Location: Edgecliffe 104 Title: Should hate speech be against the law? Abstract: Hate speech has become increasingly prevalent, fuelled by social media, political polarization, and the rise of extremist groups. It can have a profoundly negative impact on individuals and communities, causing harm, inciting violence, and perpetuating discrimination. However, hate speech is notoriously difficult to ... Read more
Location: Teams (online only) Title: Superogation Abstract: This paper considers the relation between supererogation and duties (also here referred to as obligations) from a nonconsequentialist point of view. It first considers whether supererogation may sometimes take precedence over positive and negative duties and how this relates to personal costs (including efforts) required to perform one’s duty. It then ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: Climate Change as a Philosophical Problem Commentator: Quân Nguyen (Edinburgh) Abstract: The paper this talk belongs to speaks to two main points. One is that the onrushing climate catastrophe renders the modern liberal value of personal autonomy unintelligible as a concept to live by. Originally, that was the only point I ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: The Quest for Additionality Abstract: Many people aim to make the world a better place by spending their money in certain ways. The school of “effective altruism” teaches that, if one donates one’s money wisely, one can have a positive impact. Currently, many people want to make us believe that if one ... Read more
Title: On seeing women as objects: objectification and affordance perception Location: Teams (online only), the talk will be streamed from Edgecliffe G03 Abstract: Objectification is a central topic in feminist philosophy theorising. But what is it for someone to objectify another person? A common theme is that objectification involves treating and viewing the other person ... Read more
Title: Eliminative Harming without Intentions Location: Edgecliffe G03 Abstract: Consider the following pair of cases Roughshod. You are driving to the hospital for an emergency life-saving operation. If you do not make it in time, you will die. However, Victim is lying in the only road that will get you there in time. Although Victim ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: Positive interest rates block green transitions, and there is no compelling reason not to fix the interest rate at zero Commentator: Carl Mildenberger (Zurich)
Title: Chance Prioritarianism Location: Teams (online only), and streamed from Edgecliffe G03 Abstract: I will defend what we could call survival chance prioritarianism, according to which the moral value of improving someone’s chance of surviving (some period) is greater the more likely the person was to die before the improvement. I motivate this view by ... Read more
Title: Risk, Ambiguity, and Ethical Decision-Making Abstract: I argue that it can be rational to defer to an authority about what to believe or what to do even when doing so goes against one’s own reasoning. Indeed, such deference is rational in typical cases in which individuals treat others as authorities: for example, experts in ... Read more
Location: Edgecliffe G03 Title: Green Bioethics: Environmental Sustainability and Health Care Commentator: Joseph Millum (St Andrews) Abstract: Health care is ubiquitous in the industrialized world. Yet, every medical development, technique, and procedure impacts the environment. By 2017, the National Health Service’s Health, and Social Care sectors had a carbon output (CO2) of 27.1 million tons. Carbon ... Read more