Title: The Labours of Chronic Illness Abstract: In this presentation, I aim to explain the three types of labour- administrative labour, hermeneutic labour and epistemic labour- that chronically ill people have to engage in to get good care. The goal is to highlight why being chronically ill is often considered by many chronically ill people to be ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: Ought and the Transmission of Reasons Abstract: According to the widely held Weightiest Reasons view about how reasons for action and the practical ought are related to one another, (WR) an agent ought to φ if, and only if, the reasons for φ are weightier than the reasons for every incompatible alternative to ... Read more
Title: Beyond the Now: Epistemic Oppression and the “Common” Sense of Incarceration Abstract: In this presentation, I narrate an encounter with 2 Black teenagers who attempted to steal my cellphone and the difficulty of insisting on accountability while avoiding the worst parts of the state-run criminal justice system. Ultimately, I demonstrate that, at times, when a situation calls for accountability for a serious wrongdoing ... Read more
Title: Epistemic Akrasia: No Apology Required Abstract: It is natural to think that rationality imposes some relationship between what a person believes, and what she believes about what she’s rational to believe. Epistemic akrasia—for example, believing P while believing that P is not rational to believe in your situation—is often seen as intrinsically irrational. This ... Read more
Title: Legislative Intent: A Rational Unity Account (co-authored with David Tan (Deakin University)) Abstract: Does the legislature have intentions concerning the effects of legislation? If so, how can that intent be known by outsiders? Existing theories of legislative intent can be divided into three camps: skepticism, constructivism, and realism. This paper begins by outlining problems for ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: How to Build Morality into AI Abstract: AI is spreading fast. We humans need to figure out the best way to prevent AI from making the worst decisions, which are harmful, unfair, or otherwise morally wrong. One way is to design AI to predict what humans would judge to be immoral if ... Read more
Title: “Compensation for Wrongful Life” Abstract: In a recent case in the UK, a 20-year-old woman with spina bifida brought an action against her mother’s physician for failing to advise her to take folic acid supplements for several months before becoming pregnant. The court ruled in the woman’s favor, accepting her claim that, had the ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 and Teams Title: “Person-Affecting Consequentialism: Equity-Regarding, Desert-Neutral, Repugnant” Abstract: The philosophical literature on consequentialism regularly distinguishes between “person-affecting” and “impersonal” moral justifications or accounts. The “person-affecting”/”impersonal” distinction can be interpreted in various ways. I understand it as follows. A person-affecting justificatory framework sees individuals’ well-being gains and losses—well-being effects on persons—as the fundamental ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: Hume’s Account of Virtue and Its Place in the History of Ethics Abstract: Hume’s account of virtue is notoriously puzzling. On the one hand, he claims that the virtues are qualities useful or agreeable to oneself or to others. On the other, he says that they are qualities which give a pleasing ... Read more
Location: School 6 Title: Counterfactual Decision Theory Abstract: I defend counterfactual decision theory, which says that you should evaluate an act in terms of which outcomes would likely obtain, were you to perform it. Counterfactual decision theory has traditionally been subsumed under causal decision theory as a particular formulation of the latter. This is a mistake. ... Read more