James (Jim) Sias

Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Dickinson College
Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

I specialize in ethics (especially metaethics) and philosophical psychlogy (especially moral psychology), but I also have interests in the philosophy of psychiatry, epistemology, and the history of moral philosophy. 

My first book, The Meaning of Evil, was published in 2016.

• For a full description of the book, click here.
• Why write a book about evil? See here and here. 

Current projects:

• I'm in the early stages of research for a book on issues at the intersection of ethics and the philosophy of psychiatry (e.g., whether, and to what degree, patients with particular psychiatric conditions are morally responsible; what different conceptions of mental illness assume or imply about human wellbeing; etc.).
• Working on papers on a variety of topics, including: (1) the perception of others' mental states in psychosis, (2) the psychiatric status of personality disorder, (3) rationality in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders, and (4) the relation between the self and its emotions in emotion regulation.

Outside of philosophy, I like reading science fiction, drawing and painting, and hanging out with my wife (Molly) and our three kids.

And for the record, my last name rhymes with bias.

Photo credit: Carl Socolow