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Stephen A. Setman joined St. Bonaventure University in 2021 after earning his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Purdue University. He is also a Gettysburg College alumnus (class of 2014), where he majored in both Philosophy and German Studies.
Dr. Setman credits his passion and approach as a teacher to the exceptional role models he was fortunate to encounter, especially his first academic mentor, Dr. Mark Graham, who introduced him to philosophy in high school, and the faculty in the Philosophy and German Studies departments at Gettysburg College—Drs. Mullen, Gimbel, Walters, Portmess, DeNicola, Cisney, Wallach, Cohen, and Wrage.
Dr. Setman’s central goal as a teacher is to help students become better critical reasoners. He believes students learn to think independently by first learning how to think together, and so he strives to create a classroom environment in which disagreement is neither confrontation nor competition, but a way of helping each other think more carefully. Ultimately, his hope is that students internalize this process as part of their own thinking. Later in their lives, when they have an immediate reaction or gut feeling about an idea, person, or problem, he hopes another voice follows close behind: But why do I think that? What if I am wrong? What would someone who disagrees say? Is there another possibility? If students learn to carry on within their own minds the same exploratory dialogue they practiced in class, then they will have gained something more useful than a collection of facts: a habit of critical reasoning they can take wherever they go and apply to everything they do. As Dr. Setman emphasizes to his students on the first day of class: “Don’t believe everything you think.”
Dr. Setman is proud of the role philosophy plays in the General Education curriculum at St. Bonaventure University. Especially at a time when artificial intelligence is increasingly able to automate many specialized tasks and professional skills, a well-rounded education remains essential for ensuring that every Bonas graduate, regardless of major, develops broadly transferable skills and competencies—reasoning, problem solving, intellectual independence, and constructive engagement with others—that will serve them across rapidly changing technological and professional landscapes.
Dr. Setman’s research lies at the intersection of moral responsibility, norm psychology, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Across these areas, he is interested in a common question: What makes it possible for people to become and remain responsible agents when so much of our thinking and behavior is shaped by psychological, social, and technological influences beyond our individual control? His work challenges an overly individualistic picture of agency and responsibility. Rather than focusing primarily on whether a person possessed sufficient control and awareness at a particular moment, he emphasizes how our capacities for self-government and ethical behavior are developed over time through learning, relationships, social norms, and practices of mutual accountability. On his view, being held responsible by others is something we all have reason to want, because it helps us bring our thinking and conduct into closer alignment with our own values and commitments.
This same framework guides Dr. Setman’s research in AI ethics, where he is interested in how technology-mediated environments can support or undermine human agency. His work on human-AI interaction examines what happens when people form relationships with AI systems that convincingly simulate social responsiveness while lacking important features of responsible human relationships—especially disagreement, resistance, and mutual accountability. He is particularly interested in the combination of our tendency to anthropomorphize AI and the tendency of current AI systems toward excessive agreeableness or “sycophancy,” which may give users affirmation while withholding precisely the corrective feedback through which relationships can help us grow. His work on AI in education raises a parallel concern: when AI performs an intellectual task for students rather than supporting them in performing it themselves, it can bypass the reasoning, judgment, and other capacities that education is intended to cultivate.
Outside the classroom, Dr. Setman is a gamer (video games and tabletop role-playing games), a thrifter and junk collector (especially obsolete tech and media like VHS), and an avid fan of stand-up, improv, and sketch comedy. He also values intellectual and civic community: he is the founder and organizer of Humanity Hour, a speaker series hosted at Century Manor Grillhouse in Olean, and has volunteered with local organizations and participated in civic demonstrations.