About

Matthew Hanser is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His specialization includes ethics, philosophy of action, and philosophy of law. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles. His research primarily concerns problems in moral philosophy, especially those arising where moral philosophy intersects with other branches of philosophy such as philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, philosophy of language, or metaphysics. Hanser has contributed to the field through numerous publications, including articles on topics like harm, the metaphysics of harm, acting wrongly, and the ethics of killing and dying. His work explores complex issues related to moral permissibility, the nature of harm, and the metaphysical underpinnings of ethical concepts.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Psychology
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Risky research and bystander consent

  Bioethics · 2020 · 2 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Medicine
  • Social psychology

  There is no quick and easy answer to the question whether research activities that endanger bystanders without their consent ever thereby violate those bystanders' rights. We cannot dismiss the idea that bystanders possess strong rights against researchers simply on the grounds that they are, after all, merely bystanders. Indeed, it is easy to imagine scenarios in which researchers would be morally required to gain the informed consent of bystanders whom they risk harming. Whether bystander consent is required in any particular real-world case will depend, in part, upon exactly how the research activity endangers them.

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• Correction to: Understanding Harm and its Moral Significance

  Ethical Theory and Moral Practice · 2019-08-01

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• Understanding Harm and its Moral Significance

  Ethical Theory and Moral Practice · 2019-05-22 · 10 citations

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• Doing another's bidding

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2015-01-31 · 4 citations

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  A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

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• Acting Wrongly by Trying

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2014-12-04 · 3 citations

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  Abstract If it is pro tanto wrong to j, then intuitively an agent acts wrongly if, without adequate justification, he tries to j.Yet it can seem puzzling why this should be so. Just because the act type jing possesses some wrong-making feature, why should it automatically follow that the distinct act type trying to j (or equivalently, doing something with the intention of thereby jing) likewise possesses some wrong-making feature?The mistake is to assume that if an agent has acted wrongly, this can only be because he has done something that it was wrong to do. But an agent can also have acted wrongly because he was, for a time, doing something that it was wrong to do (even if he never completed the act), or because he was, for a time, attempting to do something that it was wrong to do (even if he never succeeded in doing it). The wrongness of jing can "directly" explain how it is that an agent who tried unsuccessfully to j acted wrongly; we needn't suppose that the act type trying to j possesses some wrong-making feature in its own right.

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• Imperfect aiding

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2014-02-12 · 14 citations

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• The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2014-02-05 · 65 citations

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  This volume meets the increasing interest in a range of philosophical issues connected with the nature and significance of life and death, and the ethics of killing. What is it to be alive and to die? What is it to be a person? What must time be like if we are to persist? What makes one life better than another? May death or posthumous events harm the dead? The chapters in this volume address these questions, and also discuss topical issues such as abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. They explore the interrelation between the metaphysics, significance, and ethics of life and death, and they discuss the moral significance of killing both people and animals, and the extent to which death harms them. The volume is for all those studying the philosophy of life and death, for readers taking applied ethics courses, and for those studying ethics and metaphysics more generally.

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• Harm

  The International Encyclopedia of Ethics · 2013-01-28 · 6 citations

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  Abstract The main philosophical questions regarding harm are, first, what exactly it is, and, second, whether it matters morally. The questions are connected: whether harm has moral significance must surely depend, at least in part, upon how it is understood. Not every moral theory assigns fundamental significance to harm. According to act utilitarianism, the right action to perform is the one that would result in the greatest sum of well‐being among sentient creatures. The theory attributes no independent significance to how actions affect particular individuals. Furthermore, even if a utilitarian were to take an interest in a particular individual's fate, he would ask only which of the available actions would be best for that individual. He would not care whether any of the actions harmed the individual. If A gives B a small benefit when he could instead have given him a larger one, he may not harm B, but he does not do what's best for him either; and, if A chooses the least harmful option when he cannot help but harm B, he harms B, yet he does do what's best for him. There is no necessary connection between doing what's best for someone and avoiding harming him. As a first approximation, let us say that A harms B if and only if one of A's acts or omissions negatively affects B's interests or well‐being. On this maximally broad understanding, an action's harming someone is much the same as its being bad for him. If a moral theory's interest in how an action affects someone is exhausted by the question whether its performance is good or bad for him, that theory has no special need for the concept harm. It need only employ the concept bad for. It is possible, however, to understand harm more narrowly than this, and to see the narrower notion as having moral significance. Our more public actions almost invariably affect other people's interests, if only indirectly; and, while we should perhaps always bear these effects in mind when deciding what to do, many think that we needn't in general give them all that much weight in our deliberations. But harming someone – say, by physically assaulting him – can seem a much more serious matter, morally speaking, than merely negatively affecting his interests. A deontological theory might well hold that we have an especially strong reason – perhaps even an obligation – not to harm people. Likewise, it might hold that we have an especially strong reason – perhaps even an obligation – to prevent people from suffering harm and to come to the aid of those who are already suffering it. On such a view, to harm someone is to inflict an especially important kind of negative effect upon him.

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• The Wrongness of Killing and the Badness of Death

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2012-12-28 · 4 citations

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  Abstract This chapter examines the wrongness of killing and the badness of death in the context of Jeff McMahan's so-called Equal Wrongness (of Killing) Thesis, explaining that McMahan's formulation of the thesis contains an open-ended list of factors said to be irrelevant to the strength of the pro tanto objection to killing. The analysis reveals that The Equal Wrongness of Killing Thesis is meant to hold only for those cases where the respect-based pro tanto objection arises.

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• Still More on the Metaphysics of Harm

  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research · 2011-03-01 · 18 citations

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Frequent coauthors

• Steven Luper

  Trinity University

  5 shared

• Nicholas Agar

  2 shared

• Simon Keller

  Victoria University of Wellington

  2 shared

• Noah Lemos

  1 shared

• Jr. Thomas E. Hill

  1 shared

• John Corvino

  Wayne State University

  1 shared

• John Martin Fischer

  University of California, Riverside

  1 shared

• David DeGrazia

  George Washington University

  1 shared