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.

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Posted on May 7, 2008 at 12:49 am in Metaethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar | Leave a Comment

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.

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Posted on February 27, 2008 at 12:07 am in Normative Ethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar | Leave a Comment

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.

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Posted on February 6, 2008 at 4:11 pm in S. Matthew Liao's Posts, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, Free Will | Leave a Comment

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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Posted on February 6, 2008 at 3:56 pm in Metaethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar | 9 Comments

January 24, 2008

Ferrari on Rightmaking and Supervenience
By S. Matthew Liao

Geoffrey Ferrari from Oxford University gave a talk entitled “Rightmaking and Supervenience” this past Monday at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar. An abstract of his talk is as follows:

John Mackie asked what in the world the word “because” signifies in statements such as “What you did was wrong because it was deliberately cruel.” In this paper I develop the idea of a deontic “making” relation as an answer to Mackie. I begin with a brief discussion of some formal and metaphysical questions, but the chief concern of my paper is to examine the prospects of analysing the deontic making relation in terms of (single domain) supervenience. I argue that even in its best form, a supervenience analysis is neither necessary nor sufficient for ethical making.

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Posted on January 24, 2008 at 1:47 pm in S. Matthew Liao's Posts, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar | Leave a Comment

November 21, 2007

Pettit on the Second Person Frame
By S. Matthew Liao

Professor Philip Pettit from Princeton University gave a talk entitled “the Second Person Frame” this past Monday at Oxford’s Moral Philosophy Seminar. In a nutshell (if I understood him correctly), he argues that Stephen Darwall’s idea of the second person demands in The Second Person Standpoint, is plausible and similar to what he (Pettit) and Michael Smith have elsewhere called ‘co-reasoning.’ Pace Darwall though, Pettit argues that consequentialists can also explain the second person demands. A copy of his powerpoint presentation is here. He would welcome any comments/suggestions.

Posted on November 21, 2007 at 4:32 pm in Normative Ethics, S. Matthew Liao's Posts, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar | 1 Comment

October 22, 2007

Streumer on Irreducibly Normative Properties
By S. Matthew Liao

Presenters at the Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar are now encouraged and given the opportunity to post their papers and/or aspects of their argument here on Ethics Etc for further discussions by both those who have attended the seminar and those who were not able to do so.

To kick off, Bart Streumer gave a talk today on whether there are irreducibly normative properties. Here is an abstract of his paper:

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Posted on October 22, 2007 at 6:40 pm in Metaethics, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar | 2 Comments