CEPPA Talk

Wednesday (5 Nov) 3.30-5pm please join us at School V for a special event co-hosted by CEPPA with the Climate, Ocean, and Atmosphere at St Andrews (COASt) research group and the newly founded St Andrews Global Research Centre for Changing Climates. This event will be in-person only. We will be welcoming Wim Carton (Lund) to ... Read more

Title: What do normative philosophers have to contribute to society? Abstract: Normative philosophers (inter alia, political theorists, moral philosophers, applied ethicists) develop arguments which link normative positions to practical (and theoretical) judgments or conclusions. This might sound anodyne, but I use it as a basis to explain what normative philosophers can add to policy discussions ... Read more

Title:  Co-forming feelings in therapy Abstract: This paper opens a project within philosophy of therapy, on the question of how feelings are formed in the context of interactions between clients and therapists. There is a common assumption within many therapeutic approaches that feelings are formed by individuals in their lives outside therapy, and then clients ... Read more

Title: Responsibility, Causality, and Carbon Accounting Abstract:  Carbon accounting standards hold companies accountable (i.e. responsible) for the greenhouse gas emissions from their value chains, but what is the basis for this allocation of responsibility? There may be a partial causal ‘logic’ that underpins this assignment of responsibility, but this is not explicitly reflected on or ... Read more

4.05-4.45pm: Miguel de la Cal Moreno - Manufactured Disorientation and Climate Change Abstract: Many people experience Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) as overwhelming and intimidating, recognising its seriousness and the need to act while feeling unable to determine what to do or how to decide what to do. This paper characterises this experience as moral disorientation. ... Read more

Viviante Fairbank - The Responsible-Inquiry Model of Journalism Abstract: On the traditional, so-called Informational Model of journalism, the primary role of journalism in a functioning democracy is to provide people with true information about a certain range of important topics. Although this model is appealing, I argue that it is unsatisfactory; importantly, it does not ... Read more

Title: Hume’s One and Only Definition of Virtue Abstract: Hume’s moral philosophy is seen by many as a form of virtue ethics that includes two different definitions of virtue. On the one hand, Hume seems to define virtue as a mental quality generating utility and agreeableness to oneself or others. On the other hand, he also ... Read more

Yoshinari Hattori - Why We Must Believe in Free Will and Moral Responsibility: Reconsidering Their Foundations Abstract: This presentation argues that the practice of blaming wrongdoers—especially directing resentment or indignation towards them—is rationally indispensable for us. Pereboom contends that directing resentment or indignation at others is a form of harming them and is unjustified. As ... Read more

Omar Ruiz Rivera - Moral Skill Abstract: This talk is about moral skill—the capacity for morally excellent behaviour. In particular, I engage with Shepherd’s (2022) view that moral skill is “limited in scope, and precarious” (p. 713). To defend this view, Shepherd relies on a distinction between global and local moral skill. The former involves ... Read more

Title: Relational Value: Problems and Prospects Abstract: The concept of “relational value” is widely used in the environmental ethics and policy literatures. In this talk, I will critically assess this use, considering what relational value might add to our existing value categories and what problems it might produce for our thinking about the value of the ... Read more