Jeanette Kennett

Biography

Jeanette Kennett is a Professor of Moral Psychology (Philosophy) and holds a joint appointment between the Department of Philosophy and the Centre for Cognitive Science at Macquarie University. Professor Kennett’s work in moral psychology is internationally renowned and she has been at the forefront of a recent movement in philosophy which has seen increasing recourse to data from the sciences to inform debates in meta-ethics and moral psychology, and the increasing involvement of philosophers in interpreting and evaluating empirical studies of moral cognition. Her 2002 paper Autism, Empathy and Moral Agency is widely regarded as groundbreaking and has influenced the course of subsequent philosophical debate on the role of empathy in the constitution of moral agency.

Her publications include Agency and Responsibility: A Common-Sense Moral Psychology (2001), Reasons, Emotion and the Psychopath (2010) and Mental Time Travel, Agency and Responsibility (2009, with Steve Matthews).