His many works include About Love, Ethics and Excellence, A Better Way to Think about Business, The Joy of Philosophy, Spirituality for the Skeptic, Not Passion's Slave, and In Defense of Sentimentality.

Solomon developed a cognitivist theory of the emotions as moral judgements about reality that inherently manifest a natural, pre-deliberative logic.

Emotions should not be suppressed or repressed by efforts at philosophic rationalism, which suffers a withering critique under his analysis, calling it "emasculated" and "absurd".

Although the objects and strategies differ with each emotion, person, and relationship,[2] the natural purpose of each is to maximize human dignity, the good for oneself and for humankind.

"[3][4] He derides modernist and contemporary theories of the mind and psyche influenced by materialism and scientism as having created a "myth of the passions",[5] which he explodes, exposing the vicissitudes of its "hydraulic model".

[6] The topic of the emotions was largely being ignored in Anglo-American analytic philosophy and social science, and also on the continent in the new scientism and structuralism when The Passions was written in 1976.

He was a member of the University of Texas Academy of Distinguished Teachers, which is devoted to providing leadership in improving the quality and depth of undergraduate instruction.

He made a cameo appearance in Richard Linklater's film Waking Life (2001), where he discussed the continuing relevance of existentialism in a postmodern world.

Solomon received numerous teaching awards at the University of Texas at Austin, and was a frequent lecturer in the highly regarded Plan II Honors Program.

The professor spoke of how Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return asks the fundamental question: "If given the opportunity to live your life over and over again ad infinitum, forced to go through all of the pain and the grief of existence, would you be overcome with despair?