Manuel Vargas is a Professor of Philosophy at the
University of California
San Diego. One facet of his research focuses on the
overlap of moral and psychological issues concerning human
agency and freedom. A second facet concerns the history of
philosophy in Mexico, and a third focuses on issues in
contemporary Latina/o/x/e philosophy.
Vargas is the author of the forthcoming Mexican Philosophy
(OUP), which showcases notable episodes in the history of
philosophy in Mexico. He is also the author of Building Better Beings: A
Theory of Moral Responsibility (OUP, 2013),
which won the American Philosophical Association's Book Prize
in 2015. With John Martin Fischer, Robert Kane,
and Derk Pereboom, he co-authored Four Views on Free Will
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2007), and the forthcoming revised and
expanded second edition (Wiley-Blackwell, forthcoming). With
John Doris, he edited the Oxford Handbook of Moral
Psychology (OUP, 2022) and with Gideon Yaffe, he edited
Rational and Social Agency: The Philosophy of Michael
Bratman (OUP, 2014).
From 2019-2021, Vargas and Santiago Amaya (U. de los Andes),
co-directed a $1.2 million project funded by the John
Templeton Foundation to foster philosophical work on free
will, agency, and responsibility in Latin America.
With Clinton Tolley (UC San Diego), he directs the Mexican
Philosophy Lab at UC San Diego.
