification, and related topics.

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