Rate My Professor Charles Pigden

Pigden's research interests encompass metaethics, including the is-ought gap, error theory, and the open question argument; David Hume's views on motivation, virtue, and reason's relation to passions; Bertrand Russell's moral philosophy; the epistemology and rationality of conspiracy theories; philosophical logic; and early modern ethics. He has edited three volumes: Russell on Ethics (Routledge, 1999), Hume on Motivation and Virtue (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and Hume on Is and Ought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Key publications include 'Logic and the Autonomy of Ethics' (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1989), 'Popper Revisited, or What is Wrong With Conspiracy Theories?' (Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1995), 'Identifying Goodness' (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2012), 'Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom' (Episteme, 2007), and 'Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom Revisited' (in Secrets and Conspiracies, 2015). He has authored entries for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ('Russell’s Moral Philosophy', 2014) and the International Encyclopedia of Ethics ('The Is-Ought Gap', 2013; 'Bertrand Russell', 2013). Pigden teaches courses such as PHIL 227 Morals and Politics: Hobbes to Hume, PHIL 335/406 Why Be Moral?, PHIL 314/414 Themes From Hume, and PHPE 201 Political Economy. His supervision interests include meta-ethics, political philosophy, history of analytic philosophy, philosophy and literature, conspiracy theories, philosophical logic, and ethics in the early modern period.