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Manuel Vargas

Professor of Philosophy and Law

Manuel Vargas is a professor of philosophy at the University of San Francisco and the author of Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (Oxford, 2013). With John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane, and Derk Pereboom, he co-authored Four Views on Free Will (Blackwell, 2007). He is editing Rational and Social Agency: Essays on the Philosophy of Michael Bratman (with Gideon Yaffe). Vargas’ main philosophical interests include the nature of moral agency, the philosophy of law, Latin American philosophy, especially historical work on race and identity, and questions of philosophical methodology.

Vargas was a recipient of the first American Philosophical Association Prize in Latin American Thought, and his research on responsible agency has been recognized with yearlong research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, and the Stanford Humanities Center. He has also been a visiting fellow at the McCoy Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University, and has held visiting appointments at UC Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology.

At the University of San Francisco, Vargas has taught Philosophy, Psychology, Latin American Studies, the Honors Program in the Humanities, and the St. Ignatius Institute. In its inaugural year, he received USF’s 2012 College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Scholar Award, for “exceptional scholarly work of great academic value and impact.” While at USF, he has held the NEH Chair in the Humanities (2005–2006), been awarded a Team Innovation Award (with Saera Khan, psychology) for development of USF’s Program on Mind and Agency (2011–2012), and held a Davies Forum Professorship (2012). In 2012, he was awarded USF’s Distinguished Research Award, a university-wide award given annually to a single faculty member.

Education
  • AB, UC Davis
  • PhD, Stanford University
    Awards
    • NEH Chair in the Humanities from the University of San Francisco, College of Arts and Sciences (2013-2014)
    TitleOutletsDate
    Books
      Law Review and Journal Articles
        Book Contributions
          Opinion Pieces and Blog Posts
            Other Publications
              Briefs
                Court Citation of Research
                  Presentations
                  • Commentator, "Implicit Bias, Moods, and Moral Responsibility," American Philosophical Association Pacific Division, San Francisco, Calif. (March 2013).
                  • Presenter, "What Huck Finn Values," University of San Francisco Department of Philosophy, "Faculty Salon Talk," (September 2012).
                  Testimony and Hearings
                    Written Testimony and Commentary
                      Advisor or Consultant
                        Counsel
                          Symposia Organization
                            Professional Membership
                              Fellowships
                                Other Service