Readings
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Depth: An Account of Scientific Explanation
Michael Strevens
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The Case for Contextualism
Keith DeRose
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When Truth Gives Out
Mark Richard
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The Idea of Human Rights
Charles R. Beitz
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Willing, Wanting, Waiting
Richard Holton
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The Idea of Justice
Amartya Sen
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Harming Future Persons: Ethics, Genetics and the Nonidentity Problem
Melinda A. Roberts and David T. Wasserman
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What Is Good and Why: The Ethics of Well-Being
Richard Kraut
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Content and Justification
Paul A. Boghossian
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Thoughts: Papers on Mind, Meaning, and Modality
Stephen Yablo
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Normativity
Judith Jarvis Thomson
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How We Get Along
J. David Velleman
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Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity
Christine M. Korsgaard
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Appearances of the Good: An Essay on the Nature of Practical Reason
Sergio Tenenbaum
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Principled Ethics: Generalism As a Regulative Ideal
Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge
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Killing in War
Jeff McMahan
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Experimental Philosophy
Joshua Knobe and Shaun Nichols
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Life and Action: Elementary Structures of Practice and Practical Thought
Michael Thompson
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The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
David J. Chalmers
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Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality
David Wiggins
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Disadvantage
Jonathan Wolff and Avner de-Shalit
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Reconciling Our Aims: In Search of Bases for Ethics
Allan Gibbard
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Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame
T. M. Scanlon
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The Philosophy of Philosophy
Timothy Williamson
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A Virtue Epistemology
Ernest Sosa
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Morality without Foundations
Mark Timmons
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Authority and Estrangement
Richard Moran
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Moral Psychology, Volume 1
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
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The Reflective Life
Valerie Tiberius
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Moral Literacy
Barbara Herman
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Ethics and the Environment: An Introduction
Dale Jamieson
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On Human Rights
James Griffin
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Experiments in Ethics
Kwame Anthony Appiah
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Reasons without Rationalism
Kieran Setiya
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Moral Realism: A Defence
Russ Shafer-Landau
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The Way We Eat
Peter Singer and Jim Mason
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Metaphysical Essays
John Hawthorne
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Knowledge and Practical Interests
Jason Stanley
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10 Moral Paradoxes
Saul Smilansky
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Normativity and the Will
R. Jay Wallace
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Ethics without Principles
Jonathan Dancy
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Neuroethics
Neil Levy
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Ideal Code, Real World
Brad Hooker
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The Nature of Normativity
Ralph Wedgwood
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Structures of Agency: Essays
Michael E. Bratman
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The Second-Person Standpoint
Stephen Darwall
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Ethics and the A Priori
Michael Smith
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The Practice of Value
Joseph Raz
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Weighing Lives
John Broome
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Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm
F. M. Kamm
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Reasons and the Good
Roger Crisp
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February 25, 2010
Smilansky on Should We Be Sorry That We Exist?
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Saul Smilansky (University of Haifa) will be giving a talk on Monday, March 1, at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar entitled “Should We Be Sorry that We Exist?” A copy of Saul’s talk can be found here. Saul would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
February 6, 2010
Raz on The Guise of the Good
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Joseph Raz (Columbia and Oxford University) will be giving a talk on Monday, Feb. 8, at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar entitled ‘On the Guise of the Good.’ A copy of Professor Raz’s talk can be found here. Professor Raz would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
November 16, 2009
Wedgwood on Instrumental Rationality
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Ralph Wedgwood (Oxford University) will be giving a talk today at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar entitled ‘Instrumental Rationality.’ A copy of Ralph’s talk can be found here and a handout for his talk is here. Ralph would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
November 5, 2009
Tännsjö on In Defence of Moral Realism
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Torbjörn Tännsjö (Stockholm University) will be giving a talk next Monday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar entitled ‘In Defence of Moral Realism.’ A copy of Torbjörn’s talk can be found here and he would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
I will present some ideas from a forthcoming book, “From Reasons to Norms: On the Basic Question in Ethics (Springer, forthcoming). I will argue that there is a unique and objective answer to the question what we ought to do, simpliciter. I will rebut Mackie’s arguments from queerness and relativity, and Harman’s empiricist argument in defence of moral nihilism, and following Ewing, Nagel, and Dworkin, I will argue that we are allowed to turn the content of our moral beliefs against the nihilist thesis.
June 24, 2009
Sobel on Parfit on Subjectivism
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor David Sobel (University of Nebraska-Lincoln) gave a talk recently at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on ‘Parfit on Subjectivism.’ A copy of the paper can be found here, and he would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
Derek Parfit argues that all subjective accounts of normative reasons make wildly implausible claims. He rightly insists that we have reasons to get sensations that we like and to avoid agony now and in the future. Subjective accounts cannot accommodate this thought, he claims, because likings are importantly different from desires and because subjectivists are forced to give weight only to desires that the agent currently has. One might, even after informed deliberation, fail to desire now that one avoids future agony. So subjectivists cannot vindicate the obvious claim that we now have reason to avoid tomorrow’s agony.
June 12, 2009
Finlay on Metaethical Contextualism Defended
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Stephen Finlay (University of Southern California) gave a talk recently at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on ‘Metaethical Contextualism Defended’, which he co-wrote with Gunnar Björnsson. A copy of the paper can be found here and they would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of the talk:
May 25, 2009
Enoch on Giving Practical Reasons
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor David Enoch (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) gave a talk today at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on ‘Giving Practical Reasons.’ A copy of David’s talk can be found here and he would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
I am writing a mediocre paper on a topic you are not particularly interested in. You don’t have, it seems safe to assume, a (normative) reason to read my draft. I then ask whether you would be willing to have a look and tell me what you think. Suddenly you do have a (normative) reason to read my draft. By my asking, I managed to give you the reason to read the draft. What does such reason-giving consist in? And how is it that we can do it?
May 11, 2009
Reisner on Abandoning the Buck Passing Analysis of Final Value
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Andrew Reisner from McGill University gave a talk today at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on ‘Abandoning the Buck Passing Analysis of Final Value.’ A copy of Andrew’s talk can be found here and he would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
In the decade since the buck passing analysis of good (BPA) was (re)introduced by T.M. Scanlon in his book, What We Owe to Each Other, there has been a great deal of optimism about the view. This optimism is not well founded, and so I shall argue that it is time to abandon the BPA. My suggestion is not that the BPA cannot be made to work for one narrow technical reason or another. Rather, I shall argue that the is unable to deliver on its supposed advantages and that in the end it lacks plausibility as an analysis of final value.
May 8, 2009
Bykvist on Objective versus Subjective Moral Oughts
By S. Matthew Liao
Dr. Krister Bykvist from Oxford University gave a talk entitled ‘Objective verus Subjective Moral Oughts’ this past Monday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar. A copy of Krister’s talk can be found here and he would welcome any comments/suggestions. Here’s an abstract of his talk:
It is common in normative ethics to abstract away from any epistemic shortcomings of the agent. In this highly idealized debate, virtue ethics will simply tell you to do what the virtuous person would do (or what would display the most virtuous motive), whereas Kantian ethics will tell you to do what is based on a universalizable maxim, and utilitarianism, what would maximize general happiness. But is it right to ignore the epistemic situation of the agent?
May 7, 2009
The Vice of Procrastination
By Sergio Tenenbaum
Since it might take a while till I have a version of my contribution to the Moral Philosophy Seminar that is in reasonable shape, I am posting meanwhile a link to a “companion piece” to it. The piece is called “The Vice of Procrastination” and is forthcoming in a volume on procrastination (the contributors tried really hard to refrain from making the obvious jokes) entitled The Thief of Time edited by Chrisoula Andreou and Mark White.
January 21, 2009
Woollard on Doing, Allowing and Imposing
By S. Matthew Liao
Dr. Fiona Woollard from University of Sheffield gave a talk entitled “Doing, Allowing and Imposing” this past Monday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar. Here is an abstract of her talk:
The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing states that doing harm is harder to justify than merely allowing harm. I offer a defence of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing using the idea of imposition. The Doctrine of Doing and Allowing should be understood as a principle protecting us from harmful imposition. Protection from harmful imposition is necessary to respect persons’ authority over what belongs to them. Thus if persons do have authority over what belongs to them, the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing must hold. I end by considering how we could establish that persons have authority over what belongs to them.
January 3, 2009
Sayre-McCord on Moral Dilemmas
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Geoffrey Sayre-McCord from UNC gave a talk entitled “A Moral Argument Against Moral Dilemmas” sometime ago at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar. Geoff considers whether there are any genuine moral dilemmas and offers a moral argument against them. Here is a paper version of his talk, and he welcomes any comments/suggestions.
November 21, 2008
Hare on Obligation and Regret
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Caspar Hare from MIT will be giving a talk this Monday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “Obligation and Regret When There is No Fact of the Matter About What Would have Happened If You Had Not Done What You Did.” Here is an abstract of his talk:
This paper is about conditional under-specification and the objective ought. Moral: sometimes there is a difference between what there is most reason for you to do and what a fully informed, benevolent observer would want you to do.
A copy of Caspar’s talk can be found here, and he would welcome any comments/suggestions.
November 6, 2008
Lee on Is the Principle of Discrimination a Mere Convention?
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Steven P. Lee, Donald R. Harter ‘39 Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Philosophy at Hobart and William Smith Colleges, gave a talk recently at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “Is the Principle of Discrimination a Mere Convention?” Here is an abstract of his talk:
October 30, 2008
Podcast of David Wiggins on Solidarity
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor David Wiggins, the Wykeham Professor of Logic, Emeritus, at Oxford University gave a fantastic talk yesterday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “The Solidarity at the Root of the Ethical.”
With his permission, a podcast of his talk can be found here:
UPDATE: Here is a handout to go along with the talk.
June 3, 2008
Saunders on Fairness, Democracy, and Lotteries
By S. Matthew Liao
Ben Saunders at Oxford University gave a talk yesterday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “Fairness, Democracy, and Lotteries.” Here is an abstract of his talk:
This paper challenges the common assumption that democracy requires majority rule. I assume that we can adopt a contractualist approach to uncover the demands of political equality and argue that contractors would not necessarily accept majority rule to make decisions in their society. I first reject broadly consequentialist arguments, arguing that firstly no procedure guarantees ideally best outcomes, secondly that in cases of pluralism there is no need to suppose there is a uniquely best outcome, and thirdly that we need to be fair between different individuals. I develop this need for fairness into a case for weighted lotteries, drawing on the Taurek-Scanlon ‘saving the greater number’ debate. This leads to my conclusion that democratic ideals can be realized by selecting a random vote to determine the outcomes of decisions.
May 7, 2008
Elstein on Is There a Normative Question?
By S. Matthew Liao
Daniel Elstein from University of Leeds gave a talk recently at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “Is there a normative question and if so, how can it be answered?” Here is an abstract of his talk:
A neglected debate in metaethics is between Kantian and Humean expressivists. Kantian expressivists like Korsgaard hold that there is a single normative question which metaethics must deal with, whereas Humeans like Blackburn hold that there are simply a slew of diverse normative questions, which are a matter for normative ethics rather than metaethics. I argue that that the counter-intuitive Kantian position can be defended by considering Copp’s normative regress argument, and I try to show how to understand Kant’s argument for the categorical imperative as a plausible response to this threat of normative regress.
February 27, 2008
Brown on A Life Worth Living
By S. Matthew Liao
Dr. Campbell Brown from University of Edinburgh gave a talk recently at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “How to Live a Life Worth Living.” An abstract of his talk is as follows:
Although ubiquitous in population ethics, the notion of a “life worth living” resists easy analysis. Intuitively, one wants to say that a life is worth living just in case living it is better than living no life at all. On reflection, though, this seems mysterious. To live no life at all is simply not to exist, to be nothing. But then it seems we have an instance of the “better than” relation in which one of the relata is absent; we’re trying to compare something, a life, with nothing. This paper proposes an analysis of lives worth living that avoids such mysterious comparisons.
February 6, 2008
Holton on Determinism, Self-Efficacy, and the Phenomenology of Free Will.
By S. Matthew Liao
Professor Richard Holton (MIT) will be giving a talk on “Determinism, self-efficacy, and the phenomenology of free will,” this coming Monday, 11th February 2008, at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, and he has kindly offered to circulate his paper before the seminar.
Abstract:
Some recent studies have suggested that belief in determinism tends to undermine moral motivation: subjects who are given determinist texts to read become more likely to cheat or to go in for vindictive behaviour. One possible explanation is that people are natural incompatibilists, so that convincing them of determinism undermines their belief that they are morally responsible.
February 6, 2008
Sinclair on Presumptive Arguments for Moral Realism
By S. Matthew Liao
Dr. Neil Sinclair from University of Nottingham gave a talk this past week at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar on “Presumptive arguments for moral realism.” An abstract of his talk is as follows:
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