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 Free Will, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 2 Comments

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, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 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 Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 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, Oxford Moral Philosophy Seminar, S. Matthew Liao's Posts | 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 | 3 Comments

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