CEPPA Talk

Title: Biased Evaluative Descriptions Abstract: In 2008, Joseph Biden called Barack Obama “an African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Though intended as a compliment, such a description would not be applied to a non-African-American leader in the same context. Such biased evaluative descriptions, roughly, well-intended descriptions whose apparently positive surface ... Read more

Title: 'Challenging the Pursuit of Novelty' Abstract: Novelty—understood as the value of saying something new—appears to be a good-making feature of a philosophical contribution. Beyond this, however, novelty functions as a marker of philosophical success: contributions that say something new are considered successful, while contributions that do not say something new are considered unsuccessful. When ... Read more

Title: 'Normative Expectations' Abstract: In supplementing the familiar ways that our interpersonal relationships are morally fraught, recent work in epistemology on doxastic wronging has highlighted how these relationships can be epistemically fraught as well. However, in focusing predominantly on beliefs— mental states that arguably constitute a small fraction of our mental lives—these theories have their ... Read more

Title: The Permissibility of Lesser Evil Abstract: Flood:   Flood water is headed toward a cave where five innocent people are trapped and will be killed if the water reaches them. The water can be diverted into a mineshaft, but innocent Betty is trapped in the mineshaft and will be killed if the water is redirected. ... Read more

TITLE: ‘Interactional Wrongs and Vices’ ABSTRACT: This paper explores a domain of action that we often regard as a minor moral matter, the domain of ordinary interactions. Yet, ordinary interactions are morally significant for two reasons: they are the primary vehicle through which 1) we show respect and disrespect for each other, and 2) we ... Read more

Title: Big Data and the Risk of Misguided Responsibilization   Abstract: The arrival of “big data” promises new degrees of precision in understanding human behavior. Could it also make it possible to draw a finer line between individual choices and circumstances that operate in the background? In a culture in which individual responsibility continues to ... Read more

Title: Value Capture Abstract: Value capture occurs when an agent enters a social environment which presents external expressions of value — which are often simplified, standardized, and quantified — and those external versions come to dominate our reasoning and motivations. Examples include becoming motivated by Twitter Likes and Retweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best ... Read more

Title: ‘The limits of ideology critique’ Abstract: The tradition of ideology critique promises a lot. It promises to be critical of the existing social order. (Good!) But it promises to generate this critique without appealing to ‘external’ normative standards. In this talk I argue on meta-normative grounds that ideology critique cannot make good on these ... Read more

Title: Ameliorative Skepticism and the Nature of Health Abstract: In this talk, I’ll give a brief overview of the project I call ‘ameliorative skepticism’. Sally Haslanger has argued that, in doing social ontology, we can sometimes approach the question ‘what is x?’ by asking question ‘what do we want x to be?’. I argue that ... Read more

Title: "Against 'Good For,' Against 'Well-Being'" Abstract: This paper challenges the widely held view that ‘good for’, ‘well- being’, and related terms express a distinctive evaluative concept of central importance for ethics and separate from ‘simply good’ as used by G.E. Moore and others. More specifically, it argues that there’s no philosophically useful good-for or well-being ... Read more