Peter Railton


Peter Albert Railton is an American philosopher who is Gregory S. Kavka Distinguished University Professor and John Stephenson Perrin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he has taught since 1979.

Education and career

He earned his Ph.D. from Princeton in 1980, writing a dissertation under the supervision of David K. Lewis.
He has also been a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley and Princeton University. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2004 and the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in 2016.
A public lecture he gave concerning his own struggles with depression attracted widespread notice and praise in the academic community.

Philosophical work

Although his dissertation concerned scientific explanation, on which he has published several articles, his main research since centers on contemporary metaethics and normative ethics. He is the author of the book Facts, Norms, and Values, a collection of his major papers in ethics, and a co-editor of Moral Discourse and Practice: Some Philosophical Approaches.
Railton has playfully described himself as a "stark, raving moral realist". However, unlike some moral realists, he thinks moral facts that make moral statements true are natural facts.

Selected publications