Tamler Sommers

Tamler Sommers is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Houston and holds a joint appointment with the Honors College. His research and teaching are in the areas of ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of law, specializing in issues relating to free will, moral responsibility, punishment, and revenge. His second book, entitled Relative Justice: Cultural Diversity, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility is in production with Princeton University Press and will be out in December, 2011. He also contributes reviews to the Times Literary Supplement and conducts interviews for The Believer. In 2009, he published a collection of these interviews, entitled A Very Bad Wizard: Morality Behind the Curtain, with McSweeney’s Press.

Other recent publications include “Experimental Philosophy and Free Will” (Philosophy Compass), “The Two Faces of Revenge: Moral Responsibility and the Culture of Honor” (Biology and Philosophy), “More Work for Hard Incompatibilism” (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research), and “The Objective Attitude” (Philosophical Quarterly).

Sommers is currently a faculty fellow at the Murphy Institute’s Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at Tulane University. His research project develops a theory of why wrongdoers deserve to suffer which is grounded in the emotions and virtues of the people most closely connected to the offense. He will return to the University of Houston in the Fall of 2012.