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In Memoriam: Michael Stocker (1940-2024)

Brian Leiter

A longtime member of the Department of Philosophy at Syracuse University, where he was emeritus, Professor Stocker started his teaching career at the University of Chicago and Cornell University, and then taught for more than twenty years in Australia at several different universities, including (for the longest period) LaTrobe University.  He made important and influential contributions to ethics and moral psychology during his long career.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Stocker or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to David Gordon and Eric Schliesser for calling this to my attention.)

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5 responses to “In Memoriam: Michael Stocker (1940-2024)”

  1. Stephen Darwall

    I had heard a couple of months ago that Michael was in the late stages of Alzheimer's. He was a wonderful human being and philosopher, whose philosophy was infused with his humanity. "The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories" was a truly important work (among many others). This is a truly sad day.

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  2. Justin Oakley

    I am very sad that Michael is no longer with us. He was such an inspirational and caring PhD supervisor for me at La Trobe University in the 1980s. Michael’s work brought so much insight and common sense to many philosophical debates where people tended to get carried away from important truths. His contributions to moral psychology, ethics, value theory, and the philosophy of friendship and of emotions have left indelible marks on these fields, and will continue to be discussed for many years.

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  3. Tim Scanlon

    I second what others have said. Michael was an insightful philosopher with a fruitful contrarian streak. The paper Steve mentions is a classic. He was delightful company, and he also had an adventurous side. He and Betsy had a beautiful small cruising sloop, outfitted with a tile-fronted stove to make it habitable in cold weather, which they sailed up and down the east coast. We much enjoyed seeing them when they sailed up to Martha's Vineyard. Michael will be missed, but his work, I hope, remembered.

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  4. Sean McAleer

    It’s been a tough couple of months for Syracuse emeriti. First Jonathan Bennett and now Michael Stocker. Both were so important to my philosophical development (such as it is). Their philosophical temperaments and teaching styles were very different: Michael was the yin to Bennett’s yang, and I learned a ton from both of them.

    I may have initially earned my way into Michael’s good graces by identifying who was playing on the stereo when I showed up at his place for an independent study (if memory serves, it was Bud Powell).

    Michael guided my dissertation with his characteristic gentle touch and patience. I worked very slowly — so slowly that at one point he remarked, “Working with you has revealed a new tense in English: the fictitious present, as in ‘I am writing a dissertation.’”

    I was attracted by Michael’s philosophical approach and by the kinds of philosophical questions to which he devoted himself: moral psychology, the emotions, the virtues, commensurability, etc. I especially remember a seminar on Williams’ Shame and Necessity, as well as his saying that the Philebus was rivaled in importance only by Freud’s Mourning and Melancholia. Quintessential Stocker.

    Michael was a beautiful man with a gentle soul and a wonderful mind. I miss him.

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  5. Kieran Setiya

    I wrote about Michael on my Substack:
    https://ksetiya.substack.com/p/the-end-of-friendship

    And the Australian Academy of the Humanities posted an obituary here:
    https://humanities.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/OBITUARY-MICHAEL-STOKER-FAHA-1940-2024.pdf

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